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DHAKA: Police fired teargas and used stun grenades and batons to disperse protesters outside Bangladesh’s national Parliament complex Friday, as tensions soared over the interim government’s new political charter.
Some protesters vandalized a police vehicle and makeshift tents, and others clashed with soldiers and security officials in the capital Dhaka. Witnesses said several people were injured.
The clashes broke out after several hundred people, who described themselves as those whose protests ousted former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, started demonstrating Friday. They expressed anger that their concerns were not addressed in the new charter, despite their loved ones dying during last year’s mass uprising against Hasina.
The interim government, headed by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus, has invited the country’s main political parties to sign a new political charter Friday to pave the way for a raft of political reforms.
The “July National Charter,” named after the national uprisings that started in July 2024, outlines a roadmap for constitutional amendments, legal changes and the enactment of new laws.
A National Consensus Commission formed by the Yunus’ government prepared the charter after a series of talks with the major political parties, except Hasina’s Awami League party.
The Bangladesh Nationalist Party, headed by former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, and eight like-minded parties said they would sign the charter.
Hasina, who was toppled last August after huge protests, is in exile in India and is being tried in absentia on charges of crimes against humanity. The United Nations has said that up to 1,400 people may have been killed in the weeks-long uprising last year.
Yunus has promised to hold the next national election in February. But questions remain whether the election would be inclusive without Hasina’s party and its allies in the race.
The country’s largest Islamist party, Jamaat-e-Islami, has remained undecided about signing the charter, while a newly-formed student-led party, National Citizen Party, said it would not take part.

ROME: A prominent Italian journalist threatened by the mafia had his parked car blown up by a bomb overnight, causing no injuries but sparking widespread outrage Friday from politicians and press groups.
Sigfrido Ranucci’s vehicle was destroyed by the explosion in Pomezia, near Rome, which also damaged the family’s other car and the house next door, according to his investigative television show.
“The force of the explosion was so strong that it could have killed anyone passing by at that moment,” Report, which broadcasts on RAI public television, said in a statement on X.
Anti-mafia prosecutors in Rome are investigating the attack on Ranucci, who has lived under police protection since 2014 due to death threats.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni strongly condemned what she called a “serious act of intimidation.”
“The freedom and independence of information are non-negotiable values of our democracies, which we will continue to defend,” she wrote on X.
Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi said he had ordered an increase in the journalist’s security “to the maximum.”
Video footage of the aftermath posted by Report on social media showed twisted metal and shattered car windows.
“At least one kilo of explosives was used,” Ranucci told the Corriere della Sera daily.
His son had used his car earlier, while his daughter had walked by 20 minutes before the bomb exploded, he said.

- Bullets -

Report is known for its in-depth investigative reports and Ranucci has also written a book on the mafia.
In a 2021 television program, he described how a former prisoner told him that mobsters “had given the order to kill you” after his book was published, but the hit “was stopped.”
Ranucci told Corriere he had also received various threats recently, including finding two bullets outside his house.
On Sunday, he revealed the highlights of the upcoming Report series on social media, including investigative reports into the powerful ‘Ndrangheta organized crime group in Calabria and the Sicilian Mafia.
According to campaign group Reporters Without Borders (RSF), Italy ranks 49th in the world for press freedom.
Pavol Szalai, RSF’s Europe head, told AFP it was “the most serious attack against an Italian reporter in recent years.”
“Press freedom itself is facing an existential threat in Italy.”
The group warned in its last update that journalists who investigate organized crime and corruption are “systematically threatened and sometimes subjected to physical violence.”
About 20 journalists currently live under permanent police protection after being the targets of intimidation and attacks, it said.
The most high profile is Roberto Saviano, best known for his international mafia bestseller “Gomorrah.”
Saviano linked the attack on Ranucci to a political climate in Italy in which journalist are seen as legitimate “targets.”