Decision-making will pave the way for the country’s largest Muslim party to take part in the next general election, expected by June next year.
Bangladesh has restored its registration of the country’s largest Muslim party more than a decade after it was banned by the former prime minister Sheikh Hasina government.
The Supreme Court decision on Sunday meant that the Jamaat-e-Islami party will be officially listed on the Election Commission, paving the way for participation in the next general election.
Shishir Monir, a lawyer for Jamaat-e-Islami, said the ruling would allow a “democratic, comprehensive and multiparty system” in the majority of Muslims of 170 million.
“Bangladesh votes for Jamaat regardless of their ethnicity or religious identity and hopes that the Congress will be lively with constructive debate,” Monir told journalists.
The party was suing for a review of a 2013 High Court order that cancels registration after the Hasina government was expelled in August by a student-led national uprising.
Hasina, 77, fled to India and is now on trial for her absence last year for her crackdown, which prosecutors described as a “systematic attack” on protesters.
Key reader has been released
The Supreme Court’s decision on Jamaat-e-Islami comes after overturning the conviction against Atm Azharul Islam, one of the party’s main leaders, on Tuesday.
Islam was sentenced to death for rape, murder and massacre in 2014 during Bangladesh’s 1971 war of independence from Pakistan. Jamaat e Islami supported Pakistan during the war. This is a role that still sparks rage among many Bangladesh today.
“We are not making mistakes, either as individuals or as a party,” said Shafiqur Rahman, leader of Jamaat-e-Islami, after Islamic beliefs were overturned without specifying what he was referring to.
“If we do something wrong, we ask for your forgiveness,” he said.
Members of the party were rivals of Awami League Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the father of Awami League Hasina, who will become the founder of Bangladesh.
During his tenure, Hasina banned Jamaat e Islami and cracked down on its leaders.
In May, Bangladeshi’s interim government led by Nobel Prize winner Mohammed Yunus banned the Awami League, pending the results of legal proceedings surrounding crackdowns on public protests last year.
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