DHAKA, Bangladesh — DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) — Police fired teargas and used stun grenades and batons to disperse protesters outside Bangladesh’s national Parliament complex Friday, as tensions soared over the interim government’s new political charter.
Some protesters vandalized a police vehicle and makeshift tents, and others clashed with soldiers and security officials in the capital Dhaka. Witnesses said several people were injured.
The clashes broke out after several hundred people, who described themselves as those whose protests ousted former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, started demonstrating Friday. They expressed anger that their concerns were not addressed in the new charter, despite their loved ones dying during last year’s mass uprising against Hasina.
The interim government, headed by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus, has invited the country’s main political parties to sign a new political charter Friday to pave the way for a raft of political reforms.
The “July National Charter,” named after the national uprisings that started in July 2024, outlines a roadmap for constitutional amendments, legal changes and the enactment of new laws.
A National Consensus Commission formed by the Yunus’ government prepared the charter after a series of talks with the major political parties, except Hasina’s Awami League party.
The Bangladesh Nationalist Party, headed by former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, and eight like-minded parties said they would sign the charter.
Hasina, who was toppled last August after huge protests, is in exile in India and is being tried in absentia on charges of crimes against humanity. The United Nations has said that up to 1,400 people may have been killed in the weeks-long uprising last year.
Yunus has promised to hold the next national election in February. But questions remain whether the election would be inclusive without Hasina’s party and its allies in the race.
The country’s largest Islamist party, Jamaat-e-Islami, has remained undecided about signing the charter, while a newly-formed student-led party, National Citizen Party, said it would not take part.