Last week Talha Mahmud Chowdhury, a student and supporter of the Revolutionary Communist International, was abducted by members of the Chhatra League, the thugs of Hasina’s Awami League, and imprisoned on serious, trumped-up charges of attempted murder and vandalism. Today we received the news that, following the fall of Hasina’s regime, he is expected to be released tomorrow.
For the crime of supporting the heroic quota movement and opposing Sheikh Hasina’s government, Talha has been locked up in the Khulshi Police Station, in Chattogram, for the past three weeks.
While government forces were marauding around the country, massacring students and workers, revolutionaries like Talha, with the courage to stand up to the real criminals, have been languishing in jail cells.
Talha would never have been released were it not for an energetic campaign bravely fought by students at his own university of East Delta University (EDU), and many more students and workers across Bangladesh. A procession in celebration organised by the students at EDU is planned for tomorrow.
We would like to send particular thanks, however, to the comrades and supporters of the Revolutionary Communist International, and readers of this website, for protesting for Talha’s release.
The billionaire press and the politicians of the so-called ‘free world’ have been completely silent about Hasina’s murders and attacks on democratic rights. In Britain, Keir Starmer’s silence is all the more conspicuous as Hasaina’s niece, Tulip Saddiq, sits behind him as a Labour minister in the House of Commons.
This complicit silence of our own ruling classes makes it all the more important, therefore, for workers and students across the world to stand in solidarity with the revolutionary masses in Bangladesh. The victorious campaign to free Talha gives a small glimpse of the importance of internationalism and the power of revolutionary solidarity.
The Revolutionary Communist International launched a worldwide campaign to free Talha, along with the thousands of other student and worker activists thrown in jail.
In London, Berlin, Dublin, and Vienna, revolutionary communist gathered to protest the criminal regime and demand Talha’s release. Supporters around the planet put pressure on their Bangladeshi embassies, high commissions, and diplomatic missions to demand Talha’s and the other detainees immediate release.
Now Talha has been freed and the tyrant has fallen. Thank you to all who protested in solidarity with Talha!
Long live the international solidarity of the workers and students of all countries!