Taslima questions why Hasina faces blame while Yunus escapes.
Exiled writer Taslima Nasreen questions Hasina’s death sentence, asking why Muhammad Yunus avoids similar scrutiny after student uprising.
Exiled Bangladeshi author Taslima Nasreen has sharply criticised the International Crimes Tribunal (ICT) for handing down a death sentence to former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, questioning why she alone is being branded a criminal while chief advisor Muhammad Yunus and what she calls his “jihadist forces” continue to evade accountability.
The ICT’s ruling, announced on Monday, marks one of the most consequential verdicts in Bangladesh’s political history. Hasina was sentenced to death for alleged crimes against humanity, including ordering the killing of several people during last year’s massive student uprising that ultimately brought down her government. The court framed the violence as state-directed and disproportionate, holding the former prime minister responsible for the crackdown.
But Taslima Nasreen — long a vocal critic of Bangladesh’s political establishment and currently living in exile — argues the verdict is steeped in hypocrisy. In a strongly worded statement, she said the very actions for which Hasina is now condemned were also carried out by Yunus’s administration after it took power, yet no similar judgment has been imposed on him or his supporters.
Them to be just,” the 63-year-old author wrote. She questioned how justice could be applied so selectively, and asked when the “farce in the name of justice” would finally end in Bangladesh.
Drawing a comparison between Hasina’s decisions and those taken by the current administration, Taslima argued that governments across the world use force to control unrest. “When someone commits acts of sabotage and the current government orders them to be shot, the government does not call itself a criminal,” she said.
In recent months, the author has become increasingly outspoken against Muhammad Yunus’s leadership. She accuses his interim regime of engaging in the same forms of repression it claims to oppose — including violence, unlawful detentions, and widespread human rights violations in the aftermath of Hasina’s ouster.
Taslima has also stepped up her demand that Yunus be stripped of the Nobel Peace Prize he received in 2006, arguing that his actions contradict the values the award represents. She insists that he should be held legally accountable for what she describes as “crimes against humanity” committed under his watch since assuming control of the government.
As Bangladesh remains deeply polarised, Taslima’s comments reflect a growing chorus of voices who believe justice is being used as a political tool rather than an impartial process — raising serious questions about fairness, accountability, and the future of the country’s democracy.