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Women from different walks of life at a protest rally on Sunday said that the culture of impunity in cases of violence, attacks, and cyberbullying against women has continued during the interim government, just as it did under the ousted Awami League regime.

They made the remark at a rally organised in front of the National Museum to protest the ongoing violence, moral policing, and cyberbullying against women across the country.

They demanded punishment for those involved in the recent attacks on women’s football matches in Rangpur, Dinajpur, and Jaipurhat, the assurance of women’s security both indoors, outdoors, and online, and the establishment of equal rights of women to property. 

Emphasising women’s significant role during the mass uprising, Revolutionary Students’ Unity Dhaka University unit president, Nuzia Hasin Rasha, said that although after the uprising women were being attacked, the government played an indifferent role in addressing the issue.  

‘We are seeing that the culture of impunity practised during the fascist AL regime continues, as those responsible for the attacks on women’s football matches have still not been brought to justice,’ she added.

She said that the government failed to establish law and order in the six months since assuming power on August 8, after Sheikh Hasina fled to India on August 5 in the face of the student-led mass uprising.  

Accusing the women advisers of not playing a ‘responsible role’ in addressing the issues, the speakers criticised the women advisers to the interim government, who, according to them, had been vocal about violence and oppression against women in the past.  

Activist Marzia Prova said that when people from all groups participated in the mass uprising, suddenly after the uprising, divisions emerged defining who are women, who are transgender, and who belong to national minority communities.   

She said that no visible measures had been taken to dispose of over a lakh of the cases under the Women and Children Repression Prevention Tribunals.    

They warned of launching a tougher movement if the interim government did not address the issue strictly.

Nari Mukti Kendra president Shima Dutta, DU associate professor Samina Luthfa from the Department of Sociology, writer Laboni Mondal, Hill Women’s Federation Dhaka unit organising secretary Riya Chakma and photographer Jannatul Mawa also spoke at the rally, where representatives from the Democratic Students’ Council, Socialist Students’ Front, and Bangladesh Students’ Union expressed their solidarity.