Khaleda Zia Returns to Public Eye After 6 Years Amid Political Turmoil

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Zia was jailed in 2018 for graft but was released in August, just hours after Hasina fled to neighboring India when a student-led national uprising brought an end to her 15 years of iron-fisted rule. Her appearance at a reception to mark the country’s Armed Forces Day marked her first public outing since her conviction.

She was welcomed by Muhammad Yunus, a Nobel laureate helming an interim government charged with restoring the country’s democracy, with the pair photographed sitting together and chatting amiably.

“We are particularly lucky and honoured today that Begum Khaleda Zia... has graced us with her presence,” Yunus stated. “We are all delighted that she joined us today.”

At 79, Zia has been in declining health for years, confined to a wheelchair due to rheumatoid arthritis, and also suffers from diabetes and cirrhosis of the liver. Until Thursday, she had largely stayed out of the spotlight despite her release, apart from briefly addressing a political rally in a video message from a hospital bed.

Zia's Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) reported that more than two dozen of its leaders were also in attendance. Party secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir lost his composure and broke into tears upon seeing Zia at the event, as reported by the newspaper Prothom Alo.

Zia spent most of her sentence under house arrest after being relocated from prison during the coronavirus pandemic, but she was denied repeated requests to travel abroad for medical treatment. Alamgir stated at a Wednesday rally in the city of Feni that Zia was “very ill, having been kept in jail on false charges in a small, damp cell.”

Bangladeshi media outlets reported in October that Zia was expected to travel abroad for medical care in the near future, although no precise date has been provided.