On January 5, the government again refused to give permission to the Bangladesh Nationalist Party to hold its planned rally in Dhaka, while police too foiled the party's procession in at least 25 districts and upazilas across the country. The ruling party repeatedly gets permission to congregate and not the opposition. The state of democracy is quite clear.

Practice of democracy demands that all parties should have the right to convene as long as they do it peacefully. If activists of the opposition had broken the law, that would be another thing. However, it is completely unacceptable that the government continually refuses its oppositions their right to assemble peacefully altogether using the full might of the state.

Moreover, given that this is an election year, it is of course understandable that opposition parties will seek to hold meetings and other types of events. It is another duty of the government, in fact, to ensure that its oppositions are granted the political space to conduct their events which, as is becoming clear, the government is still not willing to do.

Meanwhile, the excuse that the government has been using—that of public safety—to thwart any programmes of its oppositions is looking flimsier by the day. And it is becoming more and more obvious that the government and the ruling party are perhaps refusing opposition activists their basic right to assemble simply because of political reasons, rather than that of public safety.

The realisation that the government needs to come to is that holding rallies or demonstrations peacefully and within specified areas must be allowed. Otherwise, our claims of democracy would become a sham.