section_path: Background
section_name: Background
paragraph_text: Background
  
  During the 2006–2008 political crisis, Sheikh Hasina was detained on extortion charges. After she was released from jail, she won the 2008 election. In 2014, she was re-elected for a third term in an election that was boycotted by the BNP and criticised by international observers. In 2017, after nearly a million Rohingya entered the country, fleeing from genocide in Myanmar, Hasina received credit and praise for giving them refuge and assistance. She won a fourth and a fifth term after the 2018 and 2024 elections, which was marred by violence and widely criticized as being fraudulent.
  
  It is widely believed that Bangladesh experienced democratic backsliding under her premiership. Human Rights Watch documented widespread enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings under her government. Numerous politicians and journalists were systematically and judicially punished for challenging her views.
  
  The Student–People's uprising, also known as July Revolution, was a series of anti-government and pro-democracy protests in Bangladesh, spearheaded primarily by university students. Initially focused on restructuring quota-based systems for government job recruitment, the movement expanded against what many perceive as an authoritarian government when hundreds of protestors and civilians, most of whom were students, were killed. The majority of the fatalities were caused by gunshots fired by the police and other government forces, using lethal and deadly weapons, against unarmed protestors and non-protesting civilians, including children and pedestrians.
  
  Hasina resigned on 5 August 2024, as large crowds of demonstrators surrounded the prime minister's residence. Her resignation was announced by Waker-uz-Zaman, the Chief of the Army Staff. Later that day, Hasina fled to India in a chaotic departure, first by car, then by helicopter, and finally by plane. She left no written resignation letter and gave no resignation speech.