In Bangladesh, over 4,000 opposition party members were charged with charges related to violence. These charges were heavily scrutinized by a spokesperson of the national Bangladesh opposition party, Sairul Kabir Khan, who claimed that the charges were faked in order to crush opposition. Bangladesh has been ruled by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who has been prime minister since 2009. However Hasina, who has been accused multiple times of corruption and rights abuses, is facing a general election next year. The Bangladesh opposition party has been organizing protests all across the country over the current government’s failure to maintain the country’s power grid resulting in massive nationwide blackouts. Five protesters have been killed since the protest began and the aforementioned spokesperson for the opposition party added that “the police are not a neutral force.”
According to the Human Rights Watch, Bangladesh has seen a significant number of “enforced disappearances” and extrajudicial killings since Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina retook power in 2009. Aswell, her reelections in 2014 and 2018 both saw violent protests and have been described by many in the Bangladesh Opposition Party and world wide as being fraudulent. Prime Minister Hasina was the daughter of the first president of Bangladesh and has a strong history of national mismanagement and poor leadership (on top of her obvious corruption). This recent string of arrests and charges seems to be only the latest in her desperate schemes to hold onto power, by any means necessary.
In class we discussed the levels of analysis and the level that seems to be the most relevant in this case is the personal level, AKA who leaders are as people, and how their personal psychology plays into their decisions. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina was born as the daughter of the first president of Bangladesh. Because of this it is not unreasonable to think that Hasina grew up feeling entitled. Not just entitled to better treatment and wealth, but also entitled to the power her father held over her country.