STAFF CORRESPONDENT

The Jatiya Sangsad yesterday ratified 14 ordinances issued under the interim government, including one that enabled a ban on the activities of the Awami League and another that granted indemnity to participants in the 2024 July uprising.

By passing the Anti-Terrorism (Amendment) Bill, 2026, the parliament gave a permanent statutory basis to the ban on the activities of the AL.

The interim government promulgated the ordinance on May 11, 2025, and imposed the ban the next day.

The ordinance made changes to a 2009 version of the law, empowering the government to pursue a total embargo on a group’s existence by both banning it and its political activities.

After Home Minister Salahuddin Ahmed placed the bill in parliament, opposition leader Shafiqur Rahman objected, saying, “We received a comparative sheet only three-four minutes ago. We could not read it fully. This law is certainly a sensitive one. We should be given more time to review it.”

A comparative sheet outlines the differences between the existing law and the proposed amendments for MPs’ review.

Shafiqur is also the chief of Jamaat-e-Islami, a party that was banned by the AL government under a previous version of this law on August 1, 2024 -- just days before the fall of the Hasina regime on August 5.

In response, Speaker Hafiz Uddin Ahmad said, “There is a specific time for raising objections. If objections had been raised within that time, we could have considered them.”

Salahuddin, in his response to Shafiqur, said, “This bill concerns the banning of a genocidal, terrorist organisation. It is an amendment to the previous Anti-Terrorism Act. The opposition leader will surely recall that they and the NCP [National Citizen Party] together launched a movement. That movement mobilised [public opinion] in Bangladesh. Based on that, their [AL’s] activities were banned under the Anti-Terrorism Act.”

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