How an ex-PM wants bloodshed | The Daily Star

How an ex-PM wants bloodshed | The Daily Star:

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TUESDAY, MARCH 19, 2013

How an ex-PM wants bloodshed

Wonders Hasina at AL rally; defends Shahbagh youths; alerts people about Jamaat propaganda

STAFF CORRESPONDENT

    

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina yesterday said BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia wanted to go to power through bloodshed.
Addressing a rally in the capital’s Suhrawardy Udyan, she also said the government was always committed to stand against any threat to public life.
Hasina reiterated that the ongoing trial of war criminals would be completed no matter what conspiracies were hatched.
Referring to Khaleda’s statement at a Manikganj rally on Saturday that “Some more lives might be lost, but we will have to accept this for the sake of the country and its people,” the PM wondered how an opposition leader could say such things.
“Why does she want more lives to be lost? Is this for protecting the war criminals? …. She wants more blood. Why? Because she wants to assume power through bloodshed.”
The PM said the people would never vote for such “bloodsuckers”.
The ruling Awami League organised the rally to mark the birth anniversary of Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and to protest “BNP-Jamaat anarchy” against the war crimes trial and communal harmony.
Hasina, who is also the AL president, also urged the nation not to be misguided by the rumours and propaganda being dished out by the BNP and Jamaat.
Referring to a smear campaign against the war crimes trial as reported by The Daily Star on Sunday, she noted that the ceremony of changing the Gilaf (cover) of Holy Kaaba had even been described as a human chain for the release of Jamaat leader Delawar Hossain Sayedee.
“The Jamaat even took Sayedee to the moon to misguide the people of the country,” she said, referring to Sayedee’s face being implanted on the moon through photoshopping.
She added that Jamaat founder Abu Ala Moududi on different occasions had criticised Prophet Hazrat Muhammad (SM).
Criticising Khaleda Zia for calling the Shahbagh youths atheists and spoiled, the PM said the youths were brilliant and well educated and had identified themselves with the spirit of the Liberation War.
“How can a Muslim term another Muslim an atheist? Only Allah will judge who is an atheist,” she added.
“If we believe Allah has created the Earth… we have to keep faith in Him. She [Khaleda] has totally lost faith in Allah and after coming back from Singapore with mental illness she is calling the Shahbagh youths atheists and spoiled,” said Hasina. She added that everybody knew about Khaleda’s practice of religion.
Hasina said the BNP-Jamaat had attacked temples and killed clerics of different religions after coming to power in 2001 and now they were doing the same. “They don’t believe in any religion and they launch attacks on every religion.”
About the propaganda centring around Vitamin A capsule, the premier said the government was caring about child health and parents need not worry.
Hasina criticized Khaleda for enforcing hartal day after day while the students were taking SSC exams.
She urged all the pro-Liberation War people to resist the evil force that wants to destabilise law and order and poses a threat to public life and properties.
AL General Secretary Syed Ashraful Islam, party leaders Amir Hossain Amu, Tofail Ahmed, Suranjit Sengupta, Matia Chowdhury, Abdul Latif Siddiqui, Mohammad Nasim and Mahbubul Alam Hanif also spoke on the occasion.
Last night, BNP acting secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir yesterday lambasted Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina for her speech at the rally.
Speaking at a press conference at the BNP central office, Fakhrul, also the BNP spokesperson, said the prime minister always speaks in a language which is devoid of decency.

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Choice is yours | The Daily Star

Choice is yours | The Daily Star:

SUNDAY, MARCH 17, 2013

Choice is yours

Khaleda asked to side either with youths or war criminals

SATFF CORRESPONDENT

    

 

The Gonojagoron Mancha organisers yesterday reiterated that their agenda was still restricted to their six-point demand as educational institutions across the country held rallies, expressing solidarity with the movement.
On March 8, the protesters urged all educational institutions to hold rallies to demonstrate their commitment to the movement for death penalty to all war criminals and a ban on the Jamaat-e-Islami.
Their other demands include amending the International Crimes (Tribunals) Act 1973, banning all the financial institutions run by Jamaat-Shibir men, bringing to book the political parties and organisations that have sided with the war criminals and arresting those war criminals who had been under trial or delivered sentences before 1975 and bringing them to justice.
At a rally organised at Dhaka University, speakers strongly condemned the recent communal attacks on the Hindus in different parts of the country and urged the government to punish the perpetrators.
Religious leaders of Muslim, Hindu, Christian and Buddhist communities addressed the rally. No religion allows its believers to attack people from other religions, they said.
Referring to BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia’s comment about the movement, Imran H Sarker, spokesperson for Gonojagoron Mancha, said, “You (Khaleda Zia) have to decide whether you will support the youths whom you have branded as ‘atheists’ or the war criminals who committed crimes during the country’s Liberation War in 1971.”
Addressing a rally in Munshiganj, Khaleda Zia on Friday called the Gonojagoron Mancha that had been launched at Shahbagh a platform of “atheists and spoilt people”.
If conducting and supporting a movement that wants justice for war crimes means becoming ‘spoilt’, the youths have no problem in being branded as ‘spoilt’, he said.
“The youths you are dubbing as ‘spoilt’ were the ones who stood beside the victims after the communal attacks in Ramu. But you (Khaleda) weren’t there beside them,” Imran said. The protesters have respect for her as a leader of the opposition and the wife of a freedom fighter but her recent comments hurt and disappointed the youths of the country, he added.
Imran in a press release issued yesterday urged Khaleda to withdraw her statement.
Meanwhile, National Human Rights Commission Chairman Mizanur Rahman told reporters following a press conference, “It is totally unexpected from those who are holding responsible positions that they would try to create communal frenzy in the country, branding people atheists indiscriminately.”
The Shahbagh movement comprised of people from different communities, but there was no ideological conflict between the disparate groups, the Gonojagoron Mancha convener said at the DU rally.
Criticising the latest stance of the main opposition BNP on the movement, Farid Ahmad, president of the Dhaka University teacher’s association, said Khaleda was a newly-turned “Fatwa-baj (imposer of fatwa)”.
Sonia Nishat Amin, professor of the history department, said the movement at Shahbagh turned out to be more sustainable than the student movement in Paris or the recent ‘occupy’ movements around the world.
It was a rare movement in the recent history for that the protesters remained on the streets for 25 days, 24 hours a day.
Hafizur Rahman, from the law department, said both Bangladesh and the Shahbagh movement were imbued with the non-communal spirit.
In the history of Islam, no prophets ever resorted to violence to resolve conflicts; they have always resolved those peacefully, he said.
“Then what should we call those Jamaat-Shibir men who are causing mayhem in the country, justifying it in the name of religion?”
Representatives from different student wings also spoke at the rally.
The youths, who have been demonstrating at other points of the capital and outside it, will hold a grand rally at Shahbagh at 3:00pm on March 22.
Meanwhile, the mass signature campaign that began on February 22 continues and will end on March 22.

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Where LIES reign supreme | The Daily Star

Where LIES reign supreme | The Daily Star:

SUNDAY, MARCH 17, 2013

Where LIES reign supreme

Photoshopped pictures, fake captions, doctored contents swarm social media; culprits abuse it for inciting fanaticism, running propaganda against war crimes trial, and for character assassination

JULFIKAR ALI MANIK

    

 

Changing the Gilaf (cover) of Holy Kaaba is a traditional ceremony in Makkah and, as in every year, it was held with due religious solemnity in October last.
Many photos of this event are found across the cyber world. A Bangla site posted one such picture, but with the caption: “The imam of the Holy Kaaba here vouches for Sayedee’s good character.”
Delawar Hossain Sayedee, nayeb-e-ameer of Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami, has recently been sentenced to death for involvement in genocide and other crimes against humanity during the Liberation War in 1971.
In January, the same photo, showing eminent personalities attending the Makkah ceremony, popped up in a social network site. This time, there was a news report that read: “A human chain led by the khatib of Holy Kaaba protests the war crimes trial in Bangladesh.”
The news item was posted in a Facebook page purported to be of a Bangla daily. Similar stories were found in three newspapers known to be supporters or mouthpieces of the BNP, Jamaat and other Islamist groups.
One of the dailies after publishing this news in its print edition removed the item from its website without running a correction.
The website of another daily used the news item only to remove it later with apology to its readers. Another newspaper took no step after running it in its print and web versions.
“Any information that is not accurate definitely has a negative impact on the mind of a person who is receiving it,” Professor Shamim F Karim, an expert on human psychology, told The Daily Star.
“When we get wrong information, we form our beliefs and attitudes on the basis of the information that is not accurate.”
After the February 15 murder of blogger Ahmed Rajib Haidar, some quarters, especially radical Islamists, through online propaganda tried not only to justify the killing but also label the Shahbagh movement as “anti-Islamic”.
It was reported in the media how a fake blog with anti-Islam content was made to go viral in the name of Rajib, also an architect and Shahbagh activist, to malign the movement.
When some right-wing newspapers took up this line of propaganda whipping up religious sentiments, fanatics unleashed terror across the country.
Citing the Code of Conduct 1993 (2002 as amended) for the newspapers and journalists, Bangladesh Press Council Chairman Justice BK Das said that unconfirmed reports or reports based on rumours shall be verified before publication and no report of an event can be distorted to influence readers.
Any aggrieved person or group directly involved with the news published in a newspaper can lodge a complaint with the press council, he added.
Last year, as the government declined to accept anymore Rohingya refugees from Myanmar, an online campaign against Bangladesh began using misleading captions and fake photos of atrocities on Rohingyas.
Some local newspapers in Cox’s Bazar ran some of those photos, adding to tension and confusion among the people there.
The Facebook post that described the ceremony of changing Gilaf-e-Kaaba as a demonstration against war crimes trial had referred to a report published in a Bangla daily on January 6.
On December 3 last year, another newspaper published a picture of a rally in Turkey, saying over a hundred thousand people in Kadikoy Square were demanding the release of Jamaat-e-Islami leaders behind bars on war crimes charges.
An English version of the news and the picture have also been found on a website called Bangladesh Independent News Network (BDINN) with the same date and credit lines and title “Millions of people gathered in Turkey, demanding release of Jamaat leaders of Bangladesh.”
However, at the bottom of the same picture, a Turkish news website simply said: “PROPHETS OF LOVE rallies.”
“Under these circumstances,” said Prof Shamim, also a senior teacher at the educational and counselling psychology department of Dhaka University, “my whole cognition about my world is based on wrong or inaccurate information.”
The brain requires a lot of processing when it receives any information, she said, adding that the brain stores information even if it is wrong and when the same brain gets the right information on the same issue it commands you to sort it out.
A Bangla blog released a picture and news on December 15 last year with the dateline, “Tehran, Friday 14 December 2012.” The picture was of a march of veiled women and it was captioned, “Over a hundred thousand women rally in Tehran demanding release of Sayedee.”
But the same picture was found on the website of the Australian newspaper Daily Life with the caption: “Muslim women march down Macquarie Street, Sydney, in the annual Ashura procession to promote unity and spread the message of peace and harmony. 17th December 2010.”
Pinaki Bhattacharya, a blogger and online activist, told The Daily Star, “This is a crime; presenting distorted and misinformation is a crime.”
However, this was nothing new in the global political field or in Bangladesh, Pinaki said. Pasting the photograph of a person on a passport by removing the original photo was very common in Bangladesh in the recent past.
Fabrication became easy with the social media boom, he added.
Social media and networking sites have tremendous positive impacts. They have created an opportunity for each and every person in the world to exercise his/her freedom of expression.
But the tragic attacks on the Buddhist community in Ramu and some other places of Cox’s Bazar can be a unique example of how abuse of this opportunity can wreak havoc on a country or society.
A group of Islamist fanatics destroyed more than a dozen Buddhist monasteries in Ramu in September last year through using an anti-Islam photo on a fake Facebook account of a Buddhist youth.
The attackers in a planned way spread the picture of desecrating the Quran through mobile phones of many locals in Ramu through Bluetooth or picture message service.
The same technique was applied at Teknaf in Cox’s Bazar in the middle of last year on the Rohingya issue.
In June last year, many locals of Teknaf were frequently receiving pictures on their mobile phones via Bluetooth or as picture messages of the persecution of Rohingyas in neighbouring Rakhine state of Myanmar.
Those pictures were about horrific atrocities on Rohingyas that made people in Teknaf panicky.
Simultaneously, attempts by some hundred Rohingyas fleeing repression by the majority Buddhist population in Myanmar to enter Bangladesh left the people of Teknaf scared.
Undoubtedly, there is a record of the persecution of Rohingyas, but the spread of those pictures in the middle of last year was nothing but a tool of propaganda to create sympathy and support for Rohingyas among the bordering neighbourhood in Teknaf.
The Daily Star investigation revealed that those photos were misleading. Anyone can find the original source of an image posted online by searching similar images using tools or apps like Gophoto.it.
A Facebook account named “Save Rohingya Muslims of Myanmar (Burma)” shared a photo from another account called “Cyber group of Bangladesh”.
It was a photo of a mass grave and a line above read: “Stop killing Muslims in Burma….Please Share with Friends.”
Originally, it was news agency AFP’s photo with the caption, “A picture released by the Local Coordination Committees in Syria purportedly shows people standing around a mass grave in the town of Taftnaz on Thursday.”
This original picture and caption are available on the site of “The National,” an English-language daily newspaper published in Abu Dhabi in April last year.
The same Facebook account on July 17, 2012, released another picture with the caption: “Continuity of Massacre of Muslims of Burma by Buddhists, More than 1000 Killed yesterday.”
It was actually a picture of a 2004 incident in Thailand. Foreign news agencies released the photo with the caption: “Thai soldiers apprehend hundreds of men after demonstrators clashed with police outside the Tak Bai police station in Thailand’s Narathiwat Province, nearly 1150 km (715 miles) south of Bangkok, October 25, 2004.”
Pictures with misleading captions like “Terrorists of Buddhism of Burma Kill 500 Muslims at the Beach of Bay of Bengal today”, “Massacre is continuously going on,” “Massacre of Muslims in Burma,” “Muslims slaughtered by Buddhists in Burma” have been found on different sites.
Some sites claimed 40 thousand people had been killed.
In April 2010, there was a picture of Tibetan monks preparing for the mass cremation of earthquake victims on a mountaintop in Yushu county, Qinghai province, in China. That picture, too, was widely used in social media with the caption, “The killing of Muslims in Burma”.
A striking photo of a Tibetan who set himself on fire outside the Indian parliament to protest the visit by Chinese president Hu Jintao in March last year has also been spread with a false caption: “A Muslim was burned in Burma and journalists are taking pictures instead of saving him.”
An image from Theo van Gogh’s television documentary “Submission” was widely used in mainstream international media while a review of this film was published.
The image was of an actress with a passage from the Quran tattooed on her back. It was widely used in social media as an instance of the persecution of Muslims in Burma.
A photo has been posted on a Facebook page showing an elderly Muslim riding a motorbike in Lahore with a Bangla placard that said, “Demanding Allama Sayedee’s release.” In the original picture, the placard was in Urdu on a totally different issue, that of describing Muslims who observe New Year as people who have strayed from the path of Islam.
A picture of a grand rally led by Shahbagh youths was posted on social media with the Urdu caption, “A rally to protest against the sentences passed on Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh leaders is in progress in Dhaka”, while  the gathering pressed for a ban on Jamaat politics and maximum punishment to war criminals.
When someone posts a fabricated picture, thousands of people share and watch it within minutes. Sometimes many viewers drop their comments supporting or denouncing the false claim.
“I don’t know the solution to this problem, I just don’t want to be exposed to any wrong information,” Prof Shamim said.
“But there must be some technological way of stopping the supply of information which is not accurate,” she said, citing the example of the filtering system of inbox mails and spam mails in email accounts.
“Experts may find a way of filtering or differentiating right from wrong information when someone abuses it in the social media by copying from its original sources.”
Still, Pinaki Bhattacharya said, the use of social media should not be restricted by the law.
So, what’s the way out?
“Social media is an open field,” the blogger said. “It is necessary for social media users to keep an open mind and have the mentality to challenge any post and check facts before sharing it.”

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Khaleda must shoulder blame | The Daily Star

Khaleda must shoulder blame | The Daily Star:

SUNDAY, MARCH 17, 2013

Khaleda must shoulder blame

Says PM about recent violence

UNB, DHAKA

    

 

In a scathing attack on BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina yesterday said the opposition had unleashed a reign of terror across the country in the name of movement.
“On the pretext of waging a movement, they (opposition) have been carrying out killings, arson and attacks on the minority communities and Awami League leaders and workers,” she said.
“The opposition leader will have to shoulder the responsibility for these destructive activities.”
The prime minister, who is also the president of the ruling Awami League, made the remarks at the AL Advisory Council meeting at the Gono Bhaban in the evening.
She alleged that the BNP had joined forces with Jamaat-e-Islami to commit atrocities on the minority communities and assault the police.
“The BNP’s character is like that. They set fire to even mosques if they feel it necessary. What type of Islam do they follow? They start chanting slogans before completing prayers,” Hasina said referring to recent processions brought out from the Baitul Mukarram national mosque after Juma prayers.
She said Khaleda Zia had all along been against the country’s independence.
“Today, they (BNP) are going against the spirit of the Liberation War by siding with the war criminals,” the AL president told the meeting.
She went on: “When we are relentless in our efforts to take the country forward, they are taking it backward with their destructive activities.”
The prime minister said Khaleda had gone crazy on her return from Singapore, as the government had got back the money her son siphoned off to that country.

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Did we vote for insanity? | The Daily Star

Did we vote for insanity? | The Daily Star:

RIDAY, MARCH 08, 2013

PLEASURE IS ALL MINE

Did we vote for insanity?

SHAH HUSAIN IMAM

    

The answer is, yes. We voted for change by massively mandating the AL to govern the country while the BNP found itself in the opposition, thanks largely to its misrule. But what we have got now is insanity all around. All the glass ceilings have been broken and the red rags to bulls zapped before them. There are war cries from the party drumbeaters as if we are in an African jungle seeing a Hutu-Tutsi duel unto death!
So fluid and danger-prone the current political situation is that not even the most well-informed, close to power and brainy people have any clue as to which way the country is headed. The senior leaders of both political parties including the clutch of advisers have abdicated their intelligence to the feet of their supreme leaders. Even the repertoire of prescriptions to alleviate the ailing politics has been overtaken by events.
The duopoly of Awami League and BNP is working towards the same goal actuated by a similar motive. They don’t seem interested in the election, far less a participatory election as far as the AL goes. An early election without fixing the loosened nuts and bolts of an interim caretaker arrangement appears suspended in the air. Their calculations have had a shift with a common denominator which is they simply don’t want to see each other in power and if that means courting an emergency, so be it. Jamaat perhaps literally looks forward to such a prospect because any change in the existing order could stall the war crimes trial. And, they have a new lease of life!
On the whole, the current scenario is unintellectual, irrational and undemocratic.
Yet, all is not lost; there are some ways out of the spiders’ web or spokes-of-a-wheel-like situation. Here are my antidotes to infective politics with its violent ramifications on the street that we have come to dread so much.
You can keep the police’s riot control weapons at the ready but not use them at the slightest of provocation. Such a tendency leads to dire consequences as we have often seen, the chief one of which is the opposition taking a harder line approach. For instance, the police had no business breaking up the peaceful BNP rally on Wednesday and inflicting wounds on some senior opposition leaders. If the ruling party for once puts itself in the opposition’s shoes it will be in a better position to understand the opposition’s psyche.
The opposition has the legitimate right to dissent, articulate its grievance and try and create public opinion in its favour. Operatively, it means giving the opposition a space both inside the parliament and outside. It is common sense that preventing the opposition from having their say or preempting them from taking out processions or staging a sit-in can only lead to tension and physical confrontation. Let the opposition programmes run their course as the police watch over silently from a distance rather than pouncing on them, usually on a political diktat. This will save both police and public lives.
So much for the ruling party. Now turn to what the opposition BNP can do. The latter can contribute significantly to defuse and lessen tension by siding with the forces of sanity. BNP’s alignment with the Jamaat-Shibir, since refashioned on a tougher line towards the government, needs to be revisited and revised. The BNP is not a terrorist party; it has freedom fighters among its leaders, let alone the ranks. It can delink itself from the aggressive, do-or-die approach of the Jamaat-Shibir combine and thus raise its popular standing.
From several district officials requests have flooded into the corridors of central government for reinforcements, going by some newspaper reports. They seek police, BGB and even army deployment with adequate logistic support structures thrown in.
Clearly, there is a good ground for strengthening law and order so that the panic that has gripped the public is effectively neutralised.
The reach of Jamaati influence has been grossly underestimated by the government. That they have support-base in some Islamic countries, external sources of financing to operate; domestically their protagonists outnumber those of other Islamic parties; and their cadres are determined, disciplined lot are facts to reckon with.
Like it or not, Jamaat’s  politics must be dealt with politically rather than through use of force.
The real test of the government lies in implementing the agreement it has signed up to with Projonmo Chottor. When chips come down, the government will face the challenge of striking a balance between the competing concerns. Upon its successful handling of the testing situation, depends the future course of events. The precarious perch on which politics is placed now demands maximum sagacity, realism and persuasiveness to enable us to come to the other side, safe and sound.

The writer is Associate Editor, The Daily Star.
E-mail: husain.imam@thedailystar.net

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News-Bangla - নিউজ বাংলা - Bangla Newspaper from Washington DC - ডঃ ইউনুসকে অভিনন্দন ও একটি প্রশ্ন

News-Bangla - নিউজ বাংলা - Bangla Newspaper from Washington DC - ডঃ ইউনুসকে অভিনন্দন ও একটি প্রশ্ন:

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মোহাম্মদ ইরফান, ডেনভার থেকে

রবিবার, ১০ মার্চ ২০১৩

কংগ্রেশনাল গোল্ড মেডাল পাওয়ায় ডঃ মুহাম্মদ ইউনুসকে আবারো অভিনন্দন। ডঃ ইউনুস ৭১-এ প্রবাসে মুক্তিযুদ্ধের সংগঠকদের মধ্যে অন্যতম ছিলেন বলেই তাঁর জীবনীতে আছে। সেতথ্য অনুযায়ী তিনি মুক্তিযুদ্ধের পক্ষের শক্তি। তিনি যখন এপ্রিল-এ পদক নিতে যাবেন মার্কিন কংগ্রেসে, তখন তাঁর সাথে দেখা হবে বেইনার, পেলোসী-সহ আমেরিকার তাবড় তাবড় নেতাদের। এই মার্কিন নেতারা নিশ্চয় তাঁর কাছে জানতে চাইবেন বাংলাদেশের হালচাল। সুপ্রিয় ইউনুস সাহেব তখন কি বলবেন?  তিনি কি বলবেন, "বাংলাদেশে মুক্তিযুদ্ধের পক্ষে, মৌলবাদের বিপক্ষে একটি নির্দলীয় গণজাগরণ ঘটেছে। মুক্তিযুদ্ধ-মৌলবাদের মৌলিক প্রশ্নটির সমাধান না করে সুশাসনের অন্যান্য সমস্যাগুলোর সমাধান করা এই মুহূর্তে দুরূহ। মুক্তিযুদ্ধের পক্ষে অবস্থান নেয়ায় সরকারী দলের সুশাসনে ব্যর্থতা ইতঃমধ্যে চাপা পড়ে গেছে। প্রধান বিরোধী দল মৌলবাদের বিপক্ষে সুস্পষ্ট অবস্থান না নেয়ায় মৌলবাদীরা আস্কারা পেয়েছ। গণজাগরণ নস্যাৎ করতে মৌলবাদী ধর্ম ব্যবসায়ী দলগুলো দেশকে অস্থিতিশীল করতে চাইছে। সরকারী প্রশাসন চেষ্টা করলেও দক্ষতার অভাবে, জনবলের অভাবে পরিস্থিতি পুরোপুরি সামাল দিতে পারছে না। জনজীবনে অশান্তি দেখা দিয়েছে।" নাকি তিনি বলবেন, "চার দশকের ফেলে আসা ঘটনা নিয়ে ক্ষমতাসীন সরকার ফায়দা লোটার চেষ্টা করছে। সরকারের দুর্নীতি ব্যর্থতা চাপা দিতে সরকার কিছু ছেলেপেলেকে উস্কে দিয়ে শাহবাগ তামাসার তৈরী করেছে। পুলিশ পাখীর মত গুলি করে "গণহত্যা" করছে।" নাকি এর কোনটিই না বলে কেবল তিনি গত চার দশকে কতজন ভদ্রমহিলাকে ঋণ দিয়েছেন তার একটি ফিরিস্তি দিয়ে সবাইকে দলে দলে সামাজিক ব্যবসায়ে শামিল হওয়ার আহবান জানিয়ে চলে আসবেন। ইউনুস সাহেব স্বচ্ছতা ও দায়বদ্ধতার পক্ষে বলেই জানি। আশা করি, জাতির এই সন্ধিক্ষণে একজন অগ্রবর্তী নাগরিক হিসেবে তিনি তাঁর নিজের দায়মোচন করবেন, আর সেটা করবেন যথেষ্ট স্বচ্ছতার সাথে। আপনারা যাঁরা ইউনুস সাহেবের কাছাকাছি আছেন তাঁরা এ ব্যপারে ওনার দৃষ্টি আকর্ষণ করবেন কি?

সর্বশেষ আপডেট ( রবিবার, ১০ মার্চ ২০১৩ )

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We object My Lord! | The Daily Star

We object My Lord! | The Daily Star:

MARCH 7, 2013

We object My Lord!

TASNOOVA ZAKI

    

 

On February 5, when most Bangladeshis were left stunned by the sentence of life imprisonment given to Quader Mollah after he was found guilty of war crimes by the International Crimes Tribunal (ICT), many would have been surprised to hear that the Tribunal was being criticised by a few, not for the lenient punishment but for trying Mollah at all.
An example of this would be an article by Michael Cross the news editor of The Law Society Gazette in London1 . Mr Cross refers to the “opponents” (whose opponents, the Tribunal’s or the government’s or Bangladesh’s?) who have labelled the ICT as a witch hunt against Jamaat-e-Islami. The reader is however left to wonder why. There is neither any explanation offered nor any nuanced discussion undertaken as to the reason why these “opponents” call it a witch hunt against Jamaat-e-Islami, especially when not all the accused are members of Jamaat-e-Islami.
He mentions ICT Chairman Mohammed Nizamul Huq’s resignation from the Tribunal but summarises it as “a dossier of emails and telephone conversations came to light suggesting collusion between the government, prosecution counsel and judges.” Anyone who is aware of the incident will know that the emails and Skype conversations were between Nizamul Huq and a Bangladeshi legal expert on international law Mr. Ahmed Ziauddin, who is based in Belgium.
If the conversations do suggest collusion then perhaps they should be published; however, is it not a kind of witch hunt too to make these sweeping statements without substantiating them — especially when Nizamul Huq tendered his resignation despite the government insisting that he had not acted improperly.
He then goes on to talk of counsel from the defence’s team who apparently said (we can’t be sure as there are no quotes) that “the government of Bangladesh has proven it has neither the will nor the ability to run these trials independently or impartially.” The statement was made by the counsel for the defence team!
If the prosecution advocate was interviewed I am certain he would have said something entirely different. It is this one-sidedness that is disturbing in an article which talks of fairness. The rest of the article is entirely useless, with the usual patronising drivel that is so common among some who decide to make a commentary on anything elsewhere in the world.
Why have I taken the time to write a response to this article? Why does it matter? It matters because countries like Bangladesh get lectured in these articles, (Mr. Cross’s is just an example) by the very same people who will introduce such things as Control Orders to severely impair the liberty of individuals “suspected” of terrorism — the evidence against them will be heard to the civil standard of proof because there isn’t enough to stand up to proof at a criminal trial! Is that the “international” standard that the ICT is supposed to live up to? Or is it the standard by which those in Guantanamo Bay are being tried? Or perhaps it should be similar to the standards of the heavily criticised Special Court in Sierra Leone? Or perhaps it should be the standard of the flawed ICC? Our masters tell us which standard it should be so that you may be pleased!
I am not aware of a single human rights lawyer/activist or international law expert who has offered his/her services to the government of Bangladesh in bringing the cases against those accused. Please do so if you are genuinely concerned. Please also remember we are a poor country and may not be able to pay you as handsomely as some of the defendants can.
Would you work for free, our intellectual international law experts, renowned professors, diplomats and human rights protectors, to bring justice to the hundreds of women and female children who were abducted and raped in 1971 by the then West Pakistan soldiers with help from the war collaborators? Or would you just rather in your spare time and write some article or a blog or do an interview in some newspaper, allowing your voice to ever only wake up to utter and your pen to only ever write the words “Quader Mollah deserves a fair trial.”
Millions of Bangladeshis know and believe that a fair trial is necessary. If that was not the case Mollah and the others would not have been charged at all. If it wasn’t for a belief in a fair trial process millions of Bangladeshis would not have waited for more than forty years, sometimes with patience, sometimes with frustration, sometimes with hope, sometimes with fury, sometimes in our forgetfulness, sometimes in memory that torments too much, and sometimes in utter indifference that only those who have suffered for too long will know — Bangladeshis wouldn’t have waited so long if they did not believe in a fair process.
If there was no belief in a fair process the hundreds of thousands who stand together at Shahbagh Projonmo Chottor today would not have demanded a higher sentence in peaceful protest. And those who call the ICT a “Kangaroo Court” (interesting terminology, do poor kangaroos wonder what they ever did?) or a witch hunt — look how they are protesting.
They have called for national strikes to halt the economic activities of the nation; they have openly perpetrated violence, arson and criminal damage and even murder. Are the international human rights activists and experts all over the world (aka our masters) really telling us that WE, the millions of Bangladeshis who have waited for so long, have brought formal charge, have opened our trial process to international scrutiny and protest in peace, WE need to learn a lesson in peace and fairness from these “opponents”?  With all due respect — I don’t think so.

Sent from London.

1A flawed international tribunal Tuesday 05 February 2013 by Michael Cross http://www.lawgazette.co.uk/blogs/blogs/news-blogs/a-flawed-international-tribunal

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