Condemned before being heard: 403 students and the death of due process on Bangladeshi campuses

When a government bans a political organisation, it faces a legal obligation to ensure that the ban does not reach back in time. This is no mere technical requirement; it is one of the oldest rules of constitutional law—the prohibition on ex post facto laws. The reason for its existence is simple: In a democratic society, a government cannot retroactively classify a past action as a crime, with punitive consequences, that was not a crime at the time the law was enacted.

Following August 5, 2024, the interim administration led by Muhammad Yunus violated this principle by expelling and suspending students allegedly associated with the Bangladesh Chhatra League from public universities in Bangladesh without any hearing, charges, or even the constitutional rights granted to students.

It is a consequence that the current administration has the authority, and the constitutional obligation, to correct.

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None of these students has been convicted in a court of law. None has been given an individual hearing. Many have never been informed of a specific charge. They have been told — through show-cause notices and administrative rulings — that their academic lives are over.

The human consequences extend far beyond the campus. Students are outcasts, socially ostracised, and are hiding out. One student has not returned to his home in two years. Another could not attend a close family member’s funeral. False criminal cases were filed against the fathers of suspended students. Family businesses were taken.

Multiple students record, in their voluntarily submitted testimonies, having stood at the edge of suicide. One writes, "There were many times I felt like committing suicide so that everything would just end. But thinking of my family and considering religious aspects, I could not do it."

These testimonies were collected voluntarily, signed, and consented to for documentation and advocacy purposes. They describe—across five separate accounts, with convergent language and grief—the same experience: a future planned, possibly underway, and cancelled by an institution that proceeded without the legal authority it claimed.

There are two specific, separable legal concerns that the current administration is well-positioned to address.

First, the ban must not have a retrospective effect.

The conduct for which students are being punished—political affiliations, social media posts, and attendance at campus protests—occurred in July and August 2024, before the ban was enacted.

A foundational principle recognised in Articles 31 and 35 of Bangladesh’s Constitution and in the international human rights obligations Bangladesh has undertaken is that no person must be penalised for conduct that was not unlawful at the time it was committed.

Affiliation with the Chhatra League before October 2024 was not an offence. It cannot be treated as one now.

A formal directive by the administration to this end will not reinstate any of the proscribed organisations. All it will do is ensure that the ban has the legal force intended by the Constitution – namely, prospective, not retrospective.

No disciplinary process initiated by any university based purely on pre-ban association can continue until then.

Second, proceedings against individual students must be individual.

In November 2025, Proctor’s office at the University of Dhaka issued a show-cause notice to 403 students at once, calling upon them to justify themselves against being expelled permanently from the institution.

The offence referred to in the notice in full was “occurrences from July 15 until August 5, 2024”, without specifying individual crimes and evidence on record against anyone.

The then proctor also recommended “cancelling the degree certificates of those students who have already graduated.”

Initially, the university’s fact-finding committee identified 128 students out of the 403 who were expelled. An additional 275 faced the prospect of permanent administrative expulsion.

83 students of the 403 filed written replies to the show-cause notices.

In its reply, it claims that the notice “presumes guilt” and shifts the burden of proof to the students, which is unconstitutional because the principle of ‘innocent until proven guilty’ is a basic rule of justice in both civil and criminal cases.

The reply cites Articles 27, 31, and 32 of the Constitution regarding equality before the law, protection by the law, and the right to life, respectively, and the rule of audi alteram partem, meaning that “no man should be condemned unheard".

This argument is constitutionally valid.

Individual hearings with individual evidence and individual judgement are not merely procedural formalities. They are constitutional prerequisites.

The scale of what surrounds these individual cases is not incidental. During the interim administration’s regime, the breakdown of the rule of law and mob violence became an “alarming routine” across academic institutions, targeting students and teachers.

In all instances, the administration’s silence was concerning; in some cases, the administration surprisingly justified the mob action.

The interim regime is over, and now Bangladesh has a government constituted under the Constitution. A government dedicated to governance under the Constitution will have special concerns about avoiding using political change as an excuse for extralegal punishment, precisely what the rule of law is meant to guard against.

A Vision for Student Politics: Is Ban a Solution?

Student politics in Bangladesh sits in limbo. Students lead every episode of the movement in Bangladesh, yet their politics remain deeply controversial because of the violent practice, confrontation, and history of bloodshed.

Many students affiliated with the Chhatra League believe student politics is not a vehicle for power and should not exist merely for slogans.

“We want to identify real problems within the education system and develop practical, forward-looking solutions." Aqib Muhammed Fuad, the International Affairs Secretary of the Bangladesh Central Chhatra League, shares his political vision.

“We wanted politics to become more intellectually grounded and socially constructive," he states.

It is a mechanism for strengthening social cohesion and national confidence—not deepening divisions. For him, as for many, the ban on the Chhatra League was a blow to his vision.

A Demand for Justice

Each of the testimonies gathered for documentation echoed the same yearning: “I enrolled at the university with a beautiful dream in my heart.”

Most of them had a plan: the Bangladesh Civil Service, the Bangladesh Judicial Service, a government job, a stable salary, and a future in which their mothers, fathers, and siblings would be safe.

Those plans are now frozen. Graduation dates have disappeared into indefinite postponement. Tutoring income — for several of them, their only income — ended when they were forced to flee. Some are borrowing money to eat.

Despite the exhaustion and the fear of the unknown, these students are hopeful that the truth shall prevail.

One of the students was expelled indefinitely from the University of Chittagong for posting the words “Bengali, Bengali" in response to the chant “Who am I, who am I? Razakar, Razkar” closes his testimony that was not a complaint.

He states: “Despite not committing any criminal offence or illegal act, I have been expelled from the university solely for believing in the spirit of the Liberation War and being affiliated with a partisan political organisation. As a citizen of an independent, sovereign country, I have the right to organise."

It is a statement of principle, asserted with quiet dignity by a young man who has lost almost everything except the conviction that he was right.

The phrase “beautiful dream” carries a particular weight in these testimonies. It does not describe a vague aspiration. It describes a contract—the agreement between a country and its young people that effort, sacrifice, and belief in something would be repaid with a future.

The youth are calling for protection as citizens, referencing Bangladesh’s Constitution.

The Constitution, which predates every political development since August 2024 and which will outlast all of them, says their futures cannot be murdered arbitrarily with a flick of a pen.

(Sangita F Gazi is a lecturer at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, and a Transatlantic Technology Law Fellow at Stanford Law School. Previously, she was an assistant legal advisor at the US Department of Justice-OPDAT at the US Embassy in Dhaka. The views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.)