Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at the results of Bangladesh’s political reckoning, mass anti-graft protests in the Philippines, and a suspected act of sabotage on critical Polish infrastructure.

Former Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina was sentenced to death in absentia on Monday, ending a monthslong trial that found her guilty of ordering a deadly crackdown on a student-led uprising last year. The 453-page judgment, delivered by the country’s three-judge International Crimes Tribunal, offered the harshest ruling ever imposed on a Bangladeshi leader.

Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at the results of Bangladesh’s political reckoning, mass anti-graft protests in the Philippines, and a suspected act of sabotage on critical Polish infrastructure.

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Former Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina was sentenced to death in absentia on Monday, ending a monthslong trial that found her guilty of ordering a deadly crackdown on a student-led uprising last year. The 453-page judgment, delivered by the country’s three-judge International Crimes Tribunal, offered the harshest ruling ever imposed on a Bangladeshi leader.

“Sheikh Hasina committed crimes against humanity by her incitement, order, and failure to take punitive measures,” one judge said.

Anti-government demonstrations ignited in July 2024, with student protesters opposing the reinstatement of civil service job quotas for veterans of Bangladesh’s 1971 independence war and their families—a policy that demonstrators argued was effectively state patronage for children whose parents supported Hasina’s Awami League party. At the time, youth unemployment was at more than 11 percent.

To suppress dissent, Hasina ordered the lethal use of weapons, drones, and helicopters against protesters, and she directed that demonstrators be hanged for their actions. Up to 1,400 people were killed and thousands more were injured, largely by gunfire from security forces, according to a United Nations report in February. The protests, which ended on Aug. 5 and forced Hasina to flee to India, marked the worst political violence in Bangladesh since the country’s independence.

Interim Bangladeshi leader Muhammad Yunus heralded the ruling on Monday as a “

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