Bangladesh, 2007 — military coup
Event Summary
On 11 January 2007 the military effectively took control of Bangladesh by forcing the head of the caretaker government, President Iajuddin Ahmed, to declare a state of emergency, postpone a scheduled election, and resign as chief adviser, an event widely known as 1/11. Bangladesh was in acute crisis: a caretaker administration was meant to oversee a neutral election due on 22 January, but the main opposition Awami League had announced a boycott over alleged bias and a flawed voter roll, and the United Nations and European Union had signaled they would not observe or support a one sided vote. On the evening of 11 January the service chiefs and senior officers met Iajuddin Ahmed, who was serving as both president and chief adviser, and pressed him to act.
He declared emergency, imposed a curfew, postponed the election, and stepped down as chief adviser, accepting the resignations of most of his advisers. On 12 January a new army backed caretaker government took office under former central bank governor Fakhruddin Ahmed. The emergency government ruled for nearly two years, pursued a sweeping anti-corruption drive that jailed both major party leaders, and finally held elections in December 2008.
Commentators and the caretaker's own record place the army, led by General Moeen U Ahmed, behind the change.
Researched Details
Researched
Independent research, added record by record. Hover any label for what it means.
Sources
Editorial Note
Cross-Reference
Only one dataset carries it. One of the three reference datasets we check against carries this event; the others do not list it. That is not a contradiction — the datasets cover different periods and use different thresholds — but it means the record has had less outside corroboration.
Identifiers for finding this same event in the other datasets:
- Cline Center id
77101112007
How the match is made is described in crossref-report.md.
Outcome and Target
Coup Atlas research identifies the target as: President Iajuddin Ahmed, who was serving as chief adviser and was pressured to declare emergency and resign that role while remaining president; not physically harmed.
Baseline coding: Incumbent executive removed from power. Recorded leader fate: deposed; not physically harmed. The baseline file does not name individual targets; researched names are kept in a separate layer.
Baseline Dataset Citation
Baseline Source-Document Entries
Wikipedia
The Associated Press
Financial Times
This is the citation trail carried by the baseline dataset, grouped by outlet and rejoined from the line-wrapped original. Coup Atlas has not independently re-checked every document; read the original before citing a specific claim. URLs the import damaged beyond safe repair are shown as plain text and listed in citations-report.md. How this list is built →