SAN SALVADOR: El Salvador’s government on Saturday criticized a Paris Fashion Week show that made references to inmates at the country’s CECOT mega-prison, with President Nayib Bukele joking that he could send prisoners to France.
At Mexican American designer Willy Chavarria’s show in Paris on Friday, the white T-shirts and shorts worn by his models invoked the uniforms worn by inmates at the Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT).
Bukele had the maximum-security prison built to hold gang members nabbed in his war against organized crime.
Also imprisoned at CECOT are 252 Venezuelans deported from the United States and accused of being members of the Tren de Aragua criminal gang.
“We’re ready to ship them all to Paris whenever we get the green light from the French government,” Bukele wrote in response to an X post that said Chavarria was paying tribute to CECOT prisoners.
The president’s press secretariat said Bukele’s post showed his “firm stance against the attempt to glorify criminality.”
Since March 2022, Bukele has run an offensive against gangs under a state of emergency that allows arrests without a warrant.
The Trump administration has paid Bukele’s government millions of dollars to lock up migrants it says are criminals and gang members.
US President Donald Trump invoked a rarely used wartime legislation in March to fly migrants to El Salvador without any court hearing.
Lawyers for the Venezuelans deported to CECOT say the charges are without basis and the inmates are victims of physical and emotional torture.
El Salvador says Paris fashion show ‘glorifies’ criminals
https://arab.news/c6guu
El Salvador says Paris fashion show ‘glorifies’ criminals
Bangladesh’s leading contender for PM returns after 17 years in exile
DHAKA: Millions of supporters crowded the streets of Dhaka on Thursday to welcome Tarique Rahman, acting chairman of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, who has returned to his country after more than 17 years in exile.
Rahman, the son of ailing former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, waved to the large crowds from the front of a BNP bus escorted by security, as people lined the route from the capital’s airport to a reception venue, waving national and party flags, chanting slogans and carrying banners and flowers.
His return comes in the wake of former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s ouster last year and as Bangladesh gears up to hold general elections in February, for which he is emerging as a leading contender to become prime minister.
“As a member of the BNP, I want to say in front of you that I have a plan for the people of my country, for my country,” Rahman said as he addressed a throng of supporters in Dhaka.
“This plan is for the interest of the people of the country, for the development of the country and for changing the fate of the people. For this, I need support from each and every one of this country. If you people stand beside us, God willing, we would be able to implement those plans.”
The 60-year-old lived in London after he fled Bangladesh in 2008 over what he called a politically motivated persecution.
After facing multiple criminal convictions in Bangladesh, including money laundering and charges linked to an alleged plot to assassinate Hasina, courts acquitted him following Hasina’s removal from office, clearing the legal obstacles that delayed his return.
Rahman’s homecoming is “significant” as it comes as Bangladesh is going through a “very critical political crisis,” said analyst Prof. Dilara Choudhury.
“People of Bangladesh, they are expecting that there will be free and fair elections, and whoever wins will form the government and forward to the transition. In that sense, his return is significant.”
Bangladesh will hold parliamentary elections on Feb. 12, its first vote since a student-led uprising removed Hasina and her Awami League-led government from power in August 2024.
The South Asian nation of nearly 175 million people has since been led by interim leader Muhammad Yunus, a Nobel Prize-winning economist, who took over governance after Hasina fled to India, where she is now in self-exile.
As the Yunus-led administration has banned Awami League from all activities, meaning the former ruling party would not be able to join the upcoming race, the BNP is on course to win the largest number of parliamentary seats, according to a survey published in December by the US-based International Republican Institute.
“I believe a new era in our politics will start with the arrival of Tarique Rahman in the country,” political analyst Mahbub Ullah told Arab News.
“He will take the realms of his party with his own hand and he will do all kinds of things to organize the party and lead the party to victory in the next election.”
