Former Bangladesh prime minister Sheikh Hasina said on Wednesday that the ban on her Awami League party should be lifted, and repeated that she intends to return to Bangladesh in December — a direct challenge to the government of her rival, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party.
Hasina, 78, was speaking at a media interaction hosted by the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of South Asia in New Delhi, her first since she fled Bangladesh two years ago. The event was held on the second anniversary of her 2024 ouster.
“I will return to my people,” she said, adding that she would reveal the exact date and details when the time was right. “I know that they may put me in jail or they may kill me, anything may happen, but still I have to go back.”
Although she had been expected to appear by video, Hasina delivered only an audio message from behind a blank screen. It was not immediately clear why she did not appear on camera, unlike several Awami League leaders and her son, Sajeeb Wazed Joy, who spoke earlier. Al Jazeera reported that former education minister Mohibul Hasan Chowdhury Nowfel also appeared at the event.
Bangladesh’s war-crimes court sentenced Hasina to death in absentia in November 2025 for ordering a deadly crackdown on the student-led uprising that ended her 20 years in office across multiple terms. She has denied the charges, calling the cases and verdicts politically motivated and fabricated. She told Reuters last month that she plans to return by the end of the year and surrender to the authorities.
The government of Prime Minister Tarique Rahman, which took office after February’s elections, warned Bangladeshi media on Tuesday not to publish her statements, saying that doing so would violate a 2024 court order prohibiting the broadcast of her speeches. There was no media coverage of the event inside Bangladesh, though it circulated on social media. While Hasina spoke, protesters in Dhaka burned an effigy of her.
Hasina alleged that the 2024 protests had evolved from a movement over public sector job quotas into a coordinated campaign driven by organised violence and propaganda aimed at removing her government. She also claimed the economy had deteriorated sharply since her removal, saying more than 20 million people had become unemployed.
India’s foreign ministry distanced New Delhi from the address, with spokesman Randhir Jaiswal saying the government had no involvement in the event and did not endorse views expressed there.
Sources: Ada Derana, Al Jazeera.
