25/04/2019
Bangladesh opposition leader Khaleda Zia has spent more than a year in prison after being convicted on corruption charges she claimed were politically motivated.
Authorities have barred the former three-time prime minister from giving interviews during her time at the Old Dhaka Central Jail. No photographs or other images of Zia, 73, have been published since she arrived there. She has since been occasionally hospitalized due to poor health.
Now, in sketches drawn for BenarNews and based on interviews with experts and officials from Zia’s BNP party and the ruling Awami League, illustrator Rebel Pepper recreates scenes from the opposition icon’s life inside prison.
Wang Liming is a renowned political cartoonist who works under the pen name Rebel Pepper for Radio Free Asia (RFA), a sister entity of BenarNews. His work focuses on political, cultural and societal developments across Asia.
Kamran Reza Chowdhury, a Bangladeshi correspondent for Benar, contributed reporting.
