DHAKA, Bangladesh — Bangladesh’s International Crimes Tribunal on Thursday issued an arrest warrant in absentia for Sajeeb Wazed Joy, the U.S.-based son of deposed Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, accusing him of crimes against humanity for his alleged role in the nationwide internet blackout that prosecutors say enabled mass killings during last year’s student-led uprising.
Joy, 54, who served as his mother’s unofficial adviser on information and communication technology, is charged alongside former junior ICT minister Zunaid Ahmed Palak with orchestrating the five-day internet shutdown at the height of the July-August 2024 protests. Tribunal chairman Justice Md Golam Mortuza Majumder ruled that the blackout was a deliberate plan to suppress the movement by preventing protesters from organizing and documenting security-force violence. Palak is already in custody; Joy, who has lived in the Washington, D.C. area for years, is unlikely to be extradited in the near future.
In a separate case heard the same day, the tribunal accepted formal charges against former law minister Anisul Huq and former industry and investment adviser Salman F. Rahman for their alleged involvement in ordering mass killings under curfew during the same period. Both men are currently detained on other charges and will appear in court on December 10.
The warrants are the latest in a widening series of prosecutions against Hasina’s inner circle since she fled to India on August 5, 2024, ending her 15-year rule. Hasina herself was sentenced to death in absentia last month for her role in the crackdown, a verdict she and her son have denounced as a politically motivated show trial.
What began in June 2024 as a student movement against job-quota reforms rapidly escalated into the largest anti-government uprising in Bangladesh’s history. Sparked by a High Court decision reinstating a 30 percent quota for descendants of 1971 liberation war veterans, the protests tapped into deep youth frustration over chronic unemployment, corruption, and authoritarian governance. When the government responded with violence—first through ruling-party student-wing attacks, then police gunfire—the movement morphed into a nationwide revolt demanding Hasina’s resignation.
Security forces killed protesters with live ammunition, shotgun pellets, and sniper fire. Hospitals reported hundreds of eye injuries from rubber bullets and metal pellets deliberately aimed at faces. On July 19 alone—now known as “Pistol Sunday”—at least 450 people were killed across Dhaka in a single day of coordinated shooting. A nationwide curfew, military deployment, and the complete internet blackout from July 18 to 23 isolated demonstrators and prevented real-time documentation of atrocities.
A United Nations fact-finding mission concluded in February 2025 that up to 1,400 people were killed and more than 20,000 injured between mid-July and mid-August, with 78 percent of deaths caused by gunfire. The report described a systematic campaign of extrajudicial killings, torture, and arbitrary arrests orchestrated at the highest levels of the Awami League government. Children made up 12–13 percent of the fatalities.
Prosecutors allege Joy, as the de facto overseer of Bangladesh’s digital infrastructure, personally coordinated with telecom operators and the National Telecommunication Monitoring Centre to execute the blackout—an act they say amounted to a crime against humanity by facilitating unrestrained violence. Huq and Rahman are accused of endorsing “shoot-at-sight” orders that led to hundreds of deaths during curfew.
The reconstituted International Crimes Tribunal—originally created to try 1971 war crimes—has filed 18 cases against 119 individuals since August 2024. Critics, including some international human rights organizations, have raised concerns about due process and the risk of victor’s justice, but the interim government led by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus has vowed to pursue accountability while inviting continued UN oversight.
Joy has previously dismissed all accusations as fabrications by political opponents. From his home in the United States, he maintains an active presence on social media defending his mother’s legacy and criticizing the current administration.
One year after the uprising—now officially commemorated as the “July Revolution”—Bangladesh remains deeply polarized. The interim government has enshrined the movement in the constitution, declared August 5 a national holiday, and recognized 1,581 fallen protesters as “July Warriors.” Yet trials of former regime figures, attacks on Awami League supporters, and ongoing economic challenges continue to test the country’s fragile transition.
As the tribunal’s docket grows, the cases against Joy, Huq, Rahman, and dozens of others represent a defining test for Bangladesh: whether it can deliver justice for one of the bloodiest chapters in its post-independence history without descending into revenge.
