BNP acting Chairman Tarique Rahman -File Photo

DHAKA, Dec 10, 2025 (BSS) - BNP Acting Chairman Tarique Rahman today said that he was stripped of the most basic rights of voicing his opinion over the last 15-16 years.

"In those years, even I was stripped of the most basic rights of voicing my opinion. Since 2015, I was silenced by an order prohibiting newspapers, electronic media and social media in the country from publishing or airing my words,” he wrote in a post on his verified Facebook page today.  

He added, “Yet even from enforced silence, I kept fighting for the rights and democracy denied to millions, proving that a spirit committed to justice cannot be muted by decree."

Mentioning the dangerous tenure of Awami League, he said that for 16 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.

In the facebook post, Tarique Rahman also mentioned that BNP was more oppressed by the fascist government. 

"No party 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 July mass uprising, it was again BNP’s ranks that suffered the highest number of deaths and injuries."

The Acting Chairman emphasized that the suffering under the fugitive autocratic regime extends beyond the political sphere, impacting students, writers, journalists, bystanders, and ordinary citizens. 

He said that a climate where fear replaced the ‘everyday essentials’ that today’s Human Rights Day asks us to protect, the essentials of dignity, safety, and freedom of expression has taken hold.

Tarique Rahman paid tribute to former Prime Minister Begum Khaleda Zia, describing her as "one of the clearest symbols of endurance" throughout what he termed "long dark years."

"Her years marked by imprisonment, politically driven cases, and persistent attempts to erase 
her mirrored the broader experience of a society bulldozed into living under an increasingly authoritarian regime," he said.

He noted that despite the adversity, Khaleda Zia has remained steadfast in her commitment that rights belong to every citizen and that a nation cannot thrive when fear shapes its public life. 

Tarique Rahman shared a personal reflection, linking Begum Zia’s resilience to the experience of countless ordinary people. In this connection, he referred the agony of his mother (Khaleda Zia) of seeing her son imprisoned and tortured and the loss of his brother, which he attributed to targeted repression.

Tarique Rahman stressed that the nation's needs now are larger than politics. He articulated a vision for a "united country where human rights are guaranteed, where plurality of opinions are welcomed, where opposition is a healthy part of democracy rather than a threat, and where no one is erased for their beliefs."

The BNP leader affirmed BNP's commitment to building this future through a principled stand like as the party is choosing resolution over retribution, rejecting the politics of vengeance. The party insist that no Bangladeshi, regardless of political affiliation, should ever again fear the institutions created to protect their rights, he wrote.