Version imprimableHow not to describe the Awami League
Awami League office burnt down
Burnt remains of the Awami League office at Bangabandhu Avenue in Dhaka on August 6, 2024, a day after the party’s ouster from power. FILE PHOTO: ANISUR RAHMAN
When the Awami League government initiated the prosecution of Jamaat-e-Islami leaders at the International Crimes Tribunal in 2010, it justified the use of an unamended International Crimes (Tribunal) Act, 1973 by arguing that the act was modelled on the legal framework used in the post-World War II Nuremberg Trials. According to the government and its supporters, the act reflected international legal standards because it paralleled the laws under which senior Nazi leaders were prosecuted.
This justification, however, ignored the substantial evolution of international law between 1945 and 2010. While the Awami League may have been correct in saying the 1973 act adhered to the standards of the 1940s, it failed to recognise that international legal standards and definitions had significantly developed over the subsequent six decades. As such, relying solely on the Nuremberg framework in 2010 was highly problematic.
Today, we see a troubling echo of that historical distortion. Some proponents of banning the Awami League draw comparisons between the party and the Nazi Party, citing the Allied powers’ postwar dissolution of the latter as justification. Such analogies are frequently accompanied by the claim that the Awami League is comparable to the Nazi Party.
There are profound and fundamental differences between Nazi Germany and the Awami League’s governance in Bangladesh. Nazi Germany was a totalitarian dictatorship, enforced through institutions like the Gestapo and SS, that invaded countries across Europe in pursuit of global domination. It implemented the industrial-scale genocide of six million Jews and millions of others, including Roma, disabled individuals, political dissidents, and more, through a system of concentration camps and gas chambers.
To equate this with the Awami League is both to trivialise the enormity of Nazi crimes and distort the reality of Bangladeshi politics. While serious criticisms of the Awami League are both valid and necessary, they must be proportionate and grounded in fact.
There were extrajudicial killings during the Awami League rule
