Showing posts with label Justice. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Justice. Show all posts
Saturday, March 2, 2013
Friday, March 1, 2013
Death Sentence Given to Bangladesh Islamist Sparks Fatal Clashes
Source: Bloomberg News
Bangladesh’s war crimes tribunal sentenced a senior member of the country’s biggest Islamic party to death, sparking fatal violence nationwide.
Bangladesh’s war crimes tribunal sentenced a senior member of the country’s biggest Islamic party to death, sparking fatal violence nationwide.
A panel of judges yesterday found Jamaat-e-Islami leader Delwar Hossain Sayedee guilty of committing crimes against humanity during Bangladesh’s independence struggle in 1971, Syed Haider Ali, a prosecutor, said in comments on live television.
The tribunal’s first verdict since protesters began occupying a Dhaka square to demand capital punishment for the guilty was followed by clashes between activists of Jamaat and security forces, which the Daily Star newspaper reported left as many as 13 people dead, three of them policemen.
The International Crimes Tribunal’s rulings have reopened wounds from the war more than four decades ago that led to the founding of Bangladesh. Thousands of protesters demanding the most severe punishments for those convicted have occupied Shahbag square in central Dhaka since judges sentenced another Jamaat leader to life in prison on Feb. 5.
Sayedee, 73, who was in court when the verdict was delivered, faced 19 charges including the murder of civilians, collaborating with the Pakistani army to kill and torture unarmed people, torching homes and carrying out atrocities against the Hindu community, according to a court document detailing the indictment. Eight charges were proved beyond reasonable doubt, Ali said.
“It’s a victory day, it’s a day of joy. Through this verdict, the nation is seeing the resurgence of liberation war spirits,” Attorney General Mahbubey Alam told reporters at the tribunal premises in Dhaka amid heightened security.
Fight Continues
Sayedee was sentenced to death on two specific charges of killing unarmed people in the southern district of Pirojpur, Alam said.
The judges -- led by Justice A.T.M. Fazle Kabir -- said in their summary of the verdict that international law imposed no statute of limitations on war crimes.
Demonstrators led by Imran Sarkar, convener of a group known as the Bloggers and Online Activists Network, called for the death penalty for Sayedee as they poured into the capital’s financial district of Motijheel Feb. 27.
“We won’t give up the fight until we get justice,” Sarkar said in a statement to the media. The protesters later relocated to Shahbag, the rallying point for anti-Jamaat activists. Jamaat called for a national strike, demanding Sayedee be freed.
Dhaka Rallies
At the end of British colonial rule in 1947, East and West Pakistan were separated by 2,000 kilometers (1,241 miles) of Indian territory. Pakistani troops in 1971 attempted to quell a nationalist uprising in the east that was triggered by the jailing of Hasina’s father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, who had led his Awami League to victory in elections. The war ended nine months later with the creation of Bangladesh after Indian forces helped defeat Pakistan’s army.
As crowds swelled in Shahbag, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wajed Feb. 17 empowered the tribunal to punish any organization whose members carried out crimes during the independence fight. The move sparked reports the government was preparing to ban Jamaat, an extremist group which sided with Pakistan during the war and whose members account for nine of the dozen people facing the tribunal.
Previously judges could only put individuals on trial. In another change, prosecutors can now appeal any of the panel’s verdicts.
Historic Wrong
In a sign of the widespread anger the alleged mass murders, rapes and abductions four decades ago can still provoke, the Dhaka protest site has drawn bloggers, writers, singers, teachers, students, and the country’s cricket team. Police say the gathering has at times swelled to 100,000 people.
While the prime minister says the tribunal is about righting an historic wrong, opponents have called the trials politically motivated. Jamaat is an ally of Hasina’s main rival, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, and won nearly 5 percent of votes cast in the nation’s parliamentary election in 2008, according to the Bangladesh Election Commission.
The Shahbag protests began after the tribunal Feb. 5 gave a jail term to Jamaat leader Abdul Quader Mollah.
The protesters defend their call for the death penalty for the guilty by saying that people like Mollah would be freed from jail if Jamaat once again has a role in government.
Sayedee was involved in the abduction, confinement and rape of women, including Hindus, in Pirojpur, according to the court document. He also forced some Hindus to convert to Islam, an act the court considers a crime against humanity.
Saturday, February 27, 2010
শেকড়ের কাছে ফিরে আসা
ঠিক দিনক্ষণ গুণে ফিরে আসিনি। তবে এখানে শেষ লেখার দিকে তাকিয়ে মনে হলো গত এক বছরে এদিকে আসা হয়নি কোন লেখা নিয়ে। নতুন করে আসলে ফাঁদতে হয় নতুন কোন অজুহাত বা গল্প। সেরকম প্রথাচারিতার অনুশীলন করে একটা গল্প শেয়ার করতে চাই। বেশ ক'মাস আগে এক অনুষ্ঠানে দেখা হলো প্রজন্ম একাত্তরের এক জনের সাথে। বিজনেস কার্ড হাতে ধরিয়ে বললেন, "ভাইয়া, একদিন আসুন না, আপনার সাথে একটু আলাপ করি"। আমি একজন অতি সাধারণ মানুষ, অসাধারণদের স্পর্শ পেলে নিজেকেও অসাধারণ ভাবতে থাকি। তাই একদিন ফোন করে নিজেই যেচে তার বিজনেস অফিসে গেলাম।
আধা ঘন্টা অফিসে অপেক্ষা করার পর যখন অন্দরমহলে ডাক পড়ল তখন একরৈখিকভাবে আলাপ শুরু হলো কোন বিজনেস নিয়ে নয়। একাত্তর নিয়ে। মুখোমুখি হয়েছি প্রজন্ম একাত্তরের একজন যার বাবা শহীদ হয়েছেন। কি ভাবনা তার? যুদ্ধাপরাধীদের বিচার নিয়ে কি ভাবছেন? প্রজন্ম একাত্তরের আবেদন অনেক বেশী। নবীন ও তরুণদেরকে তারা অনেক বেশী প্রেরণা দিতে পারবেন - এ বিশ্বাস আমার প্রবল। আলাপকালে কথা উঠল ব্লগানো নিয়ে। ইয়াহু গ্রুপে এক্টিভিজম আর ৭১'এর এডভোকেসী নিয়ে। কিন্তু আলাপ সচল হয় না। বারবার থমকে দাঁড়ায়। তার আলাপে আশাবাদ ব্যক্ত হয়, কোন প্রতিশ্রুতি প্রকাশ পায় না।
বারবার ঘুরে ফিরে ব্যক্তিগত বিজনেসের আলাপ উঠে আসে যার প্রতি আমার বিন্দুমাত্রও আগ্রহ নেই। কিন্তু আমি নাছোর বান্দা মানুষ। আমি ইনিয়ে বিনিয়ে বিষয়টি আবারও একাত্তরের কাছে নিয়ে আসি। এক পর্যায়ে সে নিজেই বলে উঠে, "জানেন ভাইয়া, আমার বয়স হয়েছে। আজকে বয়স যদি কম থাকতো, তাহলে অনেক কিছুই করতে পারতাম..."। দেয়ালে ঝুলে থাকা তার বাবার ছবিটার দিকে তাকিয়ে নিষ্পলক দৃস্টিতে ভাবতে থাকি এই নির্লিপ্ততা তার বাবার মতো লক্ষ লক্ষ শহীদদের জন্য কতোটা বেদনাদায়ক। এই নির্লিপ্ততা কি প্রজন্মগত শূণ্যতা? হতাশা, অবিশ্বাস অথবা অস্পস্টতার বিশুদ্ধতম প্রকাশ? অথবা পরিকল্পিতভাবে ৭১ নিয়ে বিস্মৃতি ও বিকৃতির বাইপ্রোডাক্ট হিসেবে এই অসংবেদনশীলতার প্রকাশ? এজন্যই যুদ্ধাপরাধীদের বিচারের নিয়ে নতুনভাবে একটি মোমেন্টাম তৈরীর খুব দরকার।
৭১'এর যুদ্ধাপরাধীদের বিচার একটি অমীমাংসিত বাস্তবতা। বর্তমান মহাজোট সরকার যুদ্ধাপরাধীদের বিচার করার ম্যান্ডেট নিয়ে ক্ষমতায় এসেছে। গত ছয় মাস ধরেই তারা জায়গা আর জনবল ঠিক করে যাচ্ছে। কিন্তু প্রক্রিয়াটা এখনও বড্ডো ঝাপসা আর অস্পস্ট। মার্চ মাসে যুদ্ধাপরাধের কাজ শুরু হবে, শেষ হবে কবে? এমনেস্টি ইন্টারন্যাশনাল, ইউরোপীয়ান ইউনিয়ন আর বিগ ব্রাদার্সরা ওয়াচ করছেন, তারাও এখন স্বচ্ছতা খুঁজছেন। ৭৫'এর পর এখনই সবচেয়ে বেশী স্বচ্ছতার দরকার!!
যুদ্ধাপরাধীদের বিচার ঠেকাতে রাজাকার-জামাতী ও তাদের জাতীয়তাবাদী ব্রাদাররা দেশে বিদেশে নেটওয়ার্কিং শুরু করছেন প্রবলভাবে। গত বছর হলো বিডিআর বিদ্রোহ। এবারে একই সময়ে কাকতালীয়ভাবে শুরু হয়েছে পাহাড়ী-বাঙ্গালী যুদ্ধ। দেশ দ্রুত হাঁটছে অনিশ্চয়তার দিকে। স্বাধীনতার বিপক্ষের শক্তি বসে নেই। তারা নীরবে নিভৃতে কাজ করছে। টেইলারের দোকানে মুজিব কোর্টের অর্ডার একটু বেশী পড়বে তা কোন মৌসুমী পূর্বাভাস নয়। যুদ্ধাপরাধী বর্ণচোরারা চিরকালই লেবাস বদলাতে বড্ডো সিদ্ধহস্ত। তার খোলসেই চলবে নতুন করে ধান্ধাবাজি। তাই, ৭১ নিয়ে আলোচনা আর মতামত অগ্রসর করার খুব দরকার। যুদ্ধাপরাধীদের বিচারের দাবীতে দরকার এর সপক্ষে জনমত প্রবলতর করার। দরকার শেকড়ের কাছে ফিরে আসার।
আধা ঘন্টা অফিসে অপেক্ষা করার পর যখন অন্দরমহলে ডাক পড়ল তখন একরৈখিকভাবে আলাপ শুরু হলো কোন বিজনেস নিয়ে নয়। একাত্তর নিয়ে। মুখোমুখি হয়েছি প্রজন্ম একাত্তরের একজন যার বাবা শহীদ হয়েছেন। কি ভাবনা তার? যুদ্ধাপরাধীদের বিচার নিয়ে কি ভাবছেন? প্রজন্ম একাত্তরের আবেদন অনেক বেশী। নবীন ও তরুণদেরকে তারা অনেক বেশী প্রেরণা দিতে পারবেন - এ বিশ্বাস আমার প্রবল। আলাপকালে কথা উঠল ব্লগানো নিয়ে। ইয়াহু গ্রুপে এক্টিভিজম আর ৭১'এর এডভোকেসী নিয়ে। কিন্তু আলাপ সচল হয় না। বারবার থমকে দাঁড়ায়। তার আলাপে আশাবাদ ব্যক্ত হয়, কোন প্রতিশ্রুতি প্রকাশ পায় না।
বারবার ঘুরে ফিরে ব্যক্তিগত বিজনেসের আলাপ উঠে আসে যার প্রতি আমার বিন্দুমাত্রও আগ্রহ নেই। কিন্তু আমি নাছোর বান্দা মানুষ। আমি ইনিয়ে বিনিয়ে বিষয়টি আবারও একাত্তরের কাছে নিয়ে আসি। এক পর্যায়ে সে নিজেই বলে উঠে, "জানেন ভাইয়া, আমার বয়স হয়েছে। আজকে বয়স যদি কম থাকতো, তাহলে অনেক কিছুই করতে পারতাম..."। দেয়ালে ঝুলে থাকা তার বাবার ছবিটার দিকে তাকিয়ে নিষ্পলক দৃস্টিতে ভাবতে থাকি এই নির্লিপ্ততা তার বাবার মতো লক্ষ লক্ষ শহীদদের জন্য কতোটা বেদনাদায়ক। এই নির্লিপ্ততা কি প্রজন্মগত শূণ্যতা? হতাশা, অবিশ্বাস অথবা অস্পস্টতার বিশুদ্ধতম প্রকাশ? অথবা পরিকল্পিতভাবে ৭১ নিয়ে বিস্মৃতি ও বিকৃতির বাইপ্রোডাক্ট হিসেবে এই অসংবেদনশীলতার প্রকাশ? এজন্যই যুদ্ধাপরাধীদের বিচারের নিয়ে নতুনভাবে একটি মোমেন্টাম তৈরীর খুব দরকার।
৭১'এর যুদ্ধাপরাধীদের বিচার একটি অমীমাংসিত বাস্তবতা। বর্তমান মহাজোট সরকার যুদ্ধাপরাধীদের বিচার করার ম্যান্ডেট নিয়ে ক্ষমতায় এসেছে। গত ছয় মাস ধরেই তারা জায়গা আর জনবল ঠিক করে যাচ্ছে। কিন্তু প্রক্রিয়াটা এখনও বড্ডো ঝাপসা আর অস্পস্ট। মার্চ মাসে যুদ্ধাপরাধের কাজ শুরু হবে, শেষ হবে কবে? এমনেস্টি ইন্টারন্যাশনাল, ইউরোপীয়ান ইউনিয়ন আর বিগ ব্রাদার্সরা ওয়াচ করছেন, তারাও এখন স্বচ্ছতা খুঁজছেন। ৭৫'এর পর এখনই সবচেয়ে বেশী স্বচ্ছতার দরকার!!
যুদ্ধাপরাধীদের বিচার ঠেকাতে রাজাকার-জামাতী ও তাদের জাতীয়তাবাদী ব্রাদাররা দেশে বিদেশে নেটওয়ার্কিং শুরু করছেন প্রবলভাবে। গত বছর হলো বিডিআর বিদ্রোহ। এবারে একই সময়ে কাকতালীয়ভাবে শুরু হয়েছে পাহাড়ী-বাঙ্গালী যুদ্ধ। দেশ দ্রুত হাঁটছে অনিশ্চয়তার দিকে। স্বাধীনতার বিপক্ষের শক্তি বসে নেই। তারা নীরবে নিভৃতে কাজ করছে। টেইলারের দোকানে মুজিব কোর্টের অর্ডার একটু বেশী পড়বে তা কোন মৌসুমী পূর্বাভাস নয়। যুদ্ধাপরাধী বর্ণচোরারা চিরকালই লেবাস বদলাতে বড্ডো সিদ্ধহস্ত। তার খোলসেই চলবে নতুন করে ধান্ধাবাজি। তাই, ৭১ নিয়ে আলোচনা আর মতামত অগ্রসর করার খুব দরকার। যুদ্ধাপরাধীদের বিচারের দাবীতে দরকার এর সপক্ষে জনমত প্রবলতর করার। দরকার শেকড়ের কাছে ফিরে আসার।
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Moulana Abul Kalam Sued for War Crime
Source: Daily Star
April 21, 2009
A case was filed yesterday against Moulana Abul Kalam, alleged commander of Al Badr Bahini in Faridpur during the Liberation War, and his brother-in-law on charge of committing war crimes.
Bhakta Ranjan Biswas, son of Madhab Chandra Biswas of Purura Namopara village, filed the case with a Judicial Magistrate's Court against Kalam alias Bachchu Mia, 65, of Saltha upazila and his brother-in-law Mohammad Kazi, 60.
Kalam, the chairman of non-governmental organisation Bangladesh Masjid Council, hosts an Islamic programme 'Apnar Jigyasa' on private TV channel ntv.
Magistrate Motaharat Akhter Bhuiyan received the case and directed the officer-in-charge of Saltha Police Station to investigate it.
According to the case statement, both Kalam and Mohammad Kazi, who joined hands with Pakistani occupation forces, were engaged in killings, looting, rape and arson during the liberation war in 1971.
They also formed peace committees in various areas in the district.
The accused along with 10 to 12 armed men entered Ranjan's house and Kalam shot dead Ranjan's father on the first day of Bangla month of Jaistha in 1971. Kalam also killed Gyanendra Biswas, son of Rajendri Biswas, at his house the same day, alleged the plaintiff.
They set the nearby house of Montu Bakshi on fire with gunpowder and also killed Ohab Sardar, Md Tuku Molla, Kanchu Fakir, Abdul Molla of Kumar Kanda village, Hachen Mia, Baru Khatun of Alampur village, Abdul Omed Molla of Keshabdia village, alleged the complainant.
Kalam also fired shots at Lal Mia of Alampur village, who survived the attack and is still alive, said the plaintiff.
Earlier, another case had been filed under the Collaborators' Act against Kalam alias Bachchu with the Boalmari Police Station on March 23, 1972. He had been on the run for long after the liberation war.
Faridpur Muktijoddha Sangsad Unit Commander Abul Fayaz Shah Newaz told The Daily Star that Kalam alias Bachchu, who had been involved in killings, looting and arson in Nagarkanda, Saltha and Boalmari in 1971, should be arrested and tried.
Faridpur Sadar upazila Chairman advocate Samsul Haque told The Daily Star that Kalam is a 'known war criminal' and must be brought to justice.
April 21, 2009
A case was filed yesterday against Moulana Abul Kalam, alleged commander of Al Badr Bahini in Faridpur during the Liberation War, and his brother-in-law on charge of committing war crimes.
Bhakta Ranjan Biswas, son of Madhab Chandra Biswas of Purura Namopara village, filed the case with a Judicial Magistrate's Court against Kalam alias Bachchu Mia, 65, of Saltha upazila and his brother-in-law Mohammad Kazi, 60.
Kalam, the chairman of non-governmental organisation Bangladesh Masjid Council, hosts an Islamic programme 'Apnar Jigyasa' on private TV channel ntv.
Magistrate Motaharat Akhter Bhuiyan received the case and directed the officer-in-charge of Saltha Police Station to investigate it.
According to the case statement, both Kalam and Mohammad Kazi, who joined hands with Pakistani occupation forces, were engaged in killings, looting, rape and arson during the liberation war in 1971.
They also formed peace committees in various areas in the district.
The accused along with 10 to 12 armed men entered Ranjan's house and Kalam shot dead Ranjan's father on the first day of Bangla month of Jaistha in 1971. Kalam also killed Gyanendra Biswas, son of Rajendri Biswas, at his house the same day, alleged the plaintiff.
They set the nearby house of Montu Bakshi on fire with gunpowder and also killed Ohab Sardar, Md Tuku Molla, Kanchu Fakir, Abdul Molla of Kumar Kanda village, Hachen Mia, Baru Khatun of Alampur village, Abdul Omed Molla of Keshabdia village, alleged the complainant.
Kalam also fired shots at Lal Mia of Alampur village, who survived the attack and is still alive, said the plaintiff.
Earlier, another case had been filed under the Collaborators' Act against Kalam alias Bachchu with the Boalmari Police Station on March 23, 1972. He had been on the run for long after the liberation war.
Faridpur Muktijoddha Sangsad Unit Commander Abul Fayaz Shah Newaz told The Daily Star that Kalam alias Bachchu, who had been involved in killings, looting and arson in Nagarkanda, Saltha and Boalmari in 1971, should be arrested and tried.
Faridpur Sadar upazila Chairman advocate Samsul Haque told The Daily Star that Kalam is a 'known war criminal' and must be brought to justice.
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
UN Welcomes War Crime Investigation
UN provides welcome support to Bangladesh war crimes investigations
Source: Amnesty International
April 7, 2009
The government of Bangladesh has sought and received UN assistance in its efforts to investigate and prosecute crimes against humanity and other serious violations of human rights and humanitarian law committed in 1971. Four international war crimes experts, Louis Bickford, Priscilla Hayner, Bogdan Ivanisevic and Alexander Mayer-Rieckh, have been named to assist the government.
Amnesty International welcomed the news, having called on the Caretaker Government and political parties in January 2008 to address impunity for violations carried out in 1971 in the context of the independence war.
"The failure to seek truth and justice for crimes against humanity and other serious violations of human rights and humanitarian law committed in 1971 has encouraged the persistent nature of impunity in Bangladesh," said Irene Khan, Amnesty International's Secretary General.
Demands from civil society for the investigation of the crimes committed in 1971 have been gathering momentum in the past few years. Past governments have taken no action to investigate or prosecute these crimes and no official commission has been established to provide a comprehensive account of the events of 1971.
The Bangladeshi government is also reported to have asked Pakistan and the US, which supported Pakistan during the war, to provide Bangladesh with particular documents related to the war and evidence for the trial.
The exact number of people killed by the Pakistan army and their collaborators during the 1971 Bangladesh independence war is not known. Most estimates put the figure at around one million and a further eight to ten million people, both Hindus and Muslims, fled Bangladesh in search of safety in India.
Among the dead were tens of thousands, possibly hundreds of thousands, of farmers, fishermen, villagers and factory workers. The forces also targeted intellectuals, Hindus and women. According to some reports, an estimated 200,000 thousand women were raped during the conflict.
To date, no one has been brought to justice for these crimes
"I hope that the initiative to seek UN assistance to address the 1971 war crimes marks the beginning of a process to heal the wounds of this war in the national psyche," said Irene Khan.
Source: Amnesty International
April 7, 2009
The government of Bangladesh has sought and received UN assistance in its efforts to investigate and prosecute crimes against humanity and other serious violations of human rights and humanitarian law committed in 1971. Four international war crimes experts, Louis Bickford, Priscilla Hayner, Bogdan Ivanisevic and Alexander Mayer-Rieckh, have been named to assist the government.
Amnesty International welcomed the news, having called on the Caretaker Government and political parties in January 2008 to address impunity for violations carried out in 1971 in the context of the independence war.
"The failure to seek truth and justice for crimes against humanity and other serious violations of human rights and humanitarian law committed in 1971 has encouraged the persistent nature of impunity in Bangladesh," said Irene Khan, Amnesty International's Secretary General.
Demands from civil society for the investigation of the crimes committed in 1971 have been gathering momentum in the past few years. Past governments have taken no action to investigate or prosecute these crimes and no official commission has been established to provide a comprehensive account of the events of 1971.
The Bangladeshi government is also reported to have asked Pakistan and the US, which supported Pakistan during the war, to provide Bangladesh with particular documents related to the war and evidence for the trial.
The exact number of people killed by the Pakistan army and their collaborators during the 1971 Bangladesh independence war is not known. Most estimates put the figure at around one million and a further eight to ten million people, both Hindus and Muslims, fled Bangladesh in search of safety in India.
Among the dead were tens of thousands, possibly hundreds of thousands, of farmers, fishermen, villagers and factory workers. The forces also targeted intellectuals, Hindus and women. According to some reports, an estimated 200,000 thousand women were raped during the conflict.
To date, no one has been brought to justice for these crimes
"I hope that the initiative to seek UN assistance to address the 1971 war crimes marks the beginning of a process to heal the wounds of this war in the national psyche," said Irene Khan.
Friday, April 3, 2009
Bangladesh fights rampant corporate corruption
Source: The Christian Science Monitor
By David Montero
April 1, 2009
For years corporate corruption has thrived as an open secret in this poor congested nation, a force as destructive as the cyclones that ravage the coastline and the arsenic that poisons people's drinking wells. Last week, Bangladesh's newly elected government took its first high-profile swipe at the problem.
Arafat "Koko" Rahman, the son of former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia and a prominent businessman, was formally charged with laundering nearly $2 million in kickbacks, including $180,000 from Siemens Corporation, the German electronics giant. Mr. Rahman and his brother Tarique, although allegedly at the center of many corrupt deals in Bangladesh, were considered untouchable between 2001 and 2006, when their mother held office. The charges against Arafat Rahman are the first involving foreign bribery and could result in a jail sentence of seven years if he is found guilty.
The case highlights a determined move by Bangladesh's government to root out corruption at the highest levels, while tracing its sources through financial institutions and multinational companies abroad. In so doing, it also sheds light on the little studied dark side of international business: the practice of foreign bribery, whereby some of the world's richest companies directly contribute to instability in the developing world by paying off corrupt governments.
"This issue of foreign companies using bribery to get contracts has been a kind of public knowledge," says Iftekhar Zaman, the executive director of Transparency International Bangladesh, the Bangladesh chapter of the Berlin based anti-corruption watchdog. "It's a failure of the companies to oblige the rules and regulations, but it's also incumbent on the government to be able to prevent those avenues of corruption."
The case against Siemens portrays a typical pattern for graft here. Between 2004 and 2006, as mobile phone use soared in Bangladesh, Siemens was pushing for a $40 million telecommunications contract with the Bangladeshi government, according to a case filed by US investigators against Siemens. To outbid its competitors, it hired a Bangladeshi consultant with links to the Prime Minister's son, as well as the telecommunicatons minister and at least four others. A payment of $180,000 was arranged and sent to Arafat Rahman's Singapore bank account, according to public statements made by Siemens as well as the case filed by Bangladesh's Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC), which is tasked with investigating graft and preparing charges.
"Over a period of time, as we were investigating some of our cases, we could see that, yes, Siemens ... was paying money to some of our people here. This was all put into a bank account in Singapore, so we had to get the cooperation of that government," says Hasan Mashhud Chowdhury, the chairman of the ACC.
It is not a problem specific to Bangladesh. Corporate foreign bribery is a thriving global business, according to studies by the World Bank, which estimates that foreign companies annually pay $1 trillion in kickbacks to corrupt government officials. Two weeks ago, as Bangladesh brought charges against Arafat Rahman, Royal Dutch Shell Corporation reported that it was under investigation by US authorities over allegations that it bribed officials in Nigeria.
The victims of such bribery are not only the companies that lose out. There is growing awareness that bribery can have a direct, destabilizing impact on developing countries. The case of Bangladesh and Siemens suggests how that could work: In court documents, Siemens admitted to paying bribes not only to Arafat Rahman, but to Bangladesh's former telecommunications minister. That minister was Aminul Haque, who served between 2001 and 2006. Mr. Haque in turn was sentenced in 2007 to 31 years in prison for patronizing the Islamic terrorist group, Jama'tul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB).
According to cases filed by the government against Haque, the court ruled that he used JMB as a political tool to eliminate members of political opposition groups beginning in 2004. But by 2005, JMB took on a life of its own and launched a national campaign of violence that left dozens dead. Today Haque is a fugitive, but the group he patronized continues to operate underground and is suspected of involvement in the bloody mutiny that rocked Bangladesh last month.
While there is no direct evidence showing that Siemens' bribe money went to JMB, observers in Bangladesh contend that the possibility of a link underscores the dangers of foreign corporate bribery.
"Many of the [multinational companies] don't care who they're giving money to. They don't try to find out what effect it will have on the life of ordinary people," contends Sultana Kamal, the director of Ain O Salish Kendra, a leading human rights group based in Dhaka. "They should be very careful about it."
Amid growing public awareness and public outrage, Bangladesh's government has in recent years acted with force. In the past two years, the ACC has launched hundreds of investigations into some of the most prominent ministers and businessmen in the country – including the sons of Khaleda Zia. Both brothers were arrested in 2007. They are currently on bail as more charges are framed against them.
"To have Khaleda Zia's two sons and powerful higher ministers accused ... was really the first major cleansing process that started," says Mahfuz Anam, the editor of The Daily Star, Bangladesh's most influential English-language newspaper. "Now, we are far from the end of it, but it's gotten started."
By David Montero
April 1, 2009
For years corporate corruption has thrived as an open secret in this poor congested nation, a force as destructive as the cyclones that ravage the coastline and the arsenic that poisons people's drinking wells. Last week, Bangladesh's newly elected government took its first high-profile swipe at the problem.
Arafat "Koko" Rahman, the son of former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia and a prominent businessman, was formally charged with laundering nearly $2 million in kickbacks, including $180,000 from Siemens Corporation, the German electronics giant. Mr. Rahman and his brother Tarique, although allegedly at the center of many corrupt deals in Bangladesh, were considered untouchable between 2001 and 2006, when their mother held office. The charges against Arafat Rahman are the first involving foreign bribery and could result in a jail sentence of seven years if he is found guilty.
The case highlights a determined move by Bangladesh's government to root out corruption at the highest levels, while tracing its sources through financial institutions and multinational companies abroad. In so doing, it also sheds light on the little studied dark side of international business: the practice of foreign bribery, whereby some of the world's richest companies directly contribute to instability in the developing world by paying off corrupt governments.
"This issue of foreign companies using bribery to get contracts has been a kind of public knowledge," says Iftekhar Zaman, the executive director of Transparency International Bangladesh, the Bangladesh chapter of the Berlin based anti-corruption watchdog. "It's a failure of the companies to oblige the rules and regulations, but it's also incumbent on the government to be able to prevent those avenues of corruption."
The case against Siemens portrays a typical pattern for graft here. Between 2004 and 2006, as mobile phone use soared in Bangladesh, Siemens was pushing for a $40 million telecommunications contract with the Bangladeshi government, according to a case filed by US investigators against Siemens. To outbid its competitors, it hired a Bangladeshi consultant with links to the Prime Minister's son, as well as the telecommunicatons minister and at least four others. A payment of $180,000 was arranged and sent to Arafat Rahman's Singapore bank account, according to public statements made by Siemens as well as the case filed by Bangladesh's Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC), which is tasked with investigating graft and preparing charges.
"Over a period of time, as we were investigating some of our cases, we could see that, yes, Siemens ... was paying money to some of our people here. This was all put into a bank account in Singapore, so we had to get the cooperation of that government," says Hasan Mashhud Chowdhury, the chairman of the ACC.
It is not a problem specific to Bangladesh. Corporate foreign bribery is a thriving global business, according to studies by the World Bank, which estimates that foreign companies annually pay $1 trillion in kickbacks to corrupt government officials. Two weeks ago, as Bangladesh brought charges against Arafat Rahman, Royal Dutch Shell Corporation reported that it was under investigation by US authorities over allegations that it bribed officials in Nigeria.
The victims of such bribery are not only the companies that lose out. There is growing awareness that bribery can have a direct, destabilizing impact on developing countries. The case of Bangladesh and Siemens suggests how that could work: In court documents, Siemens admitted to paying bribes not only to Arafat Rahman, but to Bangladesh's former telecommunications minister. That minister was Aminul Haque, who served between 2001 and 2006. Mr. Haque in turn was sentenced in 2007 to 31 years in prison for patronizing the Islamic terrorist group, Jama'tul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB).
According to cases filed by the government against Haque, the court ruled that he used JMB as a political tool to eliminate members of political opposition groups beginning in 2004. But by 2005, JMB took on a life of its own and launched a national campaign of violence that left dozens dead. Today Haque is a fugitive, but the group he patronized continues to operate underground and is suspected of involvement in the bloody mutiny that rocked Bangladesh last month.
While there is no direct evidence showing that Siemens' bribe money went to JMB, observers in Bangladesh contend that the possibility of a link underscores the dangers of foreign corporate bribery.
"Many of the [multinational companies] don't care who they're giving money to. They don't try to find out what effect it will have on the life of ordinary people," contends Sultana Kamal, the director of Ain O Salish Kendra, a leading human rights group based in Dhaka. "They should be very careful about it."
Amid growing public awareness and public outrage, Bangladesh's government has in recent years acted with force. In the past two years, the ACC has launched hundreds of investigations into some of the most prominent ministers and businessmen in the country – including the sons of Khaleda Zia. Both brothers were arrested in 2007. They are currently on bail as more charges are framed against them.
"To have Khaleda Zia's two sons and powerful higher ministers accused ... was really the first major cleansing process that started," says Mahfuz Anam, the editor of The Daily Star, Bangladesh's most influential English-language newspaper. "Now, we are far from the end of it, but it's gotten started."
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Bangladesh blocking free expression
Bangladesh blocking free expression
By Rater Zonaki
Source: UPI Asia Online
March 26, 2009
Hong Kong, China — Freedom of expression and freedom of the media have become key issues around the world, especially with the advent of the Internet, which has broadened the opportunities for innumerable individuals, institutions and communities to express their views without restriction.
Bangladesh has not yet been able to connect the majority of its population with the Internet, however, because of outdated policies and practices. Corporations, non-government organizations and private institutions are more advanced in the use of information technologies than are public institutions.
Public officials are too lazy to check their email regularly. Sending an email to an official address is unlikely to get a response. On most occasions emails are bounced back to the sender.
There are three reasons that Internet communication is ineffective. First, a serious shortage of electricity means that local Internet servers cannot be maintained without interruption in many places. Secondly, the lack of computers with Internet access in many parts of the country means the habit of online communication has not taken hold in Bangladesh. Thirdly, an email does not carry a bribe to a public official, so there is no incentive to respond through this medium.
Moreover, many people who do have Internet access are not yet accustomed to checking their email even once a day. The sender of the message must inform the recipient by telephone to check the email if it is important.
At the same time, there is also a small group of people who cannot think of passing the day without checking their email.
During her election campaign Sheikh Hasina, who is now prime minister, pledged to build up a "digital Bangladesh." She has followed through on this by holding Internet conferences with activists of her party and selected citizens. But so far, the majority of the people can only hope that access to this modern technology with its ease of communication will be expanded to the whole nation, instead of only to politically chosen persons.
Journalists and the print and electronic media always come to the forefront to raise their voices on behalf of the voiceless persons everywhere in the world. The standard of freedom of expression in a country can be judged by its press and the protections afforded to journalists.
Since colonial times Bangladesh had been nourishing freedom of expression as a right belonging to its people. The media contributed immensely to the country’s independence movement and its quest for sovereignty. There were a number of journalists among the 3 million liberation martyrs.
In theory, according to the Constitution of Bangladesh, freedom of expression is enshrined as a fundamental right. However, in reality the opposite is true. Under every regime journalists have faced threats and intimidation and media have been subject to censorship. The atmosphere created in the country compels the media to practice self-censorship when it comes to reporting abuses of power by the armed forces and leaders of the ruling political parties.
In the past decade, a number of journalists who have failed to practice self-censorship have been victims of assassination. The families of these journalists are still waiting for justice; there are allegations that respective governments have provided impunity to the perpetrators of these crimes.
Prior to the parliamentary election in December, 2008, the Bangladeshis expected that an elected government would realize the importance of freedom of expression and protect those in the media. The Bangladesh Awami League also made its pledges in this regard. Ironically, after the election the government has been found reluctant to respect the rights of the press.
For example, the editor of an English national daily newspaper has been under threat for weeks for being too outspoken. His car was chased by six gunmen on two motorbikes in Dhaka on the evening of March 5. Luckily he was not in the car at the time; his driver escaped with his life by speeding off.
A complaint was registered with the local police concerning this incident, but the authorities have not been able to arrest any of the gunmen nor have they taken any initiative to protect the journalist. On the other hand, a politically powerful person reportedly suggested that the journalist "control" his views.
Bangladesh should be facilitating freedom of speech and encouraging its people to express their views independently, without fear or favor. If the conscientious segment of the country's population is held at gunpoint, the future is bleak for the nation and the aspirations of its people.
The government should not fail to protect the journalists who speak out for the ordinary voiceless people. It should extend to the people affordable information technology of the current century, and encourage its active use by public officials.
If the nation wants to achieve progress in terms of democracy and infrastructure, it needs more than just election pledges.
______________________________________
(Rater Zonaki is the pseudonym of a human rights defender based in Hong Kong, working at the Asian Human Rights Commission. He is a Bangladeshi national who has worked as a journalist and human rights activist in his country for more than a decade, and as editor of publications on human rights and socio-cultural issues.)
By Rater Zonaki
Source: UPI Asia Online
March 26, 2009
Hong Kong, China — Freedom of expression and freedom of the media have become key issues around the world, especially with the advent of the Internet, which has broadened the opportunities for innumerable individuals, institutions and communities to express their views without restriction.
Bangladesh has not yet been able to connect the majority of its population with the Internet, however, because of outdated policies and practices. Corporations, non-government organizations and private institutions are more advanced in the use of information technologies than are public institutions.
Public officials are too lazy to check their email regularly. Sending an email to an official address is unlikely to get a response. On most occasions emails are bounced back to the sender.
There are three reasons that Internet communication is ineffective. First, a serious shortage of electricity means that local Internet servers cannot be maintained without interruption in many places. Secondly, the lack of computers with Internet access in many parts of the country means the habit of online communication has not taken hold in Bangladesh. Thirdly, an email does not carry a bribe to a public official, so there is no incentive to respond through this medium.
Moreover, many people who do have Internet access are not yet accustomed to checking their email even once a day. The sender of the message must inform the recipient by telephone to check the email if it is important.
At the same time, there is also a small group of people who cannot think of passing the day without checking their email.
During her election campaign Sheikh Hasina, who is now prime minister, pledged to build up a "digital Bangladesh." She has followed through on this by holding Internet conferences with activists of her party and selected citizens. But so far, the majority of the people can only hope that access to this modern technology with its ease of communication will be expanded to the whole nation, instead of only to politically chosen persons.
Journalists and the print and electronic media always come to the forefront to raise their voices on behalf of the voiceless persons everywhere in the world. The standard of freedom of expression in a country can be judged by its press and the protections afforded to journalists.
Since colonial times Bangladesh had been nourishing freedom of expression as a right belonging to its people. The media contributed immensely to the country’s independence movement and its quest for sovereignty. There were a number of journalists among the 3 million liberation martyrs.
In theory, according to the Constitution of Bangladesh, freedom of expression is enshrined as a fundamental right. However, in reality the opposite is true. Under every regime journalists have faced threats and intimidation and media have been subject to censorship. The atmosphere created in the country compels the media to practice self-censorship when it comes to reporting abuses of power by the armed forces and leaders of the ruling political parties.
In the past decade, a number of journalists who have failed to practice self-censorship have been victims of assassination. The families of these journalists are still waiting for justice; there are allegations that respective governments have provided impunity to the perpetrators of these crimes.
Prior to the parliamentary election in December, 2008, the Bangladeshis expected that an elected government would realize the importance of freedom of expression and protect those in the media. The Bangladesh Awami League also made its pledges in this regard. Ironically, after the election the government has been found reluctant to respect the rights of the press.
For example, the editor of an English national daily newspaper has been under threat for weeks for being too outspoken. His car was chased by six gunmen on two motorbikes in Dhaka on the evening of March 5. Luckily he was not in the car at the time; his driver escaped with his life by speeding off.
A complaint was registered with the local police concerning this incident, but the authorities have not been able to arrest any of the gunmen nor have they taken any initiative to protect the journalist. On the other hand, a politically powerful person reportedly suggested that the journalist "control" his views.
Bangladesh should be facilitating freedom of speech and encouraging its people to express their views independently, without fear or favor. If the conscientious segment of the country's population is held at gunpoint, the future is bleak for the nation and the aspirations of its people.
The government should not fail to protect the journalists who speak out for the ordinary voiceless people. It should extend to the people affordable information technology of the current century, and encourage its active use by public officials.
If the nation wants to achieve progress in terms of democracy and infrastructure, it needs more than just election pledges.
______________________________________
(Rater Zonaki is the pseudonym of a human rights defender based in Hong Kong, working at the Asian Human Rights Commission. He is a Bangladeshi national who has worked as a journalist and human rights activist in his country for more than a decade, and as editor of publications on human rights and socio-cultural issues.)
Friday, March 27, 2009
Bangladesh: Investigate Torture Allegations
Bangladesh: Investigate Torture Allegations
Source: Human Rights Watch
March 25, 2009
(New York) - The government of Bangladesh should take urgent steps to ensure that those detained in connection with the massacre of 74 people at the Dhaka headquarters of the Bangladesh Rifles (BDR), the country's paramilitary border guards, on February 25, 2009, are not subjected to retribution, including extrajudicial killings, torture, and other mistreatment, Human Rights Watch said today.
An apparent mutiny by members of the border guards against their army officers left 55 senior army officers and 19 others dead, including the director general of the border guards and his wife. The government, police, and army have begun parallel investigations into the incident. As of March 24, 693 border guard personnel had been taken into custody.
Human Rights Watch urged the government to conduct a transparent and swift enquiry to identify those responsible for the killings and to prosecute them in civilian courts.
"The massacre has shocked Bangladeshis and deserves the condemnation of the entire world," said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. "But the government should resist demands and threats from the army for summary justice and ensure that all those detained are treated properly."
At least five border guard members and an Islamic imam have died in custody. According to press reports, the authorities claim that the men either committed suicide or died of heart attacks.
Relatives of Mobarak Hossain, one of the detained guards, have publicly alleged that he was tortured to death. Sources at the Dhaka Medical College morgue have told the media that his wrists, arms, knees, and shoulders were swollen and badly bruised. Human Rights Watch has received credible information that several other border guard members in custody have been brought to hospital with signs of torture.
At least 1,800 guard personnel who escaped from the headquarters during the 33-hour standoff are said to be in hiding. While some may have been involved in the attacks, others could well be important witnesses, too afraid to come forward.
"Bangladesh's security forces regularly use torture to obtain confessions," said Adams. "The government should ensure that there is a prompt and independent investigation of these deaths and all other allegations of torture."
While those responsible for the massacre should be brought to justice as soon as possible, Human Rights Watch said that the government should respect its international human rights obligations by ensuring that all suspects are treated properly, detained only in official places of detention, have access to lawyers and family members, and are tried in a judicial process that meets international fair trial standards.
The border guards are not members of the army, and the organization reports to the Home Ministry instead of the Defense Ministry. But Law Minister Shafique Ahmed has stated that those accused of involvement in the massacre may be tried by a military court martial. The United Nations Human Rights Committee has said that the jurisdiction of military courts, if used at all, should be restricted to offenses of a strictly military nature, only when committed by military personnel, and only when the military courts provide full guarantees of a fair trial. The committee oversees the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), to which Bangladesh is a party.
"After this massacre and as angry as senior army officials are, there is little or no chance that those accused will get a fair trial in Bangladesh's military justice system," Adams said.
Source: Human Rights Watch
March 25, 2009
(New York) - The government of Bangladesh should take urgent steps to ensure that those detained in connection with the massacre of 74 people at the Dhaka headquarters of the Bangladesh Rifles (BDR), the country's paramilitary border guards, on February 25, 2009, are not subjected to retribution, including extrajudicial killings, torture, and other mistreatment, Human Rights Watch said today.
An apparent mutiny by members of the border guards against their army officers left 55 senior army officers and 19 others dead, including the director general of the border guards and his wife. The government, police, and army have begun parallel investigations into the incident. As of March 24, 693 border guard personnel had been taken into custody.
Human Rights Watch urged the government to conduct a transparent and swift enquiry to identify those responsible for the killings and to prosecute them in civilian courts.
"The massacre has shocked Bangladeshis and deserves the condemnation of the entire world," said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. "But the government should resist demands and threats from the army for summary justice and ensure that all those detained are treated properly."
At least five border guard members and an Islamic imam have died in custody. According to press reports, the authorities claim that the men either committed suicide or died of heart attacks.
Relatives of Mobarak Hossain, one of the detained guards, have publicly alleged that he was tortured to death. Sources at the Dhaka Medical College morgue have told the media that his wrists, arms, knees, and shoulders were swollen and badly bruised. Human Rights Watch has received credible information that several other border guard members in custody have been brought to hospital with signs of torture.
At least 1,800 guard personnel who escaped from the headquarters during the 33-hour standoff are said to be in hiding. While some may have been involved in the attacks, others could well be important witnesses, too afraid to come forward.
"Bangladesh's security forces regularly use torture to obtain confessions," said Adams. "The government should ensure that there is a prompt and independent investigation of these deaths and all other allegations of torture."
While those responsible for the massacre should be brought to justice as soon as possible, Human Rights Watch said that the government should respect its international human rights obligations by ensuring that all suspects are treated properly, detained only in official places of detention, have access to lawyers and family members, and are tried in a judicial process that meets international fair trial standards.
The border guards are not members of the army, and the organization reports to the Home Ministry instead of the Defense Ministry. But Law Minister Shafique Ahmed has stated that those accused of involvement in the massacre may be tried by a military court martial. The United Nations Human Rights Committee has said that the jurisdiction of military courts, if used at all, should be restricted to offenses of a strictly military nature, only when committed by military personnel, and only when the military courts provide full guarantees of a fair trial. The committee oversees the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), to which Bangladesh is a party.
"After this massacre and as angry as senior army officials are, there is little or no chance that those accused will get a fair trial in Bangladesh's military justice system," Adams said.
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Look back at 1971
This is an hour-long documentary on the Bangladesh Liberation War in 1971 presented by the ATN Bangla. Watch it here:
Bangladesh to set up war crimes tribunals
Bangladesh to set up war crimes tribunals
By Parveen Ahmed
Source: Indpendent on-line
Dhaka, Bangladesh - Bangladesh is setting up war crimes tribunals for long-delayed trials of people accused of murder, torture, rape and arson during its 1971 independence war, with the death penalty possible in some cases, officials said Wednesday.
Bangladesh began war crimes trials in 1973, but they were halted in 1975 when the nation's independence leader, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, was assassinated in a military coup. Subsequent governments failed to address the issue, despite repeated calls for justice from war heroes and families of those slain.
Rahman's daughter, current Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, pledged during her election campaign to prosecute war criminals. In January, Parliament passed a resolution for their quick trial.
Speaking ahead of the nation's 39th Independence Day, Law Minister Shafique Ahmed said the process of holding the trials has already started. One or more tribunals would be set up for quick trials under a 1973 act outlining prosecution and punishment for people accused of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and other crimes under international law.
Last week, the government issued an order barring war crimes suspects from leaving the country.
An inter-ministerial meeting Wednesday discussed the formation of tribunals and appointments of prosecutors and investigation agencies, State Minister for Home Affairs Sohel Taj said.
"The investigation process has begun. The trials will begin soon," Taj said.
On March 26, 1971, Bangladesh - then East Pakistan - declared its independence from West Pakistan, following years of perceived political and economic discrimination.
Official figures say Pakistani soldiers, aided by local collaborators, killed an estimated 3 million people, raped about 200 000 women and forced millions more to flee their homes during a bloody nine-month guerrilla war. With help from neighbor India, Bangladesh emerged as an independent nation on December 16, 1971, with the surrender of the Pakistani army in Dhaka.
A general amnesty was declared after the war for collaborators who were not directly involved in heinous crimes. It did not cover those who had specific charges or evidence of crimes against them. - Sapa-AP
By Parveen Ahmed
Source: Indpendent on-line
Dhaka, Bangladesh - Bangladesh is setting up war crimes tribunals for long-delayed trials of people accused of murder, torture, rape and arson during its 1971 independence war, with the death penalty possible in some cases, officials said Wednesday.
Bangladesh began war crimes trials in 1973, but they were halted in 1975 when the nation's independence leader, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, was assassinated in a military coup. Subsequent governments failed to address the issue, despite repeated calls for justice from war heroes and families of those slain.
Rahman's daughter, current Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, pledged during her election campaign to prosecute war criminals. In January, Parliament passed a resolution for their quick trial.
Speaking ahead of the nation's 39th Independence Day, Law Minister Shafique Ahmed said the process of holding the trials has already started. One or more tribunals would be set up for quick trials under a 1973 act outlining prosecution and punishment for people accused of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and other crimes under international law.
Last week, the government issued an order barring war crimes suspects from leaving the country.
An inter-ministerial meeting Wednesday discussed the formation of tribunals and appointments of prosecutors and investigation agencies, State Minister for Home Affairs Sohel Taj said.
"The investigation process has begun. The trials will begin soon," Taj said.
On March 26, 1971, Bangladesh - then East Pakistan - declared its independence from West Pakistan, following years of perceived political and economic discrimination.
Official figures say Pakistani soldiers, aided by local collaborators, killed an estimated 3 million people, raped about 200 000 women and forced millions more to flee their homes during a bloody nine-month guerrilla war. With help from neighbor India, Bangladesh emerged as an independent nation on December 16, 1971, with the surrender of the Pakistani army in Dhaka.
A general amnesty was declared after the war for collaborators who were not directly involved in heinous crimes. It did not cover those who had specific charges or evidence of crimes against them. - Sapa-AP
Hunted in Bangladesh, Suspect in Britain
Hunted in Bangladesh... the terror suspect freed twice by courts in Britain
By Fay Schlesinger
Source: Mail On-line
March 26, 2009
Faisal Mostafa, pictured in 2002, is facing allegations that his orphanage was in fact an arms factory and terrorist training camp
A British charity worker twice cleared of terror charges in this country is being hunted in Bangladesh after explosives were seized at an orphanage he founded.
Security forces there claimed last night that the orphanage set up by Dr Faisal Mostafa, from Stockport, was in fact an arms factory and terrorist training camp.
Mostafa ran Green Crescent, a charity that provided humanitarian aid to families in Bangladesh and Pakistan.
The Charity Commission, which awarded it charity status in 2004, last night launched an inquiry. Its chief executive, Andrew Hind, said: 'The matter is of serious concern to us.'
Mostafa, who has a PhD in chemistry from Manchester Polytechnic, was known to security forces in Britain, having been cleared of conspiracy to cause explosions with intent to endanger life at Birmingham Crown Court in 2002.
Six years earlier, he had been cleared at Manchester Crown Court of involvement in a bomb plot campaign.
In July last year he was caught at Manchester Airport trying to board a plane to Bangladesh with a pistol and bullet parts in his luggage.
The father-of-three was given a suspended sentence. On Monday Bangladeshi security forces raided the orphanage Mostafa set up and the attached Muslim school on the remote island of Bhola in South Bangladesh.
Lieutenant Colonel Munir Haque, from the Rapid Action Battalion, said: 'We found small arms - about nine or 10 in total - plus equipment to make small arms, about 3,000 rounds of ammunition, two walkie-talkies, two remote control devices and four sets of army uniforms.
'We also found enough explosives and other equipment to make several hundred grenades. We found some ordinary Islamic books, but others that are in line with extremists like Bin Laden.'
He said there were 11 children between the ages of 7 and 8 at the compound.
A teacher and three caretakers were arrested but Mostafa, who is in his mid-40s, was not there.
Police in Bangladesh said they were searching for him.
K M Mamunur Rashid, another officer in the raid, said: 'It is a big Madrassa and we have so far gathered that this whole compound is being used for militant training.'
Mostafa's father, speaking from his home in Stockport, last night strongly denied that his son had any involvement in terrorism. The 73-year-old, who did not want to be named, said: 'This is all an exaggeration.
'He just wants to help children. He is a British citizen and has been in this country since 1969.'
Green Crescent, set up in 1998, last year had an income of £63,000 for 'long-term educational and health projects'.
Saeed Mahmood, of Stockport-based charity Human Appeal International, said: 'Faisal comes in every few months about mainland projects in Bangladesh. We only work with organisations that are registered with the Charity Commission so we had no idea about these allegations.'
A spokesman for counter-terrorism think-tank Quilliam Foundation said: 'If Green Crescent has been involved in militant activity, this will reflect very poorly on the Charity Commission, particularly given that Mostafa, the head of the charity, had previously been put on trial twice for terrorist offences.
'Ineffectiveness by the Charity Commission in identifying and tackling extremist charities leads to the British taxpayer directly subsiding militancy.'
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Bangladesh army: victims and victimizers
Bangladesh army: victims and victimizers
By Rater Zonaki
March 18, 2009
Source: UPI Asia
Hong Kong, China — The bloodshed at the headquarters of the Bangladesh Rifles, who protect the country’s borders, on Feb. 25 and 26 was initially labeled a mutiny. Since then more information has unfolded, and the media have termed it a massacre and a mass assassination. The BDR soldiers killed around 60 army officers, from the rank of captain to major general.
The death toll is reportedly 73, which includes six soldiers of the BDR, three pedestrians, the wife of the director general of the force, and a retired colonel along with his wife. The rest of the victims were officers, and one soldier, of the Bangladesh army. Four officers are still missing since the incident.
Separate civilian, police and army investigations are ongoing, some including experts from the United States and the United Kingdom. At the same time the nation is busy commenting and analyzing the reasons behind the killings. As political parties debate the causes and consequences, measuring the success and failure of the authorities in accordance with their own interests, the government has launched “Operation Rebel Hunt” to catch the culprits.
The public image of the armed forces has been very mixed. Whenever there are floods, cyclones or other devastating natural disasters, the government calls on the army to conduct relief work and engage in disaster management. During such times soldiers and officers are perceived as diligent and brave, helping to restore calm and hope.
The people have applauded the army’s humanitarian efforts for decades, because they have helped the common man. Other than that, as the day-to-day functions of the armed forces are not directly related to the public, people do not see the army at close quarters.
However, many Bangladeshis have experienced the bitter side of the army, which is far different. People have witnessed their crackdowns on political opponents, social activists and human rights defenders and read of their arbitrary arrests, detentions, torture and extrajudicial killings. They have also observed that such offences have not been thoroughly investigated and that the perpetrators have not been brought to justice.
For example, on Oct. 16, 2002, the government of Prime Minister Khaleda Zia deployed the army across the country in the name of "Operation Clean Heart," which continued until Jan. 9, 2003, to crack down on illegal arms and criminals.
During the 86-day crackdown, around 11,200 people were officially arrested and detained in custody; 2,500 people were listed as criminals and about 300 as suspects by the police. Around 2,000 different types of arms and 29,700 rounds of ammunition were recovered. Although more than 50 people died in the custody of the armed forces, their deaths were officially termed as "heart attacks."
In reality, an additional 8,000 people were arrested and detained, and all who were detained were seriously tortured. Who was responsible for such illegal actions, which affected the ordinary people financially, socially and physically? What kind of affinity could people have with the army in the light of their brutal actions?
The past two years under emergency rule have created new records of brutality at the hands of the armed forces, which have illegally arrested, detained and tortured thousands of people. Officers of the Bangladeshi army were the dominant perpetrators in almost all cases.
Allegations of extortion by the army have also surfaced where businessmen and industrialists were kidnapped and ransoms demanded. Such people were allegedly detained on fabricated corruption charges, intimidated and tortured in custody till the ransoms were paid.
Compared to the army, the BDR soldiers are more closely in touch with the public, at least in the cities they protect along the more than 4,000-kilometer-long border, under the leadership of the army.
Still there are corrupt BDR soldiers who allegedly allow smugglers to transport goods in and out of Bangladesh for personal benefit. While the beneficiaries of such illegal trade appreciate the soldiers' “supportive" role, the majority of the common people believe that the BDR protects the territory well.
Following the tragic killings on Feb. 25 and 26, the government immediately announced it would give one million takas (US$14,620) as compensation to each of the families of the army officers that were killed. Yet it completely ignored the civilians that died, for more than a week.
Only after the media reported the slip-up did the authorities announce they would give 200,000 takas (US$2,924) to the families of the civilian victims. Such discrimination, which has prevailed for decades, makes people wonder why civilians are considered less human than the armed forces.
The government must reconsider the fairness of such decisions. The armed forces should also rethink their actions during "Operation Clean Heart” and similar crackdowns, when politicians provided them impunity at the cost of huge grievances to the people.
The army officers should also reflect on their image as brutal giants during the state of emergency. The military should understand and accept that the Parliament has the right and responsibility to discuss such issues openly. They should accept that they are not above the laws of the land.
It is easy to vilify the BDR soldiers for the violence of the February killings. But one must not forget that this force represents at least 67,000 Bangladeshi families. It is important for the nation to look beyond political games and find the truth behind the February massacre.
___________________________________
(Rater Zonaki is the pseudonym of a human rights defender based in Hong Kong, working at the Asian Human Rights Commission. He is a Bangladeshi national who has worked as a journalist and human rights activist in his country for more than a decade, and as editor of publications on human rights and socio-cultural issues.)
By Rater Zonaki
March 18, 2009
Source: UPI Asia
Hong Kong, China — The bloodshed at the headquarters of the Bangladesh Rifles, who protect the country’s borders, on Feb. 25 and 26 was initially labeled a mutiny. Since then more information has unfolded, and the media have termed it a massacre and a mass assassination. The BDR soldiers killed around 60 army officers, from the rank of captain to major general.
The death toll is reportedly 73, which includes six soldiers of the BDR, three pedestrians, the wife of the director general of the force, and a retired colonel along with his wife. The rest of the victims were officers, and one soldier, of the Bangladesh army. Four officers are still missing since the incident.
Separate civilian, police and army investigations are ongoing, some including experts from the United States and the United Kingdom. At the same time the nation is busy commenting and analyzing the reasons behind the killings. As political parties debate the causes and consequences, measuring the success and failure of the authorities in accordance with their own interests, the government has launched “Operation Rebel Hunt” to catch the culprits.
The public image of the armed forces has been very mixed. Whenever there are floods, cyclones or other devastating natural disasters, the government calls on the army to conduct relief work and engage in disaster management. During such times soldiers and officers are perceived as diligent and brave, helping to restore calm and hope.
The people have applauded the army’s humanitarian efforts for decades, because they have helped the common man. Other than that, as the day-to-day functions of the armed forces are not directly related to the public, people do not see the army at close quarters.
However, many Bangladeshis have experienced the bitter side of the army, which is far different. People have witnessed their crackdowns on political opponents, social activists and human rights defenders and read of their arbitrary arrests, detentions, torture and extrajudicial killings. They have also observed that such offences have not been thoroughly investigated and that the perpetrators have not been brought to justice.
For example, on Oct. 16, 2002, the government of Prime Minister Khaleda Zia deployed the army across the country in the name of "Operation Clean Heart," which continued until Jan. 9, 2003, to crack down on illegal arms and criminals.
During the 86-day crackdown, around 11,200 people were officially arrested and detained in custody; 2,500 people were listed as criminals and about 300 as suspects by the police. Around 2,000 different types of arms and 29,700 rounds of ammunition were recovered. Although more than 50 people died in the custody of the armed forces, their deaths were officially termed as "heart attacks."
In reality, an additional 8,000 people were arrested and detained, and all who were detained were seriously tortured. Who was responsible for such illegal actions, which affected the ordinary people financially, socially and physically? What kind of affinity could people have with the army in the light of their brutal actions?
The past two years under emergency rule have created new records of brutality at the hands of the armed forces, which have illegally arrested, detained and tortured thousands of people. Officers of the Bangladeshi army were the dominant perpetrators in almost all cases.
Allegations of extortion by the army have also surfaced where businessmen and industrialists were kidnapped and ransoms demanded. Such people were allegedly detained on fabricated corruption charges, intimidated and tortured in custody till the ransoms were paid.
Compared to the army, the BDR soldiers are more closely in touch with the public, at least in the cities they protect along the more than 4,000-kilometer-long border, under the leadership of the army.
Still there are corrupt BDR soldiers who allegedly allow smugglers to transport goods in and out of Bangladesh for personal benefit. While the beneficiaries of such illegal trade appreciate the soldiers' “supportive" role, the majority of the common people believe that the BDR protects the territory well.
Following the tragic killings on Feb. 25 and 26, the government immediately announced it would give one million takas (US$14,620) as compensation to each of the families of the army officers that were killed. Yet it completely ignored the civilians that died, for more than a week.
Only after the media reported the slip-up did the authorities announce they would give 200,000 takas (US$2,924) to the families of the civilian victims. Such discrimination, which has prevailed for decades, makes people wonder why civilians are considered less human than the armed forces.
The government must reconsider the fairness of such decisions. The armed forces should also rethink their actions during "Operation Clean Heart” and similar crackdowns, when politicians provided them impunity at the cost of huge grievances to the people.
The army officers should also reflect on their image as brutal giants during the state of emergency. The military should understand and accept that the Parliament has the right and responsibility to discuss such issues openly. They should accept that they are not above the laws of the land.
It is easy to vilify the BDR soldiers for the violence of the February killings. But one must not forget that this force represents at least 67,000 Bangladeshi families. It is important for the nation to look beyond political games and find the truth behind the February massacre.
___________________________________
(Rater Zonaki is the pseudonym of a human rights defender based in Hong Kong, working at the Asian Human Rights Commission. He is a Bangladeshi national who has worked as a journalist and human rights activist in his country for more than a decade, and as editor of publications on human rights and socio-cultural issues.)
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Bangladesh: New Government Should Act on Rights
Bangladesh: New Government Should Act on Rights
Make Commitments at Next Week’s UN Meeting in Geneva
January 29, 2009
Source: Human Rights Watch
(New York) - The new Awami League government of Bangladesh has a unique opportunity and the responsibility to address major human rights problems that have been ignored by successive governments, Human Rights Watch said today in a letter to Prime Minister Shekh Hasina.
The letter makes specific recommendations for reform on subjects such as extrajudicial killings, torture, arbitrary detention, corruption, and the role of the Rapid Action Battalion and Directorate General for Forces Intelligence.
"The new government has a large majority and a public hungry for reform," said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. "We look forward to the government using the strong mandate the prime minister and her party have obtained to tackle the very serious abuses that Bangladeshis face at the hands of the security forces and others."
Human Rights Watch urged the government to use the February 3 session of the UN Human Rights Council to show the priority it places on addressing longstanding human rights problems by making concrete and specific commitments. Bangladesh is one of the countries whose rights records will be scrutinized in February under the council's Universal Periodic Review mechanism.
"How the government responds to recommendations for human rights progress at the Human Rights Council will be an early test for the new government," said Adams.
Make Commitments at Next Week’s UN Meeting in Geneva
January 29, 2009
Source: Human Rights Watch
(New York) - The new Awami League government of Bangladesh has a unique opportunity and the responsibility to address major human rights problems that have been ignored by successive governments, Human Rights Watch said today in a letter to Prime Minister Shekh Hasina.
The letter makes specific recommendations for reform on subjects such as extrajudicial killings, torture, arbitrary detention, corruption, and the role of the Rapid Action Battalion and Directorate General for Forces Intelligence.
"The new government has a large majority and a public hungry for reform," said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. "We look forward to the government using the strong mandate the prime minister and her party have obtained to tackle the very serious abuses that Bangladeshis face at the hands of the security forces and others."
Human Rights Watch urged the government to use the February 3 session of the UN Human Rights Council to show the priority it places on addressing longstanding human rights problems by making concrete and specific commitments. Bangladesh is one of the countries whose rights records will be scrutinized in February under the council's Universal Periodic Review mechanism.
"How the government responds to recommendations for human rights progress at the Human Rights Council will be an early test for the new government," said Adams.
Thursday, October 23, 2008
70 politicians, 44 others so far jailed on graft charges
70 politicians, 44 others so far jailed on graft charges
By: Md Moneruzzaman
Source: New Age
October 21, 2008
A total of 114 people, including 70 politicians, have so far been convicted of corruption by special judges’ court all over the country under the anti-corruption drive of the military-controlled interim government.
The Anti-Corruption Commission on Sunday submitted the list of the convicts to the home ministry. Of the 70 convicted politicians, 41 are from Bangladesh Nationalist Party, 25 from Awami League, three from Jatiya Party led by Anwar Hossain Manju and one from Islami Oikya Jote.
According to the commission’s statement, the 114 people had been sentenced after completion of trial in 100 corruption cases filed by the commission.
The commission has so far lodged 710 cases, as of October 15, and 495 of the cases are now under investigation, and chargesheet in 84 cases now await the commission’s approval, according to the statistics available with the commission.
It said the High Court has so far stayed proceedings of 632 cases. The charge sheet of 262 cases have so far been submitted in Dhaka special judges’ court for trial. Trials of 37 cases have been halted following stay order issued by the High Court.
The convicted BNP politicians are former ministers M Morshed Khan, Nazmul Huda, Shahjahan Siraj, Aminul Haque, Amanullah Aman, Mir Mohammad Nasiruddin Ahmed, Iqbal Hasan Mahmud Tuku, Salahuddin Ahmed and Shahajahan Omar, former lawmakers Mosaddak Ali Falu, Ziaul Haque Zia, Monjurul Ahsan Munshi, Ali Asgar Lobi, Abdul Wadud Bhuiyan, Rashiduzzaman Millat, Naser Rahman, Md Shahjahan Chowdhury, Helaluzzaman Talukder Lalu, Hafiz Ibrahim and Shahrin Islam Tuhin, Sigma Huda, Aman’s wife Sabera Aman, Nasir’s son Mir Helaluddin Ahmed, Morshed Khan’s son Faisal Morshed Khan, Siraj’s wife Rabeya Haider, his son Rajib Siraj, Lalu’s wife Shamsunnahar Zaman, Omar’s wife Mehjabeen Farzana, Hafiz’s wife Mahfuza Sultana, Zia’s wife Nasima Haque, his son Mushfiqul Haque Zia, former prime minister Khaleda Zia’s political secretary Harris Chowdhury, businessman Giasuddin Al Mamun, his wife Shahina Yasmin, Doctors Association of Bangladesh secretary general AZM Zahid Hossain, his wife Rifat Hossain, former Bangladesh Road Transport Corporation chairman Taimur Alam Khandker, telephone board CBA leader Firoz Miah, Sonali Bank CBA leader BM Bakir, his wife Nazma Hossain and ward commissioner Mohamamd Chowdhury Alam.
The convicted politicians from Awami League are former ministers Mohammad Nasim, Mohiuddin Khan Alamgir and Mofazzal Hossain Chowdhury Maya, former chief whip Abdul Hasnat Abdullah, former lawmakers Kazi Jafarullah, Joynal Abedin Hazari, Sheikh Helal Uddin, HBM Iqbal, SM Mostafa Rashidi Suja, Haji Selim, Makbul Hossain, and Shamim Osman, Awami Swechchhasebak League general secretary Pankaj Devnath, Munshiganj Awami League president Mohammad Mohiuddin, former minister Syeda Sajeda Chowdhury’s son Shahdab Akbar Chowdhury Labu, Nasim’s wife Laila Arzumand Banu, Pankaj’s wife Monika Devnath, Helal’s wife Rupa Chowdhury, Iqbal’s wife Momtaz Begum, Suja’s wife Khodeja Rashidi, Maya’s son Sajidul Haque Chowdhury Dipu, Selim’s wife Gulshan Ara Begum, Makbul’s wife Golam Fatema Tahera Khanam, his son Masudur Rahman and Masud’s wife Salma Rahman.
The convict politicians also include Jatiya Party faction chairman Anwar Hossain Manju, his wife Tasmima Hossain, cousin Mahmud Hossain and Islami Okkay Jote president Mufti Shahidul Islam.
The other convicts include former secretaries ANH Akhter Hossain and Ismail Zobiullah, former public service commission chairman Mahfuzur Rahman, former chiefs forest conservator Munshi Anwarul Islam and Osman Ghani, former prime minister Khaleda’s assignment officer Firoz Mahmud Iqbal, former administrative officer of the Prime Minister’s Office SM Ahsan Habib, former National Broad of Revenue member ATM Sarwar Hossain, Akhter’s wife Nazneen Banu, Firoz’s wife Imtiaz Begum, Sarwar’s wife Nazma Sarwar, Zabiullah’s wife Ayesha Zabiullah and Ghani’s wife.
A businessman and Oriental Bank chairman Obaidul Karim was also convicted of corruption charges.
The convicts also include Janakantha editor Atiquallah Khan Masud, Masud’s wife Shamima Khan, former additional inspector general of police Shahidullah Khan, his wife Mahmuda Khannam, Fatullah police station officer-in-charge Ashraf-Ul-Islam, former police constable Golam Azam, post office officials Shamsul Karim Khan, Farid Ahmed Patwary, Sufia Begum, Abu Siddique Mizi, Shahjahan and Krishna Kumar Das, Rajuk authorised officers Mozaffar Uddin and Harun-or-Rashid, Titas Gas engineer Shahid Miah, former Roads and Highways administrative officer Abul Kalam Shamsuddin, Agricultural Extension Department project director Javed Iqbal, land ministry’s stenographer Kutub Uddin, former Sonali Bank managing director Muhammad Tahmilur Rahman and an Tariqul Rahman Prince.
Ten others were also sentenced to imprisonment for different terms in Brahmanbaria last week.
By: Md Moneruzzaman
Source: New Age
October 21, 2008
A total of 114 people, including 70 politicians, have so far been convicted of corruption by special judges’ court all over the country under the anti-corruption drive of the military-controlled interim government.
The Anti-Corruption Commission on Sunday submitted the list of the convicts to the home ministry. Of the 70 convicted politicians, 41 are from Bangladesh Nationalist Party, 25 from Awami League, three from Jatiya Party led by Anwar Hossain Manju and one from Islami Oikya Jote.
According to the commission’s statement, the 114 people had been sentenced after completion of trial in 100 corruption cases filed by the commission.
The commission has so far lodged 710 cases, as of October 15, and 495 of the cases are now under investigation, and chargesheet in 84 cases now await the commission’s approval, according to the statistics available with the commission.
It said the High Court has so far stayed proceedings of 632 cases. The charge sheet of 262 cases have so far been submitted in Dhaka special judges’ court for trial. Trials of 37 cases have been halted following stay order issued by the High Court.
The convicted BNP politicians are former ministers M Morshed Khan, Nazmul Huda, Shahjahan Siraj, Aminul Haque, Amanullah Aman, Mir Mohammad Nasiruddin Ahmed, Iqbal Hasan Mahmud Tuku, Salahuddin Ahmed and Shahajahan Omar, former lawmakers Mosaddak Ali Falu, Ziaul Haque Zia, Monjurul Ahsan Munshi, Ali Asgar Lobi, Abdul Wadud Bhuiyan, Rashiduzzaman Millat, Naser Rahman, Md Shahjahan Chowdhury, Helaluzzaman Talukder Lalu, Hafiz Ibrahim and Shahrin Islam Tuhin, Sigma Huda, Aman’s wife Sabera Aman, Nasir’s son Mir Helaluddin Ahmed, Morshed Khan’s son Faisal Morshed Khan, Siraj’s wife Rabeya Haider, his son Rajib Siraj, Lalu’s wife Shamsunnahar Zaman, Omar’s wife Mehjabeen Farzana, Hafiz’s wife Mahfuza Sultana, Zia’s wife Nasima Haque, his son Mushfiqul Haque Zia, former prime minister Khaleda Zia’s political secretary Harris Chowdhury, businessman Giasuddin Al Mamun, his wife Shahina Yasmin, Doctors Association of Bangladesh secretary general AZM Zahid Hossain, his wife Rifat Hossain, former Bangladesh Road Transport Corporation chairman Taimur Alam Khandker, telephone board CBA leader Firoz Miah, Sonali Bank CBA leader BM Bakir, his wife Nazma Hossain and ward commissioner Mohamamd Chowdhury Alam.
The convicted politicians from Awami League are former ministers Mohammad Nasim, Mohiuddin Khan Alamgir and Mofazzal Hossain Chowdhury Maya, former chief whip Abdul Hasnat Abdullah, former lawmakers Kazi Jafarullah, Joynal Abedin Hazari, Sheikh Helal Uddin, HBM Iqbal, SM Mostafa Rashidi Suja, Haji Selim, Makbul Hossain, and Shamim Osman, Awami Swechchhasebak League general secretary Pankaj Devnath, Munshiganj Awami League president Mohammad Mohiuddin, former minister Syeda Sajeda Chowdhury’s son Shahdab Akbar Chowdhury Labu, Nasim’s wife Laila Arzumand Banu, Pankaj’s wife Monika Devnath, Helal’s wife Rupa Chowdhury, Iqbal’s wife Momtaz Begum, Suja’s wife Khodeja Rashidi, Maya’s son Sajidul Haque Chowdhury Dipu, Selim’s wife Gulshan Ara Begum, Makbul’s wife Golam Fatema Tahera Khanam, his son Masudur Rahman and Masud’s wife Salma Rahman.
The convict politicians also include Jatiya Party faction chairman Anwar Hossain Manju, his wife Tasmima Hossain, cousin Mahmud Hossain and Islami Okkay Jote president Mufti Shahidul Islam.
The other convicts include former secretaries ANH Akhter Hossain and Ismail Zobiullah, former public service commission chairman Mahfuzur Rahman, former chiefs forest conservator Munshi Anwarul Islam and Osman Ghani, former prime minister Khaleda’s assignment officer Firoz Mahmud Iqbal, former administrative officer of the Prime Minister’s Office SM Ahsan Habib, former National Broad of Revenue member ATM Sarwar Hossain, Akhter’s wife Nazneen Banu, Firoz’s wife Imtiaz Begum, Sarwar’s wife Nazma Sarwar, Zabiullah’s wife Ayesha Zabiullah and Ghani’s wife.
A businessman and Oriental Bank chairman Obaidul Karim was also convicted of corruption charges.
The convicts also include Janakantha editor Atiquallah Khan Masud, Masud’s wife Shamima Khan, former additional inspector general of police Shahidullah Khan, his wife Mahmuda Khannam, Fatullah police station officer-in-charge Ashraf-Ul-Islam, former police constable Golam Azam, post office officials Shamsul Karim Khan, Farid Ahmed Patwary, Sufia Begum, Abu Siddique Mizi, Shahjahan and Krishna Kumar Das, Rajuk authorised officers Mozaffar Uddin and Harun-or-Rashid, Titas Gas engineer Shahid Miah, former Roads and Highways administrative officer Abul Kalam Shamsuddin, Agricultural Extension Department project director Javed Iqbal, land ministry’s stenographer Kutub Uddin, former Sonali Bank managing director Muhammad Tahmilur Rahman and an Tariqul Rahman Prince.
Ten others were also sentenced to imprisonment for different terms in Brahmanbaria last week.
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Military invades Bangladesh's judiciary
Military invades Bangladesh's judiciary
By Rater Zonaki
Source: UPI Asia On-line
Date: October 14, 2008
Hong Kong, China — The judiciary in Bangladesh is being seriously undermined by the military, to the point that it can no longer carry out its functions. Judges and courts are subject to illegal, unconstitutional and even criminal practices.
Among the more serious recent incidents, two handmade bombs were discovered in the residence of Justice Sharif Uddin Chaklader, who until last week was head of a High Court Division dealing with petitions challenging detention orders against politicians and businessmen. In late September a bomb exploded in front of the house of Justice Tariqul Hakim, another Supreme Court judge. Luckily neither judge was injured.
Anonymous letters threatening assassinations were also sent to three senior lawyers – Barrister Rafique-ul Haque, Barrister Shafique Ahmed and Barrister M Amir-ul Islam – as well as the present and past presidents of the Supreme Court Bar Association.
Rafique-ul Haque, who is a former attorney general of Bangladesh, lamented the situation during an urgent meeting of the Supreme Court Bar Association last Sunday. “An army major sits in a room on the second floor of the Supreme Court building where no one is allowed to enter,” he said. He explained that this major handles the case list for the Supreme Court judge – meaning that only those cases the military-backed government approves of will be given a hearing.
Barrister Haque also explained that the chief justice has reconstituted the benches of the High Court Division, assigning junior judges to deal with sensitive criminal cases and sidelining more competent senior judges. It is generally understood that this was done under military pressure.
These incidents expose the vulnerability of judges and lawyers at the highest levels of the judiciary. Not even the Supreme Court of Bangladesh can confront the military authoritarianism in an organized manner.
These incidents have occurred whenever the military-controlled government has faced serious challenges from the highest levels of the judiciary, especially regarding enquiries into the legality of its actions in the past 21 months of emergency rule in Bangladesh.
The government, which grabbed power illegally, has no legitimate authority to rule the country. It is already unhappy with the decision of the High Court that declared its promulgation of ordinances to be beyond its constitutional powers. Also, under emergency laws, the current rulers have disallowed decisions by the Supreme Court on granting bail to certain accused persons.
It appears that over-ambitious high-ranking officers of the armed forces are behind these incidents. The armed forces of Bangladesh shamelessly believe that by invading the civil institutions they can achieve more, especially if a powerful institution like the judiciary is sufficiently suffocated. The people of Bangladesh seem headed for an even more disastrous era under the grip of the armed forces.
If the armed forces dictate to the highest judiciary, how can their abuse of power be curbed? Should the judiciary entertain or tolerate these ongoing military invasions? What role is the chief justice of Bangladesh playing to stop the humiliation of the judiciary at the hands of the military? Why is the lawyers' community silent while its professional dignity and sanctity are under serious threat? Why does the Supreme Court not hold the armed forces accountable for grabbing power and occupying civil institutions illegally?
People who are aware of the situation in Bangladesh know that corruption and abuse of power with blanket impunity are among the biggest setbacks to the country's journey toward democratic stability. At the same time, the existing system allows people to become involved in corruption, either by choice or by force, due to the lack of transparency and accountability by civil servants and politicians who are close to the military rulers.
This does not mean that only a few members of a specific professional community are responsible for leading the country toward disaster or capable of improving things overnight.
Officers of the armed forces are accustomed to taking orders and following commands. However, such practices are useless in civil institutions. Many decisions taken by the military in civilian circumstances are not based on rationality or on a constructive assessment of the consequences of these decisions. This is true because the military officers have no respect for civilians and civil institutions. Most people agree that the armed forces are absolutely incompetent to solve civil problems by adopting military rules and regulations.
The Bangladeshis and the international community who are committed to the rule of law should think seriously whether it is time to remain silent or to act to ensure the survival of Bangladesh's judiciary and other civil institutions. Remaining silent could kill all hope of justice ever being restored to its rightful place in Bangladesh.
____________________________________
(Rater Zonaki is the pseudonym of a human rights defender based in Hong Kong working at the Asian Human Rights Commission. He is a Bangladeshi national with a degree in literature from a university in Dhaka. He began his career as a journalist in 1990 and engaged in human rights activism at the grassroots level in his country for more than a decade. He also worked as an editor for publications on human rights and socio-cultural issues and contributed to other similar publications.)
By Rater Zonaki
Source: UPI Asia On-line
Date: October 14, 2008
Hong Kong, China — The judiciary in Bangladesh is being seriously undermined by the military, to the point that it can no longer carry out its functions. Judges and courts are subject to illegal, unconstitutional and even criminal practices.
Among the more serious recent incidents, two handmade bombs were discovered in the residence of Justice Sharif Uddin Chaklader, who until last week was head of a High Court Division dealing with petitions challenging detention orders against politicians and businessmen. In late September a bomb exploded in front of the house of Justice Tariqul Hakim, another Supreme Court judge. Luckily neither judge was injured.
Anonymous letters threatening assassinations were also sent to three senior lawyers – Barrister Rafique-ul Haque, Barrister Shafique Ahmed and Barrister M Amir-ul Islam – as well as the present and past presidents of the Supreme Court Bar Association.
Rafique-ul Haque, who is a former attorney general of Bangladesh, lamented the situation during an urgent meeting of the Supreme Court Bar Association last Sunday. “An army major sits in a room on the second floor of the Supreme Court building where no one is allowed to enter,” he said. He explained that this major handles the case list for the Supreme Court judge – meaning that only those cases the military-backed government approves of will be given a hearing.
Barrister Haque also explained that the chief justice has reconstituted the benches of the High Court Division, assigning junior judges to deal with sensitive criminal cases and sidelining more competent senior judges. It is generally understood that this was done under military pressure.
These incidents expose the vulnerability of judges and lawyers at the highest levels of the judiciary. Not even the Supreme Court of Bangladesh can confront the military authoritarianism in an organized manner.
These incidents have occurred whenever the military-controlled government has faced serious challenges from the highest levels of the judiciary, especially regarding enquiries into the legality of its actions in the past 21 months of emergency rule in Bangladesh.
The government, which grabbed power illegally, has no legitimate authority to rule the country. It is already unhappy with the decision of the High Court that declared its promulgation of ordinances to be beyond its constitutional powers. Also, under emergency laws, the current rulers have disallowed decisions by the Supreme Court on granting bail to certain accused persons.
It appears that over-ambitious high-ranking officers of the armed forces are behind these incidents. The armed forces of Bangladesh shamelessly believe that by invading the civil institutions they can achieve more, especially if a powerful institution like the judiciary is sufficiently suffocated. The people of Bangladesh seem headed for an even more disastrous era under the grip of the armed forces.
If the armed forces dictate to the highest judiciary, how can their abuse of power be curbed? Should the judiciary entertain or tolerate these ongoing military invasions? What role is the chief justice of Bangladesh playing to stop the humiliation of the judiciary at the hands of the military? Why is the lawyers' community silent while its professional dignity and sanctity are under serious threat? Why does the Supreme Court not hold the armed forces accountable for grabbing power and occupying civil institutions illegally?
People who are aware of the situation in Bangladesh know that corruption and abuse of power with blanket impunity are among the biggest setbacks to the country's journey toward democratic stability. At the same time, the existing system allows people to become involved in corruption, either by choice or by force, due to the lack of transparency and accountability by civil servants and politicians who are close to the military rulers.
This does not mean that only a few members of a specific professional community are responsible for leading the country toward disaster or capable of improving things overnight.
Officers of the armed forces are accustomed to taking orders and following commands. However, such practices are useless in civil institutions. Many decisions taken by the military in civilian circumstances are not based on rationality or on a constructive assessment of the consequences of these decisions. This is true because the military officers have no respect for civilians and civil institutions. Most people agree that the armed forces are absolutely incompetent to solve civil problems by adopting military rules and regulations.
The Bangladeshis and the international community who are committed to the rule of law should think seriously whether it is time to remain silent or to act to ensure the survival of Bangladesh's judiciary and other civil institutions. Remaining silent could kill all hope of justice ever being restored to its rightful place in Bangladesh.
____________________________________
(Rater Zonaki is the pseudonym of a human rights defender based in Hong Kong working at the Asian Human Rights Commission. He is a Bangladeshi national with a degree in literature from a university in Dhaka. He began his career as a journalist in 1990 and engaged in human rights activism at the grassroots level in his country for more than a decade. He also worked as an editor for publications on human rights and socio-cultural issues and contributed to other similar publications.)
Friday, September 19, 2008
Religious Freedom Report 2008: Bangladesh
Bangladesh International Religious Freedom Report 2008
Released by the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor
Source: U.S. Department of State
September 19, 2008
The Constitution establishes Islam as the state religion. It provides for the right to profess, practice, or propagate all religions, subject to law, public order, and morality. It also states that every religious community or denomination has the right to establish, maintain, and manage its religious institutions. While the Government publicly supported freedom of religion, attacks on religious and ethnic minorities continued to be a problem during the reporting period. As opposed to previous reporting periods, there were no reported demonstrations or attempt to lay siege to Ahmadiyya institutions, but there were instances of harassment. Demands that Ahmadis be declared non-Muslims continued sporadically, but the Government generally acted in an effective manner to protect Ahmadis and their property. Religion exerted a significant influence on politics, and the Government was sensitive to the Islamic consciousness of most citizens.
There was no change in the status of respect for religious freedom by the Government during the reporting period. Citizens were generally free to practice the religion of their choice. Government officials, including the police, were nonetheless often ineffective in upholding law and order and were sometimes slow to assist religious minority victims of harassment and violence. The Government and many civil society leaders stated that violence against religious minorities normally had political or economic motivations and could not be attributed only to religious belief or affiliation.
There were reports of societal abuses and discrimination based on religious belief or practice during the period covered by this report. Hindu, Christian, and Buddhist minorities experienced discrimination and sometimes violence by the Muslim majority. Harassment of Ahmadis continued along with demands that Ahmadis be declared non-Muslims.
The U.S. Government discusses religious freedom with the Government as part of its overall policy to promote human rights. In meetings with officials and in public statements, U.S. embassy officers encouraged the Government to protect the rights of minorities. Publicly and privately, the Embassy denounced acts of religious intolerance and called on the Government to ensure due process for all citizens. The Ambassador and Charge d′Affairs made several visits to minority religious communities around the country. The U.S. Government sponsored the successful visit of a prominent U.S. Muslim cleric who spoke to audiences about Qur'anic interpretations that support tolerance and gender equity.
Section I. Religious Demography
The country has an area of 55,126 square miles, and its population is 154 million. According to the 2001 census, Sunni Muslims constitute 89.7 percent of the population and Hindus account for 9.2 percent. The rest of the population is mainly Christian (mostly Roman Catholic) and Theravada-Hinayana Buddhist. Ethnic and religious minority communities often overlapped and were concentrated in the Chittagong Hill Tracts and northern regions. Buddhists are found predominantly among the indigenous (non-Bengali) populations of the Chittagong Hill Tracts. Bengali and ethnic- minority Christians lived in many communities across the country; in cities such as Barisal City, Gournadi in Barisal District, Baniarchar in Gopalganj, Monipuripara in Dhaka, Christianpara in Mohakhal, Nagori in Gazipur, and Khulna City. There also are small populations of Shi'a Muslims, Sikhs, Baha'is, Animists, and Ahmadis. Estimates of their numbers varied from a few thousand to 100 thousand adherents per group. There was no indigenous Jewish community, nor a significant immigrant Jewish population. Religion was an important part of community identity for citizens, including those who did not participate actively in prayers or services.
The majority of individuals classified as foreign residents are returned Bangladeshi émigrés, who practice Islam. There are approximately 30,000 Rohingyan refugees practicing Islam in the southeast around Cox′s Bazar. There was no reliable estimate of the number of missionaries. Several faith-based nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) operated in the country.
Section II. Status of Religious Freedom
Legal/Policy Framework
The Constitution establishes Islam as the state religion but provides for the right to practice, profess, and propagate any religion, subject to law, public order, and morality.
In January 2007 President Iajuddin Ahmed announced a state of emergency and appointed a new caretaker government led by Fakhruddin Ahmed, the former Bangladesh Bank governor. In July Ahmed announced that elections would be held by the end of 2008, after the implementation of electoral and political reforms.
While the Government publicly supported freedom of religion, attacks and discrimination against religious and ethnic minorities continued during the reporting period.
While the right to propagate the religion of one's choice is guaranteed by the Constitution, local authorities and communities often objected to efforts to convert persons from Islam.
In general, government institutions and the courts protected religious freedom. The Government ran imam training academies and proclaimed Islamic festival days but did not dictate sermon content, select or pay clergy, or monitor content of religious education in Islamic religious schools, or madrassahs.
Since 2001, the Government has routinely posted law enforcement personnel at religious festivals and events that are easy targets for extremists.
Shari'a (Islamic law) was not implemented formally and was not imposed on non-Muslims, but played an influential role in civil matters pertaining to the Muslim community. For instance, alternative dispute resolution was available to individuals for settling family arguments and other civil matters not related to land ownership. With the consent of both parties, arbitrators relied on principles found in Shari'a for settling disputes. In addition, Muslim Family Law was loosely based on Shari'a.
In 2001 the High Court ruled all legal rulings based on Shari'a known as fatwas to be illegal. However, the ban had not been implemented because of a pending appeal filed by a group of Islamic clerics, which remained unresolved at the end of the reporting period.
On March 8, 2008 the head of the Caretaker Government announced a women′s development policy. This announcement triggered violent protests from some Islamist groups that argued the policy sought to give men and women equal inheritance rights, contravening principles laid down in Shari′a and the existing Muslim Family Law. Although government advisers (ministers) publicly refuted the claim, the Government formed a committee of Islamic scholars to review the policy. The committee, headed by the top religious leader at the national mosque, recommended a set of changes o the policy. The Government, however, had not acted on the recommendations by the end of the reporting period and the development policy remained unimplemented. Some women′s rights activists called for implementation of the policy without any changes and criticized the Government for forming the review committee.
While Islamic tradition dictates that only muftis (religious scholars) who have expertise in Islamic law are authorized to declare a fatwa, village religious leaders at times made declarations in individual cases and issued fatwas. Sometimes this resulted in extrajudicial punishments, often against women, for perceived moral transgressions.
Family laws concerning marriage, divorce, and adoption differed slightly depending on the religious belief of the persons involved. Each religious group had its own family laws. Muslim men may marry up to four wives; however, a Muslim man must get his first wife's signed permission before taking an additional wife. Society strongly discouraged polygamy, and it was rarely practiced. In contrast, Christian men could only marry one woman. Under Hindu law, unlimited polygamy is permitted and while there is no provision for divorce and legal separation, Hindu widows could legally remarry. There are no legal restrictions on marriage between members of different religious groups. Marriage rituals and proceedings are governed by the family law of the religious group of the parties concerned; however, marriages are also registered with the state.
The Ministry of Religious Affairs administered three funds for religious and cultural activities: the Islamic Foundation, the Hindu Welfare Trust, and the Buddhist Welfare Trust. The Christian community consistently rejected government involvement in its religious affairs. The Hindu Religious Welfare Trust received a total of $1.45 million (98 million taka) from the Government for the year ending June 2008, much of which was dedicated to temple-based literacy and religious programs. Trust money also was used to repair temples, improve cremation pyres, and help destitute Hindu families afford medical treatment. Approximately $36,000 (2.5 million taka) in government funds was spent on annual Puja worship celebrations.
The Buddhist Welfare Trust, founded in the 1980s, received $42,500 (3 million taka) from the Government in the year ending June 2008. The trust used funds to repair monasteries, organize training programs for Buddhist monks, and celebrate the Buddhist festival Purnima. There was no public criticism of how the money was proportioned or distributed.
The Government observed major religious festivals and holy days of Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, and Christians as national holidays. The Bangladesh Christian Association has lobbied, so far unsuccessfully, for the inclusion of Easter as a national holiday.
Non-Muslim religious bodies were not required to register with the Government; however, all NGOs, including religious ones, were required to register with the Government's NGO Affairs Bureau if they received foreign financial assistance for social development projects. The Government could cancel the registration of NGOs suspected to be in breach of their legal or fiduciary obligations and to take other actions, such as blocking foreign fund transfers, to limit their operation.
Religious Studies were part of the curriculum in government schools. Children attended classes in which their own religious beliefs were taught. Some parents claimed that government-employed religious teachers, especially those leading classes on minority religious beliefs, were neither members of the religious group they taught nor qualified to teach it. Although transportation was not always available for children to attend religious study classes away from school, in practice schools with few religious minority students often worked out arrangements with local churches or temples, which then conducted religious studies outside school hours. There were at least 25,000 madrassahs, some of which were funded by the Government and others privately funded. There were no known government-run Christian, Hindu, or Buddhist schools, although private religious schools were permitted and existed throughout the country.
Restrictions on Religious Freedom
The Constitution provides for the right to profess, practice, or propagate any religion; however societal pressures discouraged proselytism. Foreign missionaries were allowed to work, but like other foreign residents, they often faced delays of several months in obtaining or renewing visas. In the past, some missionaries who were perceived to be converting Muslims to other religious groups were unable to renew their 1-year religious worker visas. Some foreign missionaries reported that internal security forces and military intelligence closely monitored their activities.
There were no financial penalties imposed on the basis of religious beliefs; however, religious minorities were disadvantaged in access to military and government jobs, including elected office. Four advisers, including the only non-Muslim adviser, resigned in a caretaker government shake-up in January 2008. The Chief Adviser subsequently appointed Raja Devashish Roy the head of the Chakma people of Chittagong Hill Tracts, as a Special Assistant with the rank status of a State Minister. Roy, a Buddhist, was responsible for the Chittagong Hill Tracts Ministry and the Forest and Environment Ministry. The Chief Adviser also appointed a Hindu, Manik Lal Samaddar, as Special Assistant with responsibility for the Fisheries and Livestock Ministry and the Science, Information and Communication Technology Ministry. Minority communities in general, though, remained underrepresented in the higher ranks of government. One notable exception was the government-owned Bangladesh Bank, which employed approximately 10 percent non-Muslims in its upper ranks. Selection boards for government services often lacked minority representation. Employees were not required to disclose their religious affiliation, but it generally could be determined by a person's name.
Many Hindus have been unable to recover landholdings lost because of discrimination under the now-defunct Vested Property Act. The act was an East Pakistan-era law that allowed the Government to expropriate "enemy" (in practice Hindu) lands. The Government seized approximately 2.5 million acres of land, affecting almost all of the Hindus in the country. In April 2001 Parliament passed the Vested Property Return Act, stipulating that land remaining under government control that was seized under the Vested Property Act be returned to its original owners, provided that the original owners or their heirs remained resident citizens. The Government was required to prepare a list of vested property holdings by October 2001, and claims were to have been filed within 90 days of the publication date. In 2002 Parliament passed an amendment to the Vested Property Return Act, which allowed the Government unlimited time to return the vested properties and gave control of the properties, including the right to lease them, to local government employees. By the end of the period covered by this report, the Government had not prepared a list of such properties.
According to a study conducted by a Dhaka University professor, nearly 200,000 Hindu families have lost approximately 40,667 acres of land since 2001, despite the annulment of the Vested Property Act the same year.
Under the Muslim Family Ordinance, female heirs inherit less than male relatives, and wives have fewer divorce rights than husbands. Laws provide some protection for women against arbitrary divorce and the taking of additional wives by husbands without the first wife's consent, but the protections generally apply only to registered marriages. In rural areas, marriages often were not registered because of ignorance of the law. Under the law, a Muslim husband is required to pay his former wife alimony for 3 months, but this was not always enforced. There was little societal pressure to enforce it, and case backlogs made it difficult, if not impossible, to get redress through the courts.
Abuses of Religious Freedom
Feminist author Taslima Nasreen remained abroad during the period covered by this report, while criminal charges were pending against her on allegations of insulting the religious beliefs of the country's Muslims. In October 2002 a court sentenced Nasreen in absentia to a year in jail for her "derogatory remarks about Islam." Her books remained banned but were openly sold by street hawkers.
On March 15, 2008, the Special Branch of police in Brahmanbaria prevented the Ahmadiyya from holding a religious convention. The convention ultimately was held peacefully after the Special Branch lifted its objections following intervention by higher authorities. A similar incident occurred at Shalshiri in Panchagarh district on March 21, 2008.
On September 17, 2007, Alpin, the satirical weekly magazine of the newspaper Prothom Alo, published a cartoon that some considered blasphemous against Islam. After demonstrations in several cities, the Government banned the sale of the edition, ordered copies to be seized and destroyed, and detained the cartoonist, Arifur Rahman, who was eventually released by the court. The Government provided protection to the Prothom Alo offices to prevent demonstrators from approaching and urged imams to calm the public. The editor of Prothom Alo apologized for the cartoon's publication and fired the editor in charge of Alpin. Protests and demands for the firing and arrest of Rahman and Prothom Alo publisher Mahfuz Anam continued the following week, although the Government took no action against them.
Following the incident with Alpin, Shaptahik 2000 published an article by Daud Haider, an author who fled the country in 1974 after publishing a poem that some considered blasphemous. The Government confiscated all copies of Shaptahik 2000, and the editor apologized.
There were no reports of religious prisoners or detainees.
Forced Religious Conversion
There were no reports of forced religious conversion, including of minor U.S. citizens who had been abducted or illegally removed from the United States, or of the refusal to allow such citizens to be returned to the United States.
Improvements and Positive Developments in Respect for Religious Freedom
The Government took steps to promote interfaith understanding. For example, government leaders issued statements on the eve of religious holidays calling for peace and warned that action would be taken against those attempting to disrupt the celebrations. Through additional security deployments and public statements, the Government promoted the peaceful celebration of Christian and Hindu festivals, including Durga Puja, Christmas, and Easter.
The Government helped support the Council for Interfaith Harmony-Bangladesh, an organization created in 2005 with a mandate to promote understanding and peaceful coexistence. This initiative came in response to a bombing campaign in the fall of 2005 by an Islamist extremist group seeking the imposition of Shari'a law. The organization has helped facilitate dialogue and panel discussions on religious matters; some of these activities have been covered by the local media.
Section III. Societal Abuses and Discrimination
There were reports of societal abuses and discrimination based on religious belief or practice during the period covered by this report. Clashes between religious groups occasionally occurred. Violence directed against religious minority communities continued to result in the loss of lives and property, but the motives--religious animosity, criminal intent, or property disputes--often were unclear. Religious minorities were vulnerable due to their relatively limited influence with political elites. Like many citizens, they were often reluctant to seek recourse from a criminal justice system perceived to be corrupt and ineffective. Police were often ineffective in upholding law and order and were sometimes slow to assist religious minorities. This promoted an atmosphere of impunity for acts of violence against such minorities. However, persons who practiced different religious beliefs often joined each other's festivals and celebrations such as weddings. Shi'a Muslims practiced their religious beliefs without interference from Sunnis.
Religious minorities were not underrepresented in the private sector.
Reported incidents against religious minorities during the reporting period included killings, rape, torture, attacks on places of worship, destruction of homes, forced evictions, and desecration of items of worship. Many of these reports could not be verified independently. There also were reported incidents of members of the Muslim community attacking each other on holidays, due to a perception that some events were un-Islamic. The Government sometimes failed to investigate the crimes and prosecute the perpetrators, who were often local gang leaders.
Attacks against the Hindu community continued. According to the Bangladesh Buddhist-Hindu-Christian Unity Council, during the period from July 2007 to April 2008 there were a total of 58 killings, 52 attacks on or occupation of temples, 39 incidents of land grabbing, and 13 cases of rape.
Ain-O-Shalish Kendro (ASK), a domestic human rights organization, in one of its investigation reports stated that Advocate Biman Chandra Bosak, Vice-President of Joypurhat District Bar Association, was severely beaten up by a group of eight or nine persons (two of whom wore Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) uniforms) at his village in Joypurhat district on the night of April 2, 2008. According to the report, the attack on Bosak occurred after he filed a case against a Muslim neighbor who tried to seize some land that was dedicated to a Hindu deity. The local RAB commander denied involvement of his personnel.
According to another ASK investigation report, three Muslim neighbors tried to grab part of the homestead of non-Muslim Harolal Coch in Kaliakoir of Gazipur district on February 7, 2008. The report claimed that the local police refused to file his official complaint.
In contrast to the previous reporting period, there were no reports of the military conducting widespread evictions of Hindus from their land. During the previous reporting period, the military attempted to evict 120 families, 85 percent of them Hindu, from land in the Mirpur area of Dhaka abutting the military cantonment. A temple is also located on the property. The eviction was being carried out on the basis of a 1961 land purchase agreement by the military. The land owners challenged the land acquisition and eviction in court. At the end of the reporting period the case was still pending.
According to the national daily Janakantha, on March 20, 2008, a religious icon representing the Hindu Goddess Murthi of the Siddeswari temple in the Village of Shekhor Nagar was demolished during a Puja worship celebration. Police arrested one individual in connection with the incident.
According to a local media outlet, two Hindu temples and nine religious icons were destroyed in Faridpur District.
In April 2007 leaders of the Catholic Khasia community in Moulvibazar complained to the local government about harassment by local Forestry Department officials, who oversee the Monchhara Forest where many Khasia live. They stated several forest officials had filed false cases against members of their community, including the head of the local Catholic mission, in order to intimidate them. A meeting between Khasia community leaders, Forest Department officials, and Kulaura subdistrict officials in early 2008 resulted in a government promise that the Khasia would not be harassed if they lived on their own land and refrained from occupying Forest Department land. The conflict, however, continued as the Forest Department filed fresh cases against some Khasia alleging they had occupied government land.
The Forestry Department continued to be involved in other allegations of abuse against minority communities living in national forest areas during the reporting period. In 2007 the Government arrested several high-level Forestry Department officials and charged them with corruption. Since these arrests, no new charges have been filed against indigenous groups living in the forests, and harassment has been curtailed considerably.
Reports of harassment and violence against the Christian community were recorded during the reporting period. According to Christian Life Bangladesh (CLB), members of a Muslim fundamentalist group attacked two Christian men at Rangunia in Chittagong on April 12, 2008, as they were showing a film to build social awareness about arsenic pollution, child marriage, and other social ills.
Members of a banned insurgent group called Shanti Bahini in Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) attacked Chengko Marma, a member of CLB′s community awareness team in Khagrachhari Hill District on September 6, 2007. According to CLB, the Buddhist-dominated Shanti Bahini targeted the Christian man because of his religious beliefs. In another incident, the CLB reported the daughter of a Christian evangelist who converted some local Hindus was raped by Muslim men in Mymensingh in April 2008.
In the northern district of Nilphamari, police on July 26, 2007, arrested Sanjoy Roy, a church pastor, after a mob pressured the police to take action against him for converting 25 Muslims to Christianity, CLB stated. Roy was released after 2 days in custody and most of the converts returned to Islam.
Human rights groups and press reports indicated that vigilantism against women accused of moral transgressions occurred in rural areas, often under a fatwa, and included punishments such as whipping. During 2007 religious leaders issued 35 fatwas, demanding punishment ranging from lashings and other physical assaults to shunning by family and community members, according to ASK.
There were approximately 100,000 Ahmadis concentrated in Dhaka and several other locales. While mainstream Muslims rejected some of the Ahmadiyya teachings, the majority supported Ahmadis′ right to practice without fear or persecution. However, Ahmadis continued to be subject to harassment from those who denounced their teachings.
Since 2004 anti-Ahmadiyya extremists such as the International Khatme Nabuwat Movement Bangladesh and a splinter group, the Khatme Nabuwat Andolon Bangladesh (KNAB), have publicly demanded that the Government pass legislation declaring Ahmadis to be non-Muslims. The Government rejected the ultimatums and successfully kept protesters a safe distance from all Ahmadiyya buildings. Since the proclamation of a state of emergency in January 2007, the anti-Ahmadiyya groups have not held demonstrations. However, discrimination against Ahmadis continued. On August 24, 2007, local authorities in Kushtia stopped religious classes organized by the Ahmadiyya community inside their mosque.
In December 2006 the Awami League upset many of its minority and liberal supporters when it signed an electoral pact with the Bangladesh Khelafat Majlish, a splinter Islamist group tied to violent Islamist militants. The agreement committed a future Awami League-led government to recognizing some fatwas and an official declaration that the Prophet Mohammad is the last prophet, a direct challenge to the Ahmadiyya community. Ahmadis and liberal citizens criticized the agreement as politically expedient and inconsistent with core party principles. Following this criticism and open rebellion among senior party leaders, the Awami League quietly allowed the agreement to lapse after imposition of the state of emergency.
Section IV. U.S. Government Policy
The U.S. Government discusses religious freedom with officials at all levels of the Government as well as with political party leaders and representatives of religious and minority communities. During the period covered by this report, the Embassy emphasized the importance of free, fair, and credible national parliamentary elections by the end of 2008 with full participation of all ethnic and religious communities. The Embassy continued to express concern about human rights, including the rights of religious and ethnic minorities. Embassy staff traveled to various regions investigating human rights cases, including some involving religious minorities, and met with civil society members, NGOs, local religious leaders, and other citizens to discuss concerns about violence during the next election. They also encouraged law enforcement to take proactive measures to protect the rights of religious minorities.
Embassy and visiting U.S. government officials regularly visited members of minority communities to hear their concerns and demonstrate support.
The Embassy assisted U.S. faith-based relief organizations in guiding paperwork for approval of schools and other projects. The Government has been willing to discuss such subjects and has been helpful in resolving problems. The Embassy also has acted as an advocate in the Home Ministry for these organizations in resolving problems with visas.
The Embassy encouraged the Government through the Ministry for Religious Affairs to develop and expand its training program for Islamic religious leaders. After an initial pilot program, the U.S. Government provided, among other topics, orientation sessions for religious leaders on human rights and gender equality. For the third year in a row, the U.S. Government sponsored the visit of a prominent U.S. Muslim cleric to tour the country and speak. He visited the northwestern city of Rajshahi and also addressed groups in Dhaka about Qur'anic interpretations that support religious tolerance and freedom and that promote gender equality.
During the reporting period, the U.S. Government continued to make religious freedom, especially the problems facing the population in the Chittagong Hill Tracts, a topic of discussion in meetings with government officials. Embassy officers visited the Hill Tracts over the course of the reporting period and met with senior government officials to relay concerns over the treatment of minorities.
Democracy and governance projects supported by the United States included tolerance and minority rights components.
Released by the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor
Source: U.S. Department of State
September 19, 2008
The Constitution establishes Islam as the state religion. It provides for the right to profess, practice, or propagate all religions, subject to law, public order, and morality. It also states that every religious community or denomination has the right to establish, maintain, and manage its religious institutions. While the Government publicly supported freedom of religion, attacks on religious and ethnic minorities continued to be a problem during the reporting period. As opposed to previous reporting periods, there were no reported demonstrations or attempt to lay siege to Ahmadiyya institutions, but there were instances of harassment. Demands that Ahmadis be declared non-Muslims continued sporadically, but the Government generally acted in an effective manner to protect Ahmadis and their property. Religion exerted a significant influence on politics, and the Government was sensitive to the Islamic consciousness of most citizens.
There was no change in the status of respect for religious freedom by the Government during the reporting period. Citizens were generally free to practice the religion of their choice. Government officials, including the police, were nonetheless often ineffective in upholding law and order and were sometimes slow to assist religious minority victims of harassment and violence. The Government and many civil society leaders stated that violence against religious minorities normally had political or economic motivations and could not be attributed only to religious belief or affiliation.
There were reports of societal abuses and discrimination based on religious belief or practice during the period covered by this report. Hindu, Christian, and Buddhist minorities experienced discrimination and sometimes violence by the Muslim majority. Harassment of Ahmadis continued along with demands that Ahmadis be declared non-Muslims.
The U.S. Government discusses religious freedom with the Government as part of its overall policy to promote human rights. In meetings with officials and in public statements, U.S. embassy officers encouraged the Government to protect the rights of minorities. Publicly and privately, the Embassy denounced acts of religious intolerance and called on the Government to ensure due process for all citizens. The Ambassador and Charge d′Affairs made several visits to minority religious communities around the country. The U.S. Government sponsored the successful visit of a prominent U.S. Muslim cleric who spoke to audiences about Qur'anic interpretations that support tolerance and gender equity.
Section I. Religious Demography
The country has an area of 55,126 square miles, and its population is 154 million. According to the 2001 census, Sunni Muslims constitute 89.7 percent of the population and Hindus account for 9.2 percent. The rest of the population is mainly Christian (mostly Roman Catholic) and Theravada-Hinayana Buddhist. Ethnic and religious minority communities often overlapped and were concentrated in the Chittagong Hill Tracts and northern regions. Buddhists are found predominantly among the indigenous (non-Bengali) populations of the Chittagong Hill Tracts. Bengali and ethnic- minority Christians lived in many communities across the country; in cities such as Barisal City, Gournadi in Barisal District, Baniarchar in Gopalganj, Monipuripara in Dhaka, Christianpara in Mohakhal, Nagori in Gazipur, and Khulna City. There also are small populations of Shi'a Muslims, Sikhs, Baha'is, Animists, and Ahmadis. Estimates of their numbers varied from a few thousand to 100 thousand adherents per group. There was no indigenous Jewish community, nor a significant immigrant Jewish population. Religion was an important part of community identity for citizens, including those who did not participate actively in prayers or services.
The majority of individuals classified as foreign residents are returned Bangladeshi émigrés, who practice Islam. There are approximately 30,000 Rohingyan refugees practicing Islam in the southeast around Cox′s Bazar. There was no reliable estimate of the number of missionaries. Several faith-based nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) operated in the country.
Section II. Status of Religious Freedom
Legal/Policy Framework
The Constitution establishes Islam as the state religion but provides for the right to practice, profess, and propagate any religion, subject to law, public order, and morality.
In January 2007 President Iajuddin Ahmed announced a state of emergency and appointed a new caretaker government led by Fakhruddin Ahmed, the former Bangladesh Bank governor. In July Ahmed announced that elections would be held by the end of 2008, after the implementation of electoral and political reforms.
While the Government publicly supported freedom of religion, attacks and discrimination against religious and ethnic minorities continued during the reporting period.
While the right to propagate the religion of one's choice is guaranteed by the Constitution, local authorities and communities often objected to efforts to convert persons from Islam.
In general, government institutions and the courts protected religious freedom. The Government ran imam training academies and proclaimed Islamic festival days but did not dictate sermon content, select or pay clergy, or monitor content of religious education in Islamic religious schools, or madrassahs.
Since 2001, the Government has routinely posted law enforcement personnel at religious festivals and events that are easy targets for extremists.
Shari'a (Islamic law) was not implemented formally and was not imposed on non-Muslims, but played an influential role in civil matters pertaining to the Muslim community. For instance, alternative dispute resolution was available to individuals for settling family arguments and other civil matters not related to land ownership. With the consent of both parties, arbitrators relied on principles found in Shari'a for settling disputes. In addition, Muslim Family Law was loosely based on Shari'a.
In 2001 the High Court ruled all legal rulings based on Shari'a known as fatwas to be illegal. However, the ban had not been implemented because of a pending appeal filed by a group of Islamic clerics, which remained unresolved at the end of the reporting period.
On March 8, 2008 the head of the Caretaker Government announced a women′s development policy. This announcement triggered violent protests from some Islamist groups that argued the policy sought to give men and women equal inheritance rights, contravening principles laid down in Shari′a and the existing Muslim Family Law. Although government advisers (ministers) publicly refuted the claim, the Government formed a committee of Islamic scholars to review the policy. The committee, headed by the top religious leader at the national mosque, recommended a set of changes o the policy. The Government, however, had not acted on the recommendations by the end of the reporting period and the development policy remained unimplemented. Some women′s rights activists called for implementation of the policy without any changes and criticized the Government for forming the review committee.
While Islamic tradition dictates that only muftis (religious scholars) who have expertise in Islamic law are authorized to declare a fatwa, village religious leaders at times made declarations in individual cases and issued fatwas. Sometimes this resulted in extrajudicial punishments, often against women, for perceived moral transgressions.
Family laws concerning marriage, divorce, and adoption differed slightly depending on the religious belief of the persons involved. Each religious group had its own family laws. Muslim men may marry up to four wives; however, a Muslim man must get his first wife's signed permission before taking an additional wife. Society strongly discouraged polygamy, and it was rarely practiced. In contrast, Christian men could only marry one woman. Under Hindu law, unlimited polygamy is permitted and while there is no provision for divorce and legal separation, Hindu widows could legally remarry. There are no legal restrictions on marriage between members of different religious groups. Marriage rituals and proceedings are governed by the family law of the religious group of the parties concerned; however, marriages are also registered with the state.
The Ministry of Religious Affairs administered three funds for religious and cultural activities: the Islamic Foundation, the Hindu Welfare Trust, and the Buddhist Welfare Trust. The Christian community consistently rejected government involvement in its religious affairs. The Hindu Religious Welfare Trust received a total of $1.45 million (98 million taka) from the Government for the year ending June 2008, much of which was dedicated to temple-based literacy and religious programs. Trust money also was used to repair temples, improve cremation pyres, and help destitute Hindu families afford medical treatment. Approximately $36,000 (2.5 million taka) in government funds was spent on annual Puja worship celebrations.
The Buddhist Welfare Trust, founded in the 1980s, received $42,500 (3 million taka) from the Government in the year ending June 2008. The trust used funds to repair monasteries, organize training programs for Buddhist monks, and celebrate the Buddhist festival Purnima. There was no public criticism of how the money was proportioned or distributed.
The Government observed major religious festivals and holy days of Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, and Christians as national holidays. The Bangladesh Christian Association has lobbied, so far unsuccessfully, for the inclusion of Easter as a national holiday.
Non-Muslim religious bodies were not required to register with the Government; however, all NGOs, including religious ones, were required to register with the Government's NGO Affairs Bureau if they received foreign financial assistance for social development projects. The Government could cancel the registration of NGOs suspected to be in breach of their legal or fiduciary obligations and to take other actions, such as blocking foreign fund transfers, to limit their operation.
Religious Studies were part of the curriculum in government schools. Children attended classes in which their own religious beliefs were taught. Some parents claimed that government-employed religious teachers, especially those leading classes on minority religious beliefs, were neither members of the religious group they taught nor qualified to teach it. Although transportation was not always available for children to attend religious study classes away from school, in practice schools with few religious minority students often worked out arrangements with local churches or temples, which then conducted religious studies outside school hours. There were at least 25,000 madrassahs, some of which were funded by the Government and others privately funded. There were no known government-run Christian, Hindu, or Buddhist schools, although private religious schools were permitted and existed throughout the country.
Restrictions on Religious Freedom
The Constitution provides for the right to profess, practice, or propagate any religion; however societal pressures discouraged proselytism. Foreign missionaries were allowed to work, but like other foreign residents, they often faced delays of several months in obtaining or renewing visas. In the past, some missionaries who were perceived to be converting Muslims to other religious groups were unable to renew their 1-year religious worker visas. Some foreign missionaries reported that internal security forces and military intelligence closely monitored their activities.
There were no financial penalties imposed on the basis of religious beliefs; however, religious minorities were disadvantaged in access to military and government jobs, including elected office. Four advisers, including the only non-Muslim adviser, resigned in a caretaker government shake-up in January 2008. The Chief Adviser subsequently appointed Raja Devashish Roy the head of the Chakma people of Chittagong Hill Tracts, as a Special Assistant with the rank status of a State Minister. Roy, a Buddhist, was responsible for the Chittagong Hill Tracts Ministry and the Forest and Environment Ministry. The Chief Adviser also appointed a Hindu, Manik Lal Samaddar, as Special Assistant with responsibility for the Fisheries and Livestock Ministry and the Science, Information and Communication Technology Ministry. Minority communities in general, though, remained underrepresented in the higher ranks of government. One notable exception was the government-owned Bangladesh Bank, which employed approximately 10 percent non-Muslims in its upper ranks. Selection boards for government services often lacked minority representation. Employees were not required to disclose their religious affiliation, but it generally could be determined by a person's name.
Many Hindus have been unable to recover landholdings lost because of discrimination under the now-defunct Vested Property Act. The act was an East Pakistan-era law that allowed the Government to expropriate "enemy" (in practice Hindu) lands. The Government seized approximately 2.5 million acres of land, affecting almost all of the Hindus in the country. In April 2001 Parliament passed the Vested Property Return Act, stipulating that land remaining under government control that was seized under the Vested Property Act be returned to its original owners, provided that the original owners or their heirs remained resident citizens. The Government was required to prepare a list of vested property holdings by October 2001, and claims were to have been filed within 90 days of the publication date. In 2002 Parliament passed an amendment to the Vested Property Return Act, which allowed the Government unlimited time to return the vested properties and gave control of the properties, including the right to lease them, to local government employees. By the end of the period covered by this report, the Government had not prepared a list of such properties.
According to a study conducted by a Dhaka University professor, nearly 200,000 Hindu families have lost approximately 40,667 acres of land since 2001, despite the annulment of the Vested Property Act the same year.
Under the Muslim Family Ordinance, female heirs inherit less than male relatives, and wives have fewer divorce rights than husbands. Laws provide some protection for women against arbitrary divorce and the taking of additional wives by husbands without the first wife's consent, but the protections generally apply only to registered marriages. In rural areas, marriages often were not registered because of ignorance of the law. Under the law, a Muslim husband is required to pay his former wife alimony for 3 months, but this was not always enforced. There was little societal pressure to enforce it, and case backlogs made it difficult, if not impossible, to get redress through the courts.
Abuses of Religious Freedom
Feminist author Taslima Nasreen remained abroad during the period covered by this report, while criminal charges were pending against her on allegations of insulting the religious beliefs of the country's Muslims. In October 2002 a court sentenced Nasreen in absentia to a year in jail for her "derogatory remarks about Islam." Her books remained banned but were openly sold by street hawkers.
On March 15, 2008, the Special Branch of police in Brahmanbaria prevented the Ahmadiyya from holding a religious convention. The convention ultimately was held peacefully after the Special Branch lifted its objections following intervention by higher authorities. A similar incident occurred at Shalshiri in Panchagarh district on March 21, 2008.
On September 17, 2007, Alpin, the satirical weekly magazine of the newspaper Prothom Alo, published a cartoon that some considered blasphemous against Islam. After demonstrations in several cities, the Government banned the sale of the edition, ordered copies to be seized and destroyed, and detained the cartoonist, Arifur Rahman, who was eventually released by the court. The Government provided protection to the Prothom Alo offices to prevent demonstrators from approaching and urged imams to calm the public. The editor of Prothom Alo apologized for the cartoon's publication and fired the editor in charge of Alpin. Protests and demands for the firing and arrest of Rahman and Prothom Alo publisher Mahfuz Anam continued the following week, although the Government took no action against them.
Following the incident with Alpin, Shaptahik 2000 published an article by Daud Haider, an author who fled the country in 1974 after publishing a poem that some considered blasphemous. The Government confiscated all copies of Shaptahik 2000, and the editor apologized.
There were no reports of religious prisoners or detainees.
Forced Religious Conversion
There were no reports of forced religious conversion, including of minor U.S. citizens who had been abducted or illegally removed from the United States, or of the refusal to allow such citizens to be returned to the United States.
Improvements and Positive Developments in Respect for Religious Freedom
The Government took steps to promote interfaith understanding. For example, government leaders issued statements on the eve of religious holidays calling for peace and warned that action would be taken against those attempting to disrupt the celebrations. Through additional security deployments and public statements, the Government promoted the peaceful celebration of Christian and Hindu festivals, including Durga Puja, Christmas, and Easter.
The Government helped support the Council for Interfaith Harmony-Bangladesh, an organization created in 2005 with a mandate to promote understanding and peaceful coexistence. This initiative came in response to a bombing campaign in the fall of 2005 by an Islamist extremist group seeking the imposition of Shari'a law. The organization has helped facilitate dialogue and panel discussions on religious matters; some of these activities have been covered by the local media.
Section III. Societal Abuses and Discrimination
There were reports of societal abuses and discrimination based on religious belief or practice during the period covered by this report. Clashes between religious groups occasionally occurred. Violence directed against religious minority communities continued to result in the loss of lives and property, but the motives--religious animosity, criminal intent, or property disputes--often were unclear. Religious minorities were vulnerable due to their relatively limited influence with political elites. Like many citizens, they were often reluctant to seek recourse from a criminal justice system perceived to be corrupt and ineffective. Police were often ineffective in upholding law and order and were sometimes slow to assist religious minorities. This promoted an atmosphere of impunity for acts of violence against such minorities. However, persons who practiced different religious beliefs often joined each other's festivals and celebrations such as weddings. Shi'a Muslims practiced their religious beliefs without interference from Sunnis.
Religious minorities were not underrepresented in the private sector.
Reported incidents against religious minorities during the reporting period included killings, rape, torture, attacks on places of worship, destruction of homes, forced evictions, and desecration of items of worship. Many of these reports could not be verified independently. There also were reported incidents of members of the Muslim community attacking each other on holidays, due to a perception that some events were un-Islamic. The Government sometimes failed to investigate the crimes and prosecute the perpetrators, who were often local gang leaders.
Attacks against the Hindu community continued. According to the Bangladesh Buddhist-Hindu-Christian Unity Council, during the period from July 2007 to April 2008 there were a total of 58 killings, 52 attacks on or occupation of temples, 39 incidents of land grabbing, and 13 cases of rape.
Ain-O-Shalish Kendro (ASK), a domestic human rights organization, in one of its investigation reports stated that Advocate Biman Chandra Bosak, Vice-President of Joypurhat District Bar Association, was severely beaten up by a group of eight or nine persons (two of whom wore Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) uniforms) at his village in Joypurhat district on the night of April 2, 2008. According to the report, the attack on Bosak occurred after he filed a case against a Muslim neighbor who tried to seize some land that was dedicated to a Hindu deity. The local RAB commander denied involvement of his personnel.
According to another ASK investigation report, three Muslim neighbors tried to grab part of the homestead of non-Muslim Harolal Coch in Kaliakoir of Gazipur district on February 7, 2008. The report claimed that the local police refused to file his official complaint.
In contrast to the previous reporting period, there were no reports of the military conducting widespread evictions of Hindus from their land. During the previous reporting period, the military attempted to evict 120 families, 85 percent of them Hindu, from land in the Mirpur area of Dhaka abutting the military cantonment. A temple is also located on the property. The eviction was being carried out on the basis of a 1961 land purchase agreement by the military. The land owners challenged the land acquisition and eviction in court. At the end of the reporting period the case was still pending.
According to the national daily Janakantha, on March 20, 2008, a religious icon representing the Hindu Goddess Murthi of the Siddeswari temple in the Village of Shekhor Nagar was demolished during a Puja worship celebration. Police arrested one individual in connection with the incident.
According to a local media outlet, two Hindu temples and nine religious icons were destroyed in Faridpur District.
In April 2007 leaders of the Catholic Khasia community in Moulvibazar complained to the local government about harassment by local Forestry Department officials, who oversee the Monchhara Forest where many Khasia live. They stated several forest officials had filed false cases against members of their community, including the head of the local Catholic mission, in order to intimidate them. A meeting between Khasia community leaders, Forest Department officials, and Kulaura subdistrict officials in early 2008 resulted in a government promise that the Khasia would not be harassed if they lived on their own land and refrained from occupying Forest Department land. The conflict, however, continued as the Forest Department filed fresh cases against some Khasia alleging they had occupied government land.
The Forestry Department continued to be involved in other allegations of abuse against minority communities living in national forest areas during the reporting period. In 2007 the Government arrested several high-level Forestry Department officials and charged them with corruption. Since these arrests, no new charges have been filed against indigenous groups living in the forests, and harassment has been curtailed considerably.
Reports of harassment and violence against the Christian community were recorded during the reporting period. According to Christian Life Bangladesh (CLB), members of a Muslim fundamentalist group attacked two Christian men at Rangunia in Chittagong on April 12, 2008, as they were showing a film to build social awareness about arsenic pollution, child marriage, and other social ills.
Members of a banned insurgent group called Shanti Bahini in Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) attacked Chengko Marma, a member of CLB′s community awareness team in Khagrachhari Hill District on September 6, 2007. According to CLB, the Buddhist-dominated Shanti Bahini targeted the Christian man because of his religious beliefs. In another incident, the CLB reported the daughter of a Christian evangelist who converted some local Hindus was raped by Muslim men in Mymensingh in April 2008.
In the northern district of Nilphamari, police on July 26, 2007, arrested Sanjoy Roy, a church pastor, after a mob pressured the police to take action against him for converting 25 Muslims to Christianity, CLB stated. Roy was released after 2 days in custody and most of the converts returned to Islam.
Human rights groups and press reports indicated that vigilantism against women accused of moral transgressions occurred in rural areas, often under a fatwa, and included punishments such as whipping. During 2007 religious leaders issued 35 fatwas, demanding punishment ranging from lashings and other physical assaults to shunning by family and community members, according to ASK.
There were approximately 100,000 Ahmadis concentrated in Dhaka and several other locales. While mainstream Muslims rejected some of the Ahmadiyya teachings, the majority supported Ahmadis′ right to practice without fear or persecution. However, Ahmadis continued to be subject to harassment from those who denounced their teachings.
Since 2004 anti-Ahmadiyya extremists such as the International Khatme Nabuwat Movement Bangladesh and a splinter group, the Khatme Nabuwat Andolon Bangladesh (KNAB), have publicly demanded that the Government pass legislation declaring Ahmadis to be non-Muslims. The Government rejected the ultimatums and successfully kept protesters a safe distance from all Ahmadiyya buildings. Since the proclamation of a state of emergency in January 2007, the anti-Ahmadiyya groups have not held demonstrations. However, discrimination against Ahmadis continued. On August 24, 2007, local authorities in Kushtia stopped religious classes organized by the Ahmadiyya community inside their mosque.
In December 2006 the Awami League upset many of its minority and liberal supporters when it signed an electoral pact with the Bangladesh Khelafat Majlish, a splinter Islamist group tied to violent Islamist militants. The agreement committed a future Awami League-led government to recognizing some fatwas and an official declaration that the Prophet Mohammad is the last prophet, a direct challenge to the Ahmadiyya community. Ahmadis and liberal citizens criticized the agreement as politically expedient and inconsistent with core party principles. Following this criticism and open rebellion among senior party leaders, the Awami League quietly allowed the agreement to lapse after imposition of the state of emergency.
Section IV. U.S. Government Policy
The U.S. Government discusses religious freedom with officials at all levels of the Government as well as with political party leaders and representatives of religious and minority communities. During the period covered by this report, the Embassy emphasized the importance of free, fair, and credible national parliamentary elections by the end of 2008 with full participation of all ethnic and religious communities. The Embassy continued to express concern about human rights, including the rights of religious and ethnic minorities. Embassy staff traveled to various regions investigating human rights cases, including some involving religious minorities, and met with civil society members, NGOs, local religious leaders, and other citizens to discuss concerns about violence during the next election. They also encouraged law enforcement to take proactive measures to protect the rights of religious minorities.
Embassy and visiting U.S. government officials regularly visited members of minority communities to hear their concerns and demonstrate support.
The Embassy assisted U.S. faith-based relief organizations in guiding paperwork for approval of schools and other projects. The Government has been willing to discuss such subjects and has been helpful in resolving problems. The Embassy also has acted as an advocate in the Home Ministry for these organizations in resolving problems with visas.
The Embassy encouraged the Government through the Ministry for Religious Affairs to develop and expand its training program for Islamic religious leaders. After an initial pilot program, the U.S. Government provided, among other topics, orientation sessions for religious leaders on human rights and gender equality. For the third year in a row, the U.S. Government sponsored the visit of a prominent U.S. Muslim cleric to tour the country and speak. He visited the northwestern city of Rajshahi and also addressed groups in Dhaka about Qur'anic interpretations that support religious tolerance and freedom and that promote gender equality.
During the reporting period, the U.S. Government continued to make religious freedom, especially the problems facing the population in the Chittagong Hill Tracts, a topic of discussion in meetings with government officials. Embassy officers visited the Hill Tracts over the course of the reporting period and met with senior government officials to relay concerns over the treatment of minorities.
Democracy and governance projects supported by the United States included tolerance and minority rights components.
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