UPDATE - Protests erupt across Bangladesh after arrest of religiopolitical party chief

UPDATES WITH ADDITIONAL INFORMATION, POLICE STATEMENT AND DHAKA COURT APPROVES REMAND OF JI CHIEF

By Md. Kamruzzaman

DHAKA, Bangladesh (AA) – A nationwide protest erupted in Bangladesh following the arrest of a major religiopolitical party leader in the capital Dhaka early Tuesday.

“Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami’s Ameer (chief) Dr. Shafiqur Rahman was arrested from his residence at around 1 am on 13th December. We are vehemently condemning and protesting his arrest,” the party’s Secretary General Maulana ATM Masum said in a statement.

Over a thousand Jamaat-e-Islami activists assembled at Mouchak, an older section of the capital, shortly after hearing of Rahman's detention, and launched a protest march while toting banners with demands for Rahman's release.

The party also held demonstrations in other areas of Dhaka and other major cities across the country. Delwar Hossain, the leader of the party, asserted that the Jamaat-e-Islami organized protest rallies in each of the 64 districts of Bangladesh.

The party leaders warned the government not to harass its party leaders by implicating them in fabricated cases during their address to protestors. They also pledged to join in the anti-government protest with the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) scheduled for the capital on December 24.

Meanwhile, Md. Asaduzzaman, a senior police official, told local media that Rahman was arrested on charges of having ties to militants under the same anti-terrorism law that his son Rafat Chowdhury was arrested last month.

Chowdhury was the chief coordinator of the banned militant organization Ansar al-Islam in the Sylhet region of eastern Bangladesh, and on his confessional statement in custody, police have arrested Rahman on charges of assisting his son in collecting funds for the terror outfit, Assaduzzaman claimed.

Police later brought him before a court of Dhaka Metropolitan Magistrate and secured his seven days physical remand after rejecting Rahman's attorney's request for bail.

Rahman's arrest comes just two days after he announced an anti-government mass rally in Dhaka on Dec. 24.

"Bangladesh is in a terrible situation now. The country is constantly rushing towards new crises. There is a disastrous situation in the country's politics, economy, education-culture, and social arena,” he said in a statement, announcing the launch of a nationwide movement to press the government to accept 10 demands, including the revival of "true democracy" and the restoration of people's rights.

The party in Tuesday’s statement warned that arresting its leaders would not deter them from participating in the anti-government protest.

“I am urging the concerned authorities to release all detained leaders and activists including Jamaat Ameer Dr. Shafiqur Rahman immediately and unconditionally,” the party’s secretary general said.

The political situation in the country has deteriorated since the BNP launched nationwide rallies early last month to press the government to accept its demand for the reinstatement of a non-political caretaker government system for holding next year's general elections and the release of Begum Khaleda Zia, the 76-year-old party head and two-time prime minister who has been imprisoned for 17 years since being convicted in 2018 in two counts of corruption.

Prior to the party's mass public rally at Golapbag ground in Dhaka last Saturday, law enforcement arrested over 500 BNP leaders and activists on charges of attacking police, in which one party worker was killed and over a dozen were injured, near the party's central office in Naya Paltan neighborhood early last week.

At a protest rally in Dhaka on Tuesday, BNP leaders urged the government to immediately release the detained party leaders and activists or face a countrywide tougher movement.

While five BNP lawmakers resigned from parliament on Sunday, the remaining two party MPs' resignations have yet to be accepted by the speaker of the Jatiya Sangsad Bhaban, or National Parliament House.