The Debate | Opinion | South Asia

How the Dreams and Aspirations of Bangladeshi Students Have Been Crushed

Affiliation with the Chhatra League, the students’ wing of the Awami League, before October 2024, was not an offense. It cannot be treated as one now.

Bangladesh Students’ League activists gather at the Dhaka University campus to press six key demands, including their opposition to the expulsion of students from educational institutions nationwide, Dhaka, Bangladesh, June 1, 2026.

When a government bans a political organization, it faces a legal obligation to ensure that the ban does not reach back in time. This is not just a technical requirement; it is one of the oldest rules of constitutional law — the prohibition on ex post facto laws. The reason for its existence is simple. In a democratic society, a government cannot retroactively classify a past action as a crime, with punitive consequences that were not a crime at the time the law was enacted.

Following the ouster of the Awami League (AL) government on August 05, 2024, the Muhammad Yunus-led interim administration violated this principle by expelling and suspending students allegedly associated with the Bangladesh Chhatra League, the students’ wing of the AL, from public universities in Bangladesh without any hearing, charges, or even the constitutional rights granted to students. It is a consequence that the current administration has the authority, and the constitutional obligation, to correct.

None of these students has been convicted in a court of law. None has been given an individual hearing. Many have never been informed of a specific charge. They have been told — through show-cause notices and administrative rulings — that their academic lives are over.

The human consequences extend far beyond the campus. Students are outcasts, socially ostracized, and are hiding out. One student has not returned to his home in two years. Another could not attend a close family member’s funeral. False criminal cases were filed against the fathers of suspended students. Family businesses were taken. Multiple students record, in their voluntarily submitted testimonies, having stood at the edge of suicide. “There were many times I felt like committing suicide so that everything would just end. But thinking of my family and considering religious aspects, I could not do it,” said one of the students whose testimony was collected for the purpose of writing this piece.

The student testimonies were personally collected by the author and serve as a testament to the systemic persecution of students affiliated with the Chhatra League that has been ongoing since the collapse of the AL government in August 2024.

These testimonies were provided voluntarily, signed, and made available for documentation and advocacy purposes. They describe — across five separate accounts, with convergent language and grief — the same experience: a future planned, possibly underway, and cancelled by an institution that proceeded without the legal authority it claimed.

There are two specific, separable legal concerns that the current administration is well-positioned to address.

First, the ban must not have a retrospective effect.

The conduct for which students are being punished — political affiliations, social media posts, and attendance at campus protests — occurred in July and August 2024, before the ban was enacted. A foundational principle recognized in Articles 31 and 35 of Bangladesh’s constitution and in the international human rights obligations Bangladesh has undertaken is that no person may be penalized for conduct that was lawful at the time it was committed. Affiliation with the Chhatra League before October 2024 was not an offense. It cannot be treated as one now.

A formal directive by the university administration or the government to this end will not reinstate any of the proscribed organizations. All it will do is ensure that the ban has the legal force intended by the constitution – namely, prospective, not retrospective. No disciplinary process initiated by any university based purely on pre-ban association can continue until then.

Second, proceedings against individual students must be individual.

In November 2025, the Proctor’s Office at the University of Dhaka issued a show-cause notice to 403 students at once, calling upon them to justify themselves against being expelled permanently from the institution. The offense referred to in the notice in full was “occurrences from July 15 until August 5, 2024,” without specifying individual crimes and evidence on record against anyone. The then-proctor also recommended “cancelling the degree certificates of those students who have already graduated.” Initially, the university’s fact-finding committee identified 128 students out of the 403 who were expelled. An additional 275 faced the prospect of permanent administrative expulsion.

83 students of the 403 filed written replies to the show-cause notices. In its reply, it claims that the notice “presumes guilt” and shifts the burden of proof to the students, which is unconstitutional because the principle of “innocent until proven guilty” is a basic rule of justice in both civil and criminal cases. The reply cites Articles 27, 31, and 32 of the Constitution regarding equality before the law, protection by the law, and the right to life,........

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