‘Women’s freedoms are at stake’: concern over rise of Islamist party ahead of Bangladesh election | Bangladesh

ONAs the clock struck midnight, the women held up their flame torches and marched into the Dhaka night. “The people gave their blood, now we want equality,” they shouted above the roar of the traffic.

For many in Bangladeshwas a reason for retirement in the last few weeks. The first free and fair elections in 17 years were promised for Thursday, after the overthrow of the regime of Sheikh Hasina in a bloody student-led uprising in August 2024 in which more than 1,000 people died.

Opposition figures long persecuted and jailed are now running as candidates and holding rallies freely for the first time in years. The former prime minister is languishing in exile in India and face a death sentence for crimes against humanity in Bangladesh, and her Awami League party is barred from contesting the election.

Yet the hopes of the election for a large number of women in the country, including those at the forefront of the revolution, have been filled with disappointment and fear, amid a resurgence of regressive Islamist politics that are feared to undermine women’s rights and a lack of female candidates in the fray.

“It was meant to be an election that represents change and reform. Instead, we see women being systematically erased and their rights threatened,” said Sabiha Sharmin, 25, as she took part in the midnight march. “We are worried that this election will throw the country back 100 years.”

One of the most repressed political movements of the Hasina era, when elections were rigged and opponents persecuted, was Jamaat e-Islami, an Islamist party that believes in bringing sharia law to Bangladesh. It was banned and its leaders were jailed, disappeared or sentenced to death.

Since Hasina’s fall, Jamaat e-Islami has mobilized with unprecedented fervor and positioned itself as a challenger to the veteran Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), which was previously expected to sweep the elections.

Limited polling still suggests that BNP will win the election, but it appears that Jamaat e-Islami will earn a historic share of the vote and be a significant force after the election. “Whether as a substantial opposition or a government in power, the future of Bangladesh’s politics looks like a strong Islamist party will be at its center,” said Thomas Kean, Crisis Group’s senior consultant on Bangladesh.

Critics say the revival of conservative Islamic politics has already begun to appear in society. In rural areas, girls were prevented from playing football by religious leaders who labeled it indecent, and women reported increasing harassment for not covering their hair or dressing modestly.

While Jamaat e-Islami presented a manifesto focusing on reform, women’s safety from harassment and clean politics, the party is not fielding a single female candidate. Rhetoric from the party’s leader, Shafiqur Rahman, had a chilling effect.

In a fiery interview with Al Jazeera, he said a woman could never lead the party as it was un-Islamic. A post on Rahman’s X account then compared women’s work to prostitution, before it went viral and was deleted with claims he had been hacked. Comments he made last year have also resurfaced, denying the existence of marital rape and describing rape as “immoral women and men coming together outside of marriage.”

Last year, the alliance of Islamic parties forced the government to reject proposals from a women’s commission on equality. “Equal rights will push women into competition with men in a way that harms them,” Mamnunul Haque, secretary general of the hard-line Islamist party Khelafat Majlish, said at the time.

“These are the kind of views and policies you hear in Iran and Afghanistan,” said Zayba Tahzeeb, 21, a physics student who attended the midnight march in Dhaka. “Women’s sovereignty, our freedoms, our independence: everything is at stake in this election.”

Among the policies proposed by the party is reducing women’s working hours from eight hours to five, with the government subsidizing the lost income, so women can spend more time at home. Women make up 44% of the country’s workforce, according to the International Labor Organization, the highest percentage in South Asia, and paid work is a right fiercely guarded by women across economic strata.

The sense of frustration grew after the National Citizen party (NCP), which was formed by the student leaders which overthrew Hasina and positioned itself as the party of progress, announced in December that it would join the Jamaat e-Islami alliance in the election. The party that forged itself as a political alternative with women at the forefront now presents only two female candidates.

Tajnuva Jabeen, a doctor and founding member of NCP, was one of a wave of women who left after the Jamaat e-Islami alliance was announced – a decision taken without consultation by a select few men at the top of the party.

“It was such a clear betrayal,” Jabeen said. “This was a historic opportunity to create a third political force, to represent the change for which so many people died in the July uprising. Instead, they have let the people down and silenced the women who led this movement. I am sorry to say, this election will not represent the spirit of the revolution.”

She emphasized that the failures towards women in this election were not Jamaat e-Islami and NCPs alone – less than 5% of BNP’s candidates are women.

Bangladesh, which is 91% Muslim, has had a checkered history with secularism since its independence from Pakistan in 1971. Religion-based politics was banned at the country’s formation but dominant during military rule after 1975, before secularism was restored in the constitution in 2011.

Analysts emphasized that many who now support Jamaat e-Islami are simply disillusioned with the political old guard. Since 1971, the country has oscillated between two parties, the Awami League and the BNP, both of which have been accused of indulgence in dynastic politics and rampant corruption.

Jamaat e-Islami appears to be particularly popular among young, first-time voters, who make up 42% of the electorate and are hungry for change. The authoritarian nature of Hasina’s regime has somewhat discredited secularism and made voters more open to Islamist politics this time, analysts say.

One of the fresh faces of Jamaat e-Islami is Mir Ahmad Bin Quasem Arman, a lawyer running for office in Dhaka. The son of an executed Jamaat e-Islami leader, he was kidnapped under the Hasina regime and spent eight years imprisoned and tortured in one of her notorious underground facilities. He came out of his cell the day after Hasina was overthrown and initially believed he was being dragged out to be executed.

“It was systematic torture for eight years, worse than death,” he said, his voice breaking. “It felt like I was buried alive. But God gave me a second life. I am here to represent all those who were taken to the dark cells and never came out.”

Pushing a message of reform and anti-corruption, he insisted women’s fears of his party were unfounded and part of a political smear campaign.

“When you talk to urban elites, their talking points are whether women can be in the top positions of government, or whether women can wear what they want,” Arman said. “These are – I’m sorry to use the word – feminist demands. The ground level is very different. The primary requirement of the women on the ground, the working class, is safety and that is our main concern.

“Perhaps in the near future you will also see women running on our ticket,” he added.

In an attempt to demonstrate the party’s commitment to women, thousands of female Jamaat e-Islami supporters took to the streets of Arman’s constituency in Dhaka to deny that the party would curtail their freedoms.

“The policy they are proposing will improve women’s lives and their safety,” said Sirajim Munira, 27. “I think it will be good for the country to bring in Islamic law because it will make us honest and corruption-free.”

Ainum Nahar (58) said Jamaat’s grassroots is driven by women. “Jamaat empowers us,” she said. Yet she agreed that women should never be at the head of the party. “As an Islamic party, it is forbidden for women to be leaders,” Nahar said. “But we will stand behind, to inspire them, to encourage them and to move the country forward.”