July 2024. After flooding the country with blood, killing police officers, setting fire to government installations, and looting banks, an elected government was overthrown. Power was seized by the usurious moneylender Yunus, hiding behind the image of a Nobel laureate, and his allies, the war-criminal, extremist Jamaat. The real objectives of this illegal takeover are now being revealed one by one. Jamaat’s amir’s recent statements in an Al Jazeera interview and on social media have laid bare a chilling picture: women cannot be leaders, working women are equated with prostitution, and stepping outside the home is portrayed as moral decay. These are not personal opinions. This is a political declaration. A document that clearly signals a plan to turn Bangladesh into a misogynistic state like Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, or Pakistan.
Articles 27 and 28 of the Constitution of Bangladesh clearly state that all citizens are equal before the law and that there shall be no discrimination between men and women. Article 29 guarantees equal opportunity in employment and public office. Yet Jamaat’s amir openly declares that women cannot hold leadership positions. This is impossible to reconcile with the constitution. What clearer violation of the constitution could there be? The leader of a political party, one of the main pillars of the current illegal regime, is openly announcing that he does not recognize the constitution. And no one objects. Because this government is illegitimate. It is not accountable to the people, only to its foreign patrons.
Equating women’s participation in the workforce with prostitution is not just a personal insult. It is an organized attack on millions of working women. Women who save lives as doctors in hospitals, who teach in schools, who sustain the country’s economy in garment factories, who fight for justice as lawyers are all being collectively stigmatized. This is not just moral degradation. It is a calculated conspiracy to frighten women back into their homes, force them to quit their jobs, abandon their education, and stop dreaming.
International human rights instruments and the CEDAW convention, to which Bangladesh is a signatory, clearly obligate the state to ensure women’s political participation, economic independence, and social equality. But this illegal government and its backer Jamaat are trampling those commitments. They know that if women are educated, self-reliant, and politically active, their medieval vested interests will not survive. That is why they want to confine women to the home and make them dependent on men, so their monopoly over society remains intact.
These crimes are being committed in the name of religion. But no religion grants the right to strip others of their fundamental rights. You have the freedom to practice your faith, but you do not have the right to use that freedom to control other people’s lives, deny them the right to work, or rob them of their dignity. This is a basic principle of human rights law recognized in all democratic societies. Jamaat and its patron Yunus refuse to accept this because they do not believe in democracy. They believe in medieval authoritarianism.
When the Taliban came to power in Afghanistan, their first move was to ban women’s education and employment. In Syria, Yemen, and Pakistan, whenever fundamentalists have gained strength, their first attack has been on women’s rights. They know that if women are free, educated, and conscious, their business of exploiting religion collapses. Jamaat–Yunus are following the same path in Bangladesh. They want Bangladeshi women to disappear behind veils and into darkness so that nothing obstructs their looting and grip on power.
Yunus is leading all of this. Holding a Nobel Prize, he believes himself untouchable. In reality, he is a usurious moneylender who grew rich by bleeding the poor. The way Grameen Bank trapped poor women in debt and pushed many toward suicide is no longer hidden. Now, after illegally seizing power, he wants Jamaat to strip women of their rights. This is no coincidence. It is a carefully planned conspiracy.
The role of foreign states is also clear. The same countries that speak of human rights, democracy, and women’s rights supported this illegal coup, installed Yunus in power, and rehabilitated Jamaat. With their money and diplomatic backing, the July riots were organized. Now they sit silently as the monsters they helped create strip women of their rights. This is the clearest proof of their hypocrisy.
Sections of the military are also involved in this conspiracy. They thought proximity to power would bring benefits. They forgot that once Jamaat becomes strong, it will listen to no one. The Bangladesh they once envisioned had no place for extremist forces. But now it is too late. The fire they could have extinguished will now burn them as well.
Jamaat’s statements are not only a threat to women. They are a threat to the entire country. A nation that confines half its population to the home and deprives them of education, work, and social contribution can never progress. The countries that are developed and prosperous are those where women advanced with equal rights. Those that pushed women backward remain mired in poverty, violence, and corruption. The Jamaat–Yunus alliance wants to push Bangladesh down that same road.
The constitution says men and women are equal. Human rights law says gender-based discrimination is a crime. International treaties say the state is obligated to protect women’s rights. Yet this illegal government is violating every rule. It has no accountability, no legitimacy, no moral authority. It knows it did not come to power through the people’s vote, so it feels no obligation to answer to the people. Its masters sit abroad, while inside the country its collaborators are war criminals and extremists.
These statements cannot be dismissed as personal opinions. They are a declaration. A threat. A plan. If this plan is implemented, Bangladesh will become another Afghanistan, where women are confined to their homes, denied education, and stripped of rights. Where a girl cannot go to school, cannot work, cannot dream. This would not just be a defeat for women. It would be a defeat for Bangladesh. A defeat for civilization itself.
Jamaat knows these statements are criminal under the law. But it has no fear. Because it knows there is currently no legitimate institution capable of punishing it. Courts, police, and administration are being filled with their people. The media is being controlled. Those who protest are disappeared, killed, and tortured. This is the process of building a full-fledged fascist state.
Yunus once pretended to be a champion of women’s empowerment, speaking of uplifting women through Grameen Bank. In reality, he used women as tools for his business. Now that he has political power, his true face has been revealed. He has joined hands with Jamaat, appointed war criminals as ministers, recruited extremists into the police, and begun the process of stripping women of their rights.
The people of the country must become conscious and resist all of this. This is not just a women’s struggle. It is a struggle for the entire nation. A struggle for civilization itself. Your mother, sister, daughter, wife, colleague, and teacher are all targets of this assault. Taking away their rights means dragging your family, your society, and your country backward. That can never be accepted.
