Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami’s Acting Secretary General Maulana ATM Masum has issued the following statement on 24^th November, 2023 protesting and condemning the ongoing arrest drives, repression and torture of the government.

“The ruling authority do not want to arrange a free, fair, credible and participatory election. The fascist government is hatching plots to keep the opposition parties away from election and in accordance with that plot, their subservient election commission has declared schedule for a one-sided election. The schedule has been declared to bring Awami League back into the power without election. The government is trying to bring people and parties in the election process through mechanism. The countrymen already termed these people as traitor and their politics as the politics of treachery.

There is no congenial atmosphere in the country for holding election. Leaders and activists of Jamaat-e-Islami and other opposition parties are being arrested every day. The government has taken initiative to hand down judgment against the opposition parties to make them ineligible for the election. By recording testimony of the witness in night, a new stigmatic chapter has begun in the history of the judiciary. Charges are being framed in absence of the accused and often they are denied to cross examine with prosecution witnesses. The cases are being dissolved in a hurry to hand down penalty against the opposition leaders. In guise of democracy, the government has intensified its repression and torture. One of the main features of the autocratic government is to subdue the opponents. Thousands of opposition leaders and activists are being kept behind the bar in connection with false and concocted cases. Police arrested Santhia Upazila Jamaat secretary and Sirajganj district Sramik Kollan Federation leader Ashraf Ali and 22 others from various places of the country. Even they are harassing the Muslim devotees who are saying their prayers inside the mosque. I am condemning all these oppressions of the government and demanding immediate unconditional release of all the political detainees.