The Pulse | Politics | South Asia

How the Ban on the Awami League is Being Turned on Bangladesh’s Garment Workers

Bangladesh has swapped one form of political exclusion for another. Now its garment workers are paying the price.

Women employees in a readymade garment factory outside Dhaka, Bangladesh, Feb. 11, 2020.

The July 2024 uprising in Bangladesh had many causes, but one ran deepest: for a decade, the main opposition, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), had been shut out of meaningful elections. The uprising promised Bangladeshis that no one would be shut out of politics.

More than two years on, that promise is fraying. A major political party – the Awami League, which was ousted in the July 2024 uprising – is banned, and the ban has become an all-purpose license for arrests and imprisonment. Now it is being turned on workers striking for a wage they can live on. That is bad for democracy, and worse for an economy that cannot afford another crisis of trust.

After the change of government, in October 2024, the Yunus-led interim administration banned the Bangladesh Chhatra League, the Awami League’s student wing, under the Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA). On May 12, 2025, it went further, using the newly amended ATA to impose a “temporary” ban on the Awami League itself. The ban covers meetings, publications, and even online speech supporting the party. The Election Commission then suspended its registration.

Under the current law, the ban would remain in effect until party leaders accused of crimes committed while in power are tried. However, the trials could take years, effectively proscribing a party that has existed since before independence. The BNP, which won the 2026 election in which the Awami League was not on the ballot, later codified the ban.

Of particular concern is how the ban is being used. Rights organizations documented at least 8,600 arrests in the “Operation Devil Hunt” campaign alone. Human Rights Watch also found ten murder cases filed against more than 8,400 mostly unnamed people, and hundreds of alleged Awami League supporters held as murder suspects, routinely denied bail. The government allegedly increasingly uses the counterterrorism law against the supporters. Amnesty International said the ban called into question the government’s commitment to freedom of association. Previously, several U.N. experts in a communication reported that the decision to ban the Awami League by executive order “did not follow the ordinary procedure for dissolving political parties under the Political Parties Ordinance 1978.” The lack of judicial oversight of the executive order and the subsequent codification of the law further makes the decision controversial.

The same logic is now being turned on garment workers. Since October 31, hundreds of thousands of workers have walked out across Mirpur, Ashulia, Gazipur, and Narayanganj, demanding a minimum wage of 30,000 Bangladeshi taka ($241). Within a day, police said that the movement had been infiltrated by the Awami League and that many protesters were not genuine garment workers. At the time of writing, police detained 21 people they called Awami League activists and thousands more unidentified individuals under the ATA.

Home Minister Salahuddin Ahmed has blamed supporters of former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina for the protests, a claim AFP noted he made without evidence, and has also alleged that the unrest is being instigated from across the border.

Given the government’s harsh treatment and the detention of workers under the ATA, many labor leaders have gone into hiding. There is also an allegation of disproportionate force used against laborers during protests. Videos and images circulating on social media appear to show workers being beaten, and police raiding slums to round up protesters; the Awami League label is the justification offered.

The workers rejected the conspiracy........

© The Diplomat