{"id":687,"date":"2013-12-28T17:34:13","date_gmt":"2013-12-28T17:34:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/?p=687"},"modified":"2013-12-28T17:34:30","modified_gmt":"2013-12-28T17:34:30","slug":"687","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/index.php\/687\/","title":{"rendered":"Bangla opposition to defy march ban"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/Dhaka.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-688\" alt=\"Dhaka\" src=\"http:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/Dhaka-300x186.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"186\" srcset=\"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/Dhaka-300x186.jpg 300w, https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/Dhaka.jpg 366w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a>Bangladesh opposition leader Khaleda Zia vowed Friday to go ahead with a mass march on Dhaka which is aimed at scuppering a Jan. 5 general election, despite a police ban.<br \/>\n\u201cI hope you will join our gathering, and defy all the obstacles that are being placed in our way, so that we can save democracy,\u201d Zia said in a video message shortly after police banned the rally scheduled for Sunday, a week before the elections.<br \/>\nThe former premier posted the video message from her home in a Dhaka neighborhood where she has been under unofficial house arrest since Wednesday, according to her Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP).<br \/>\nHer statement came shortly after Dhaka police said they would not sanction any such protest, citing fears of violence and public safety.<br \/>\n\u201cWe have not given permission to the BNP rally as we have intelligence that sabotage may occur,\u201d police spokesman Monirul Islam told AFP.<br \/>\n\u201cThe program will not be allowed because of public safety.\u201d<br \/>\nZia has previously said that she wants to lead the rally, saying it would be a way \u201cto say \u2018no\u2019 to these farcical elections.\u201d<br \/>\nThe BNP and 20 other parties have announced they are boycotting the Jan. 5 election, fearing the result will be rigged.<br \/>\nThe parties have been demanding that Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina stands down and allows a neutral caretaker government to oversee the polls as in previous contests, but she has refused to yield.<br \/>\nThe credibility of the polls has been further undermined by the refusal of foreign countries and organizations to send observers, but Hasina has insisted that they will go ahead regardless.<br \/>\n\u201cThere is no power which can stop the elections,\u201d she said in a campaign rally on Thursday.<\/p>\n<div id=\"fb-root\"><\/div>\r\n<script>(function(d, s, id) {\r\n  var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];\r\n  if (d.getElementById(id)) return;\r\n  js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id;\r\n  js.src = \"\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_GB\/all.js#xfbml=1\";\r\n  fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);\r\n}(document, \"script\", \"facebook-jssdk\"));<\/script>\r\n <fb:comments href=\"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/index.php\/687\/\" font=\"arial\" num_posts=\"\" width=\"\" height=\"\" colorscheme=\"light\"  style=\"background:#FFFFFF;padding-top:0px;\r\npadding-right:0px;\r\npadding-bottom:0px;\r\npadding-left:0px;\r\nmargin-top:0px;\r\nmargin-right:0px;\r\nmargin-bottom:0px;\r\nmargin-left:0px;\r\n\"><\/fb:comments>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Bangladesh opposition leader Khaleda Zia vowed Friday to go ahead with a mass march on Dhaka which is aimed at scuppering a Jan. 5 general election, despite a police ban. \u201cI hope you will join our gathering, and defy all the obstacles that are being placed in our way, so that we can save democracy,\u201d &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":688,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[22,1],"tags":[],"wps_subtitle":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/687"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=687"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/687\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":690,"href":"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/687\/revisions\/690"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/688"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=687"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=687"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=687"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}