All Things Bangladesh
The 1973 War Crimes Act is being revised by the Law Commission. Unless the Act is made water-tight, cases conducted unded this can fall under legal challenge. The LC asked for review of legal experts, but very few gave feedback. UV is attempting to collect citizen feedback on the Act. Please read the Act, and give feedback on the legal provisions.
Download 1973 Act here
Posted in 1971.
The recent exchange between Abdul Jalil, Awami League General Secretary, and Dr. Alaluddin Ahmed, Adviser to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, had laid bare some of the key rifts currently plaguing our ruling party. The Awami League (AL) currently has about four-fifths of the seats in our parliament; they also won about 49% of the vote in the last election held in December 29, 2008. Extrapolating back from this result, if elections would have been held on January 22, 2007, AL would have still had a similar majority. However, what has changed in the past two years are the individuals who would have been the key actors in an AL government.
In any government formed after AL won 2007 elections, Abdul Jalil, as General Secretary of AL, the most popular AL leader from North Bengal, and a key mastermind of the anti-BNP government tactics, would have been one of the senior ministers. The behemoth LGRD ministry, traditionally reserved for the number-twos of the party in power, would have become his personal fiefdom. He would have added his name to the illustrious list of former LGRD kingpins such as Barrister Abdus Salam Talukdar, (now President) Zillur Rahman, and Abdul Mannan Bhuiyan, with a large budget, infrastructure spanning the length of Bangladesh, and a gargantuan patronage network, at his disposal…. ( More)
Posted in Awami League, Politics.
The agitating garment workers burned down six factories, two warehouses and several vehicles of Ha-Meem Group at Narasinghapur in Ashulia on the outskirts of the capital yesterday. photo: Daily Star
A Bangladeshi worker tries to help a fireman as they try to control a fire at a garment factory at Ashulia, near Dhaka, Bangladesh, Monday, June 29, 2009. Thousands of garment workers, unseen, stormed the factory and set it on fire during a protest against pay cuts and demanded outstanding salary payments
An unidentified garments factory owner cries as she looks at her factory on fire in Ashulia, near Dhaka, Bangladesh, Monday, June 29, 2009. Thousands of garment workers, unseen, stormed the garments factory and set it on fire during a protest against pay cuts and demanding outstanding salary payments. (AP Photo/Pavel Rahman)
2nd worker dies in police firing. photo: bdnews24.com
Posted in Labor.
Awkward relationship: Photo: New Nation
AL’s now disgruntled General Secretary, one of the senior leaders who are upset at not get any party post or any ministry, has taken the role speaking the unspeakable things in Bangladeshi politics. Jalil Shaheb, after opening the can of worms on DGFI, has now spoken about milbus in Bangladesh. MilBus, in other words, Military Business, a term coined by Pakistani author Ayesha Siddika, refers to military’s commercial interest. Abdul Jalil has asked for transparency and spoken against transforming our military into a commercial entity. A fellow blogger has said the following about the recent outburst — ‘
I think he believes that after what was done to him in military custody, there is nothing anyone can do to him that is worse. He knows that he will never be a minister under SH, and he knows that he is still the most popular and senior AL leader north of Jamuna. So, he doesn’t have much to lose - he is financially set for life - he is pretty much beholden just to his own conscious. Interesting to see what he does with himself the next five years. Moreover, if he is saying it, a lot of people must be thinking it.
Someone also has said that this is about blackmailing the party chief — ‘Give me a dignified exit or I will continue to put you in a difficult spot’. How difficult a spot is this?
Posted in Army.
(Published in the Daily Star on 15 June 2009)
INCIDENTALLY when the manifestos for National Election 2008 were being prepared, the world economy was already in recession and the election promises were linked with the recovery. This must have facilitated the budget to address the recession and election promises in chorus and with success.
The budget admits the challenges ahead forecasting a 5.5% GDP growth, but it also aims to change that conservative scenario by promoting investment, decentralisation and infrastructural development. The finance minister has received a mixed (though largely positive) response for various proposals. This article however underscores few uncertainties surrounding the budget proposals.
This week, the Awami League — Bangladesh’s very own Grand Old Party — turned 60. The story of its first quarter century — from Pakistan’s first opposition party to the party of Bengali Muslim middle class to the nationalist movement to a fascist dictatorship’s denouement in fratricide — is widely known, and needs no repeating in this blog. Instead, I’ll write about the last 30 years. How did AL recover from 1975? Why did it win in December? Where do various factions fit today? And what may tomorrow hold?
The jostling continues - photo bdnews24.com
Posted in Awami League.
Distinction needs to be made – between fatwa (as in opinion) and fatwa: people still connect the issue of fatwa with religion/faith. That no one but the state has the power to “punish” needs to be “messaged”. Continued…
Posted in Gender.
Iran Election: Frequently Asked Questions in Bangladesh
We wish to protest for the rights of Iranian citizens, as we have done for our own citizens, and we will not allow our politics to get appropriated. The challenge for us in Bangladesh is to find a space where we can protest human rights abuses anywhere, without having our protests appropriated by other agendas.
Hanif Yazdi is an Iranian student in Dhaka. Last week, his grandfather was one of the hundreds arrested by the Iranian state in response to election protests. His op-ed addressed to the Bangladeshi people came out today in Daily Star:
“I never, not in my wildest dreams, imagined that the first time I would vote in an Iranian election, I would be doing it in Bangladesh. On June 12, 2009, I voted at the Iranian embassy in Dhaka. I was proud to play my part, proud to ride a wave of hope that was sweeping our world. More than anything, I believed that this election would bring us a more just, humane, and representative government. The days that followed revealed in no ambiguous terms that the Iranian government had declared war on our people. The officials who were charged with representing us, and the police who were sworn to protect us, have betrayed our trust. No matter what your political beliefs, or what you think of the Iran elections, no government has the right to treat us this way.”
Continued…
Posted in Democracy, Election, Foreign Matters.
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