Sheikh Hasina has linked a proposed return to Bangladesh by December 2026 with two commitments: continuing her political work even if she is imprisoned, and rebuilding the Awami League while challenging the legal proceedings against her.
The account comes from an NDTV interview transcript supplied to AFV News and described in its report on the interview. Hasina set out her intentions, but did not identify a confirmed date of arrival, an agreed travel route or assurances from either Bangladesh or India. A pledge to return and an arrangement allowing that return are therefore separate parts of the story.
Her answers also addressed the institutions she believes Bangladesh should strengthen and the cooperation she wants among South Asian governments. The transcript presents her positions on those questions; it does not establish that the authorities she criticised have accepted her account or her proposed course.
A timetable without a disclosed agreement
December was the endpoint Hasina gave for coming home. She presented returning as a commitment to the country rather than a decision she was still considering.
Asked about official contacts or backchannel discussions with Bangladesh and India, she referred to discussions and speculation without describing a completed agreement. There was no named negotiating process, published guarantee of safe passage or explanation of how an arrival would be handled.
Hasina said she wanted a peaceful and lawful return that respected Bangladesh’s sovereignty. She also invoked her rights as a citizen and rejected the suggestion that she had voluntarily abandoned the country, saying the circumstances of her departure had been beyond her control.
Those statements explain how she frames her intended return. They do not settle the legal consequences she could face on arrival or establish an exemption from the sentence discussed in the interview.
Willingness to enter prison is not acceptance of the verdict
Hasina’s answer about imprisonment drew a distinction between facing the consequences of returning and accepting the tribunal’s judgment. She said she was prepared to face prison in order to continue serving the country and pursuing her political activities.
At the same time, she disputed the death sentence and alleged that the proceedings were driven by political motives. She accused the administration established after her departure of acting outside constitutional bounds and pursuing retribution. These are her allegations, not findings established by the interview; the supplied exchange contains no response from the tribunal or the authorities to those accusations.
Her demand was for the law to be applied fairly and for her rights to be protected throughout any judicial process. The interview did not describe an agreement changing the judgment, suspending its consequences or establishing what proceedings would follow a return.
Accountability and fair-trial standards
The legal background extends beyond Hasina’s own account. In a statement dated November 17, 2025, reproduced by ecoi.net, the UN human rights office addressed the International Crimes Tribunal’s verdicts against Hasina and a former home minister on crimes-against-humanity charges connected with the suppression of protests in 2024.
The office called for accountability consistent with international standards and effective remedies and reparations for victims. It also stressed due process, especially because the proceedings were held in the defendants’ absence and produced a capital sentence. It said it had not been privy to the trial’s conduct and reiterated its opposition to the death penalty in all circumstances.
That statement is dated background to the judgment, not a response to the supplied interview. It addresses both victims’ rights and procedural safeguards without determining the practical arrangements for Hasina’s proposed return.
A party’s organisation and its permission to participate
The interviewer raised the restrictions on the Awami League’s political activities and asked whether Hasina would lead efforts to rebuild it. She said she was already working to reconnect with supporters and strengthen its organisation across Bangladesh, indicating that she intended to remain directly involved.
Her stated priorities were peace, public confidence and renewed contact with party workers and the wider public. She described the party’s history through its role in Bangladesh’s independence and its own democratic aspirations, presenting that record as the basis for its continued political role.
The answer did not provide a detailed timetable for reorganisation or a legal mechanism to resolve restrictions on the party. Nor did it identify a specific electoral plan. Rebuilding networks of supporters is not the same as obtaining formal permission to resume the activities described in the question; the interview sets out an intention, not a resolution of that distinction.
The family history behind her argument about justice
Hasina explained her position on the justice system by recalling the killing of her father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, and other family members in August 1975. She said she and her sister were in Germany at the time and described being unable to return to Bangladesh for six years.
In her account, she returned in 1981 after being chosen to lead the Awami League. She said that, after taking office in 1996, she initiated proceedings against her father’s killers, following a period when an indemnity arrangement had prevented prosecution.
She used that history to explain her professed confidence in the principle of justice under Bangladeshi law. Her argument separated that confidence from her rejection of the particular proceedings against her. The comparison was hers; it does not make the two sets of cases legally equivalent.
Security institutions and regional cooperation
Beyond her personal and party position, Hasina argued that governments should respond to extremism by strengthening courts, public administration and civil society alongside security institutions. She called for accountability and education that counters violence and discrimination.
She also advocated intelligence-sharing and coordinated action among South Asian states, while emphasising respect for national sovereignty. She linked those proposals to economic development, religious coexistence and the preservation of social ties across communities.
Hasina referred to the 2004 grenade attack at an Awami League rally and described her administration’s efforts against militancy and insurgent groups. Those references formed part of her account of her government’s record; the interview did not independently assess the measures or their human-rights consequences.
When asked about engagement with the United States and Canada, she largely returned to the regional theme. She did not announce a specific new initiative with either government. Her emphasis was on the economic and social costs of militancy and the value she placed on cooperation across South Asia.
Taken together, the answers outline how Hasina wants to connect a personal return, a continuing party role and a programme of institutional and regional cooperation. The practical questions remain distinct: how she would travel, what legal process would apply and how restrictions on political activity would be addressed. The supplied transcript offers her intentions on those questions, not an agreed settlement of them.
Read our editorial standards or send a correction to the editorial desk.
