Hasina says 2024 protests were organised bid for regime change

Former Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, in her first live international press conference since fleeing the country, alleged that the July-August 2024 protests were not a peaceful student movement but an organised campaign for regime change. Speaking virtually from India, she said students were emotionally manipulated and that organised groups turned quota reform demands into a violent political instrument. Hasina expressed anguish over Bangladesh's current trajectory, saying it is not the country built with sacrifices in 1971.