BNP Senior Joint Secretary General Ruhul Kabir Rizvi. File photo

DHAKA, Aug 20, 2025 (BSS) - BNP Senior Joint Secretary General Ruhul Kabir Rizvi today said the country may have to go through a more dangerous path to restore democracy.

"Democracy has not been restored yet. That is why the leaders and activists at all levels of our party and nationalist forces are ready," he said at a press conference held at the BNP central office in the city's Naya Paltan.

Ruhul Kabir Rizvi said that imperialist powers and hegemonic scoundrels have tried to grab the map of this country.

He said, "Shaheed President Ziaur Rahman restored the enlightened multi-party democracy from the dark region of Baksal and ensured the freedom of the press. He was brutally murdered at the Chattogram Circuit House on May 30, 1981, due to a national and international conspiracy. In such a short time, he gave the people security, comfort and assurance of survival. But the conspirators could not tolerate it. That is why he was murdered."

The senior BNP leader said, "For the last 16 years, the fallen fascism of 1975 has been in power in a new form. For the past 16 years, misrule, secret assassinations, attempts to destroy opposition politics, trampling on the press, and suppression of dissenting politics have continued."

Rizvi said BNP Acting Chairman Tarique Rahman well-organised the student-people movement during the July Uprising.

BNP National Standing Committee member Nazrul Islam Khan, Joint Secretary Generals Khairul Kabir Khokon, Shahid Uddin Chowdhury Annie and Abdus Salam Azad, and Organising Secretary GK Ghaus, among others, were present at the press conference.