Sheikh Hasina: The pro-democracy icon who became an autocrat

Bangladesh’s longest-serving prime minister Sheikh Hasina Wazed began her political career as a pro-democracy icon, but fled mass protests against her rule in August 2024 after 15 years in power.

Since then, Hasina has been in self-imposed exile in India, where she flew after being deposed by the student-led uprising which spiralled into nationwide unrest.

On 17 November, a special tribunal in Dhaka sentenced her to death after convicting her of crimes against humanity. It was found Hasina had ordered a deadly crackdown on protesters between 15 July and 5 August 2024. She denied all charges against her.

Up to 1,400 people were killed during the weeks of protests leading up to her ousting, most by gunfire from security forces, UN human rights investigators said. Their report found that she and her government had tried to cling to power using systematic, deadly violence against protesters.

It was the worst bloodshed the country had seen since independence in 1971.

The protests brought an unexpected end to the reign of Hasina, who had ruled Bangladesh for more than 20 years.

She and her Awami League party were credited with overseeing the South Asian country’s economic progress. But in recent years she was accused of turning autocratic and clamping down on any opposition to her rule.

Politically-motivated arrests, disappearances, extra-judicial killings and other abuses all rose under her rule.

In January 2024, Hasina won an unprecedented fourth term as prime minister in an election widely decried by critics as being a sham and boycotted by the main opposition.

Protests began later that year with a demand to abolish quotas in civil service jobs. By summer they had morphed into a wider anti-government movement as she used the police to violently crack down on protesters.

Amid increasing calls for her to resign, Hasina remained defiant and condemned the agitators as “terrorists”. She also threw hundreds of people into jail and brought criminal charges against hundreds more.

A leaked audio clip suggested she had ordered security forces to “use lethal weapons” against protesters. She denies ever issuing an order to fire on unarmed civilians.

Some of the bloodiest scenes occurred on 5 August, the day Hasina fled by helicopter before crowds stormed her residence in Dhaka. Police killed at least 52 people that day in a busy neighbourhood, making it one of the worst cases of police violence in the country’s history.

Hasina, who has been tried in absentia, called the tribunal a “farce”.

“It is a kangaroo court controlled by my political opponents to deliver a pre-ordained guilty verdict… and to distract the world’s attention from the chaos, violence and misrule of [the new] government,” she told the BBC in the week before her verdict.

She called for the ban on her party to be lifted before elections due in February.

Hasina is also charged with crimes against humanity relating to forced disappearances during the Awami League’s rule in another case at the same tribunal in Bangladesh. Hasina and the Awami League deny all the charges.

Hasina and other senior members of her former government are also facing trial for corruption in a separate court – charges they deny.

Born to a Muslim family in East Bengal in 1947, Hasina had politics in her blood.

Her father was the nationalist leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Bangladesh’s “Father of the Nation” who led the country’s independence from Pakistan in 1971 and became its first president.

At that time, Hasina had already established a reputation as a student leader at Dhaka University.

Her father was assassinated with most of his family members in a military coup in 1975. Only Hasina and her younger sister survived as they were travelling abroad at the time.

After living in exile in India, Hasina returned to Bangladesh in 1981 and became the leader of the Awami League, the political party her father belonged to.

She joined hands with other political parties to hold pro-democracy street protests during the military rule of General Hussain Muhammed Ershad. Propelled by the popular uprising, Hasina quickly became a national icon.

She was first elected to power in 1996. She earned credit for signing a water-sharing deal with India and a peace deal with tribal insurgents in the south-east of the country.

But at the same time, her government was criticised for numerous allegedly corrupt business deals and for being too subservient to India.

She later lost to her former ally-turned-nemesis, Begum Khaleda Zia of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, in 2001.

As heirs to political dynasties, both women have dominated Bangladesh politics for more than three decades and used to be known as the “battling begums”. Begum refers to a Muslim woman of high rank.

Observers say their bitter rivalry resulted in bus bombs, disappearances and extrajudicial killings becoming regular occurrences.

Hasina eventually came back to power in 2009 in polls held under a caretaker government.

A true political survivor, she endured numerous arrests while in opposition as well as several assassination attempts, including one in 2004 that damaged her hearing. She has also survived efforts to force her into exile and numerous court cases in which she has been accused of corruption.

Once one of the world’s poorest nations, Bangladesh achieved credible economic success under her leadership from 2009.

Its per capita income tripled in the last decade and the World Bank estimates that more than 25 million people have been lifted out of poverty in the last 20 years.

Much of this growth has been fuelled by the garment industry, which accounts for the vast majority of total exports from Bangladesh and has expanded rapidly in recent decades, supplying markets in Europe, North America and Asia.

Using the country’s own funds, loans and development assistance, Hasina’s government also undertook huge infrastructure projects, including the flagship $2.9bn Padma bridge across the Ganges.

But Hasina has long been accused of enacting repressive authoritarian measures against her political opponents, detractors and the media – a remarkable turnaround for a leader who once fought for multi-party democracy.

Rights groups estimate there have been at least 700 cases of enforced disappearances, with hundreds more subject to extra-judicial killings, since Hasina took power again in 2009. Hasina denies involvement in these.

Bangladesh’s security forces have also been accused of serious abuses. In 2021, the US sanctioned its Rapid Action Battalion – a notorious police unit accused of carrying out numerous extra-judicial killings – citing human rights violations.

Human rights activists and journalists also faced increasing attacks including arrests, surveillance and harassment.

Hasina’s government was also accused of “judicially harassing” targets with court cases, including Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus – who became head of the interim government after Hasina fled. He had been jailed earlier in 2024 and faced more than 100 charges, in cases his supporters say were politically motivated.

Hasina’s government flatly denied claims of such abuses, while also restricting visits when it was in power by foreign journalists seeking to investigate the allegations.

The protests against civil service quotas, which sparked last year’s uprising, came as Bangladesh struggled with the escalating costs of living in the wake of the pandemic. Inflation skyrocketed, the country’s foreign exchange reserves dropped precipitously, and its foreign debt doubled since 2016.

Critics blamed this on mismanagement by Hasina’s government, claiming that Bangladesh’s economic progress only helped those close to her.