Reporter Name 
BNP Acting Chairman Tarique Rahman has said that Bangladesh ‘lived beneath a darkened sky’ for the past 16 years.
He made this comment in a Facebook post on Human Rights Day on Wednesday.
“For sixteen long years, Bangladesh lived beneath a darkened sky. Some felt it sharply, others carried the weight quietly. But for many, especially those whose politics diverged from the deposed regime’s ruling line, the darkness was a lived reality: midnight knocks, fabricated cases, brutality endured, terror seeping into daily culture, and families waiting by doors that never opened again.”
Tarique said no political organisation bore this burden more than BNP. “Across extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, custodial deaths, and false charges, BNP leaders, activists and supporters formed the largest share of the wounded and missing. And in the 2024 mass uprising, it was again BNP’s ranks that suffered the highest number of deaths and injuries.”
”But the pain extended far beyond a single political group, affecting students, journalists, writers and ordinary citizens who lost the everyday essentials of dignity, safety and freedom of expression that today’s Human Rights Day asks us to protect.”
Tarique Rahman added, ”In those years, I was stripped of the most basic right of voicing my opinion as I was silenced by an order prohibiting newspapers, electronic media and social media in the country from publishing or airing his words since 2015.”
He also highlighted the suffering endured by his mother and BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia, whom he described as a national symbol of resilience through imprisonment, political cases and attempts to erase her legacy.
“Yet she remained steadfast in the principles she had upheld throughout Bangladesh’s democratic journey. She has always championed that rights belong to every citizen, and that a nation cannot thrive when fear shapes its public life. Her resilience was never hers alone; it reflected the resilience of countless ordinary people,” the BNP leader said.
Sharing personal accounts, Tarique said his own mother endured the pain of seeing her son tortured in custody, while his family also suffered the loss of his brother.
Yet, he said, this “pain does not always produce bitterness,” but instead strengthens the resolve to build a fairer future.
Yet, he said, this “pain does not always produce bitterness,” but instead strengthens the resolve to build a fairer future.
