Sheikh Hasina Wazed is a Bangladeshi politician who served as the tenth prime minister of Bangladesh from June 1996 to July 2001 and again from January 2009 to August 2024. She is the daughter of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the founding father and first president of Bangladesh. Having served for a combined total of over 20 years, she is the longest serving prime minister in the history of Bangladesh. She was the world's longest-serving female head of government. Her dictatorship ended in self-imposed exile following a series of violent protests in 2024.
Khondaker Mostaq Ahmad was a Bangladeshi politician. He was the Minister of Commerce in the third Mujib Rahman ministry under Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, and assumed the presidency of Bangladesh after the assassination of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman on August 15, 1975. He praised the assassins as "sons of the sun" and put cabinet ministers loyal to Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in jail. He was himself deposed by another coup less than three months later on November 3, 1975.
Shah Azizur Rahman was a Bangladeshi politician who served as the prime minister of Bangladesh. However, he was the subject of considerable controversy for his collaboration with the Pakistan Army against the struggle for the independence of Bangladesh.
Rapid Action Battalion is an anti-crime and anti-terrorism unit of the Bangladesh Police. This elite force consists of members of the Bangladesh Army, Bangladesh Navy, Bangladesh Air Force, Bangladesh Police, Border Guard Bangladesh, and Bangladesh Ansar. It was formed on 26 March 2004 as RAT, and commenced operations on 14 April 2004.
The Swadhin Bangla Biplobi Parishad was an armed underground student political group secretly organized in 1961 by Serajul Alam Khan, a key founder of Bangladesh, that worked to wage an armed secessionist struggle against Pakistani rule and achieve the independence of East Pakistan as "Bangladesh".
Mahfuz Anam is a Bangladeshi journalist. He serves as editor and publisher of The Daily Star, one of Bangladesh's largest circulating English-language newspapers. After working in the United Nations for 14 years, Anam co-founded the newspaper with his mentor Syed Mohammad Ali in 1991 during Bangladesh's democratic transition. His criticism of the country's two largest political parties and the military has often resulted in him being sued; Anam dismisses the charges and the suits as attacks on press freedom. He was elected for a second term as chairman of the Asia News Network in 2022 and 2023.
The Bangladesh Rifles revolt was a mutiny staged on 25 and 26 February 2009 in Dhaka by a section of the Bangladesh Rifles (BDR), a paramilitary force mainly tasked with guarding the borders of Bangladesh. The rebelling BDR soldiers took over the BDR headquarters in Pilkhana, killing BDR director-general Shakil Ahmed along with 56 other army officers and 17 civilians. They also fired on civilians, held many of their officers and their families hostage, vandalised property and looted valuables. By the second day, unrest had spread to 12 other towns and cities. The mutiny ended as the mutineers surrendered their arms and released the hostages after a series of discussions and negotiations with the government. The Daily Star commended “Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina sagacious handling of the situation which resulted in the prevention of a further bloodbath".
The 2011 Bangladesh coup d'état attempt was a coup planned for 11–12 January 2012 that was stopped by the Bangladesh Army in December 2011. This was announced at a press conference on 19 January 2012. The purpose of the coup was to establish Islamic law in Bangladesh. A number of officers including retired ones were arrested. The coup plotters argued that they were nationalists trying to prevent Bangladesh from being turned into a puppet of India.
Corruption in Bangladesh has been a continuing problem. According to all major ranking institutions, Bangladesh routinely finds itself among the most corrupt countries in the world.
On 5 February 2013, protests ignited in Shahbagh, Bangladesh, fueled by the call for the execution of the convicted war criminal Abdul Quader Mollah. Previously sentenced to life imprisonment, Mollah was convicted on five of six counts of war crimes by the International Crimes Tribunal of Bangladesh. Mollah supported the West Pakistan during the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War and played a crucial role in the murder of numerous Bengali nationalists and intellectuals. The demonstrations also sought the government's ban on the radical right-wing and conservative-Islamist group, Jamaat-e-Islami from participating in politics, including elections, and a boycott of institutions supporting or affiliated with the group.
Bangladesh and Israel do not have diplomatic relations. Bangladesh has stated that it will not recognize Israel until there is an independent Palestinian state. Some reports have alleged that Bangladesh and Israel maintain some trade relations indirectly and sometimes secretly and via proxies, although the Bangladesh government denies these allegations.
Enforced disappearances in Bangladesh are cases in which the Government of Bangladesh directly or indirectly kidnaps people and holds them incommunicado. According to a Dhaka-based human rights group Odhikar, at least 402 people have become victim of enforced disappearance from 2009 to 2017 under the former Awami League administration. These incidents along with extrajudicial killings in Bangladesh has been criticized by The United Nations and human rights groups including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), a special paramilitary unit in Bangladesh, is alleged to be behind most of these disappearances even though RAB claimed these allegations to be false, though evidence has comeforth that they were the ones behind these disappearances. The autocratic Awami League regime denies involvement in these forced disappearances even when victims later surface in custody.
Aziz Ahmed is a retired Bangladeshi four star general who was Chief of Army Staff (CAS) of the Bangladesh Army, from 25 June 2018 to 24 June 2021. He was succeeded by General SM Shafiuddin Ahmed on 24 June 2021.
Tarique Ahmed Siddique is a retired major general of the Bangladesh Army and the former defence and security adviser to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.
2020 (MMXX) was a leap year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar, the 2020th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 20th year of the 3rd millennium and the 21st century, and the 1st year of the 2020s decade.
Freedom of the press in Bangladesh refers to the censorship and endorsement on public opinions, fundamental rights, freedom of expression, human rights, explicitly mass media such as the print, broadcast and online media as described or mentioned in the constitution of Bangladesh. The country's press is legally regulated by the certain amendments, while the sovereignty, national integrity and sentiments are generally protected by the law of Bangladesh to maintain a hybrid legal system for independent journalism and to protect fundamental rights of the citizens in accordance with secularism and media law. In Bangladesh, media bias and disinformation is restricted under the certain constitutional amendments as described by the country's post-independence constitution.
Abul Hasnat Mohammad Khairul Bashar is a Major General of Bangladesh Army. He is the Bangladeshi Ambassador to Libya. Prior to this appointment, he was the GOC of the 17th Infantry Division and Area Commander of Sylhet Area. He served as additional director general of Border Guards Bangladesh.
Nūr Qut̤b ʿĀlam was a 14th-century Bengali Islamic scholar, author and poet. Based in the erstwhile Bengali capital Hazrat Pandua, he was the son and successor of Alaul Haq, a senior scholar of the Bengal Sultanate. He is noted for his efforts in preserving the Muslim rule of Bengal against Raja Ganesha and pioneering the Dobhashi tradition of Bengali literature.
The earliest Quran translations into Bengali occurred in 1389, when Shah Muhammad Sagir translated surahs of the Quran into the old Bengali language. However, full translation of the Quran from Arabic to Bengali began in the early nineteenth century.
