Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami

Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami (Bengali: বাংলাদেশ জামায়াতে ইসলামী, romanized: Bānglādēsh Jāmāyatē Islāmī, lit. 'Bangladesh Islamic Congress'), previously known as Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh, or Jamaat for short, is the largest Islamist political party in Bangladesh. On 1 August 2013, the Bangladesh Supreme Court cancelled the registration of the Jamaat-e-Islami, ruling that the party is unfit to contest national elections.

Its predecessor, the Jamaat-e-Islami Pakistan, strongly opposed the independence of Bangladesh and break-up of Pakistan. In 1971, paramilitary forces associated with the party collaborated with the Pakistan Army in mass killings of Bangladeshi nationalists and pro-intellectuals.

Upon the independence of Bangladesh in 1971, the new government banned Jamaat-e-Islami from political participation since the government was secular and some of its leaders went into exile in Pakistan. Following the assassination of the first president and the military coup in 1975, the ban on the Jamaat was lifted and the new party Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh was formed. Exiled leaders were allowed to return. Abbas Ali Khan was the acting Amir of Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh. The Jamaat agenda is the creation of an "Islamic state" with the Sha'ria legal system, and outlawing "un-Islamic" practices and laws. For this reason, it interpretes their central political concept "Iqamat-e-Deen" as establishing Islamic state by possession of state power.

In the 1980s, the Jamaat joined the multi-party alliance for the restoration of democracy. It later allied with Ziaur Rahman's Bangladesh Nationalist Party and Jamaat leaders became ministers in the two BNP-led regimes of prime minister Begum Khaleda Zia (from 1991 to 1996 and from 2001 to 2006). Awami League also got involved with Jamaat to come to power in 1996. In 2008, it won two of 300 elected seats in Parliament. In 2010 the government, led by the Awami League, began prosecution of war crimes committed during the 1971 war under the International Crimes Tribunal. By 2012, two leaders of the BNP, one leader from Jatiyo Party and eight of Jamaat had been charged with war crimes, and by March 2013, three Jamaat leaders had been convicted of crimes. In response, the Jamaat held major strikes and protests across the country, which led to more than 60 deaths (mostly by security forces) and alleged mass destruction of public and national properties. This prompted calls from the secular community and various secular groups to ban Jamaat-e-Islami as a political party.