The party has claimed that the International Criminal Tribunal's arrest warrant against Awami League President and former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on charges of genocide during the student uprising is 'imaginative'. They protested the case, calling it 'the most despicable, unconstitutional and illegal'.
This claim was made in a post on Awami League's verified page on Facebook on Friday (October 18) night.
Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman enacted the International Crimes Act in 1973 to prosecute the perpetrators of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity during the liberation war. The post said that Sheikh Hasina's government took the initiative to prosecute those accused of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity during the liberation war. War criminals were tried under this Act to fulfill the promise of the nation. This trial was praised all over the world.
The anti-independence forces and the unconstitutional and illegitimate so-called interim government filed a false and conspiratorial case of genocide against Sheikh Hasina based on false and fictitious facts to question the trial process and create a favorable environment for this trial. They have issued an arrest warrant against Sheikh Hasina showing a thumbs up to all principles of rule of law.
The post also said, Awami League is protesting, condemning and abhorring this most despicable medieval, heinous and illegal activities of the unconstitutional and illegal government. Awami League is calling for the cancellation of this abominable process respecting the constitution and the law.
The tribunal set up by Sheikh Hasina's government to try those involved in war crimes and crimes against humanity has farcically appointed a lawyer for war criminals as the chief prosecutor. It is a hideous mockery of the nation.
According to the United Nations Convention on Genocide, the definition of genocide is any harmful act, including murder, which aims to destroy, in whole or in part, a nation, group, community or religious group.
Claiming that terror and anarchy were carried out in the name of student movement, Awami League claimed that the whole world saw the terror and anarchy that was carried out in the name of anti-quota movement in July-August in Bangladesh. We have all seen how the terrorists killed the Awami League leaders, activists and supporters along with the police.
The killings being carried out by the police and Awami League leaders and activists across the country, as well as the unspeakable torture being carried out including the killing of people belonging to Hindu-Buddhist-Christian religions and other ethnic groups, fall into the level of genocide. These killings and acts of terrorism meet the criteria for the definition of genocide in the Genocide Convention.
According to the post, Awami League feels that the conspiratorial false case and arrest warrant issued against Sheikh Hasina by the unconstitutional and illegal interim government based on false and fictitious information will be condemned nationally and internationally.
The people of Bangladesh and the international community will reject this conspiratorial initiative with disgust. We should remember that in independent Bangladesh several rounds of unconstitutional and undemocratic forces were sitting on us. People rejected this undemocratic power.
The statement also said that our Supreme Court, like the courts of other countries of the world, has also declared such unconstitutional power illegal. According to Article 7B of the Constitution, if an unconstitutional power seizes state power in violation of the Constitution, the punishment is the highest punishment under the prevailing law of the country i.e. death penalty. I will tell the violators of the constitution and the illegal groups, learn from the past without further delay and apologize to the nation. Otherwise, this constitution and history will not forgive you, reflecting the sacred will of the people.
