Bangladesh’s ousted leader Sheikh Hasina sentenced to death

A Bangladesh court sentenced ousted prime minister Sheikh Hasina to be hanged for crimes against humanity on Monday, with cheers breaking out in the packed court as the judge read out the verdict. Hasina, 78, defied court orders that she return from India to attend her trial about whether she ordered a deadly crackdown against a student-led uprising last year that eventually ousted her. The highly anticipated ruling, which was broadcast live on national television, came less than three months before the first polls in the South Asian country of 170 million people since her overthrow in August 2024. “All the… elements constituting crimes against humanity have been fulfilled,” judge Golam Mortuza Mozumder read to the court in Dhaka. The former leader was found guilty on three counts: incitement, order to kill, and inaction to prevent the atrocities, the judge said. “We have decided to inflict her with only one sentence — that is, sentence of death.” Crowds waved the national fl...

Thousands demand union rights and civic freedoms in large Tunisia protest

TUNIS -Thousands of members and supporters of Tunisia’s powerful Tunisian General Labour Union (UGTT) protested in the capital over what they called a decline in union rights and civic freedoms.

It was one of the largest political demonstrations Tunisia has seen recently, and comes amid a deepening standoff between the UGTT and President Kais Saied.

Last month, a UGTT strike over wages and working conditions disrupted transport services across the country and piled pressure on Saied to deal with a deepening economic crisis. In response, hundreds of Saied’s supporters staged a rally outside the UGTT headquarters early this month to urge the president to suspend the union.

Thursday’s protest started in front of the UGTT headquarters in Tunis and passed through Habib Bourguiba Avenue, the site of mass protests that led to the downfall of President Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali in 2011 and sparked the Arab Spring uprisings across the Middle East.

Demonstrators chanted slogans including, “The right to struggle is a duty” and decried increasing poverty and hunger and called for the protection of workers’ rights.

UGTT Secretary-General Noureddine Taboubi decried what he called “threats and smear campaigns” against the union and called on authorities to release political prisoners and provide fair trials.

“The union will not deviate from the path of struggle and will adhere to its social and national role to guarantee workers’ rights,” he said in a speech.

There was no immediate comment from authorities on the protest.

Saied assumed sweeping powers in 2021, shut down the elected parliament, started ruling by decree, suspended the Supreme Judicial Council and sacked dozens of judges in a move the opposition described as a coup.

SOURCE: REUTERS AND AGENCIES



from The Times Of Earth https://ift.tt/ZufTy5Y

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