There is a lot of noise about the court case re: 5th Amendment. Senior politicians from both parties, various legal experts, non-legal experts in TV talk shows, and other sundry pundits who write columns (and blogs) have been expressing their opinions freely. Some people (including the Law Minister) are saying the court’s verdict means: we are on our way to the 1972 constitution, secularism will return, religion-based politics will become illegal, and oh, Zia’s government was illegal. Others are saying this verdict means: Bismillah will be erased from the constitution and Islam will be gone from the country, we will have a constitutional crisis, and/or we will return to Bakshal-style fascism.
As with many other things, I think our media is doing an atrocious job of reporting the facts. In fact, the reporting is so hazy that a fellow blogger with an astute political antenna said to me that he couldn’t make much sense of it at all.
I don’t have any more expertise in constitutional law than my friend, and so it may well be like a blind leading another. Over the fold is what I think the verdict means: military coups are illegal, but fears of Bakshal returning or claims that religion-based politics will be automatically banned are ill-founded.
We shall very much appreciate anyone with background in consitutional law clarifying the situation for us.
(For some inexplicable reason, the ending of this post got lost in the cyberspace yesterday. My apologies. A new ending is now written. JR, 7.05am BDT, 9 Jan)
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jyoti, January 8th 2010 |
Posted in Awami League, BNP, Democracy, History, Judiciary, Politics, political islam, reform
A few months ago, Tiktiki asked:
The debate over the sacking of Golam Azam’s son actually produces a more fundamental debate on the post war crimes trial world – i.e. how to tackle the political Islam minus the war criminals. Can someone who believes in Jamat’s ideology not serve in high ranks in our institutions? Why or why not?
The post generated 103 comments, but except for a handful, I didn’t see anyone address the question raised in the post.
This is not just UV. In the self-styled secular-progressive circle, I see an acute paucity of discussion about Jamaat-e-Islami that doesn’t begin or end with war crimes trial. In a few years, war crimes trial will have no relevance to Tiktiki’s question — hopefully we will have successfully tried the war criminals, or they’ll be dead anyway of natural causes. In fact, anyone serving in high ranks in our institutions would almost certainly be too old to be a war criminal, so the relevance of war crimes is already questionable. And yet, my progressive allies are stuck in a bizarre time warp that refuses to see this. Read more…
jyoti, December 25th 2009 |
Posted in Army, War Crime Trial, jamaat-e-islami, political islam
Drishtipat DC organized a screening of the film “Portrait of Jihad” by acclaimed human rights activist, Shahriar Kabir. The event was held at Busboys and Poets Café on 24 October. In her welcoming remarks, Nadia Afrin from Drishtipat DC pointed out that Bangladesh was a nation of contrasts. It was a country where poverty and possibilities, democracy and autocracy, secularism and communalism live side by side.
“Portrait of Jihad” probes into the attacks orchestrated by radical Islamic entities like Harkatul Jihad and Bangla Bhai. It sheds light on how they train, their source of funding and their close ties with the Jamaat-e-Islami Party. A packed audience of around 80 people attended the film screening at Busboys and Poets. Among them were Bangladeshi –American youth as well as young people of various nationalities. Filmmaker Shahriar Kabir discussed the context and subject matter of the film. He expressed his intention to expand the documentary and include more supporting information and facts.
The discussion segment was led by journalist Anis Ahmed. The engaging audience posed questions about the current state of Bangladesh, the advent of Islamic militancy, the ties of local radical groups with international terrorist organizations, their source of funding and the government’s success and failure in reining terrorism.
nadia, October 28th 2009 |
Tags: Islamic militancy, Shahriar Kabir
Posted in Uncategorized, jamaat-e-islami, political islam
Attack on Sheikh Taposh is a very sad tale. People tend to forget the fact that Taposh is an Etim. He lost both his parents during the gruesome killing on 15th August 1975. He was very young then. Taposh did not turn out to be a terrorist. He is a well spoken well educated Barrister. I don’t understand why anybody would want to hurt him. Even if it is an act of the Islamists, they should know that there is very stern warning in the Muslim Holy book Quran against harming an Etim.
Anyway, finger pointing has started even before the thrown bomb could get the chance to drop on the ground. Before any investigation has started or police teams have arrived at the scene, political parties, leadership, ministers, political parties intellectual brigades chattering the talk shows have started confidently saying who did the crime and for what reason.
A businessman, who happens to be the brother of one of the Major involved in 15th August, 1975 killing, gets arrested instantly.
During the same time, in one of some unrelated but concerning events, Kids school books storage site catches fire. Ministers claim sabotage. Newspapers started reporting that a shibir leader was seen at dead night near school textbook board storage site, which caught fire recently.
12 bearded men from the National Ansar ( Law enforcement agency) Training Academy gets arrested as suspected religious militants.
A journalist from the Daily New Age gets beaten by RAB. Gets beaten more when he shows his identity as New Age reporter. RAB takes five good hours even after Home Minister orders his instant release.
My fear, these sort of events may make the govt more paranoid ( the above mentioned events suggests) , more security hawk, more disconnected from the ground and more dintolerant to critiques. .
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rumi, October 22nd 2009 |
Posted in Crisis Management, History, News and events, Politics, Religion, political islam
Wazed and Ciovacco’s article in the HIR, titled “Stemming the Rise of Islamic Extremism in Bangladesh”, has once again become a semi-mainstream topic, thanks to a recent seminar on the subject, in which Waliur Rahman, a former diplomat, quoted – and then erased – the percentage of new recruits to the army entering from the madrassas. Wazed and Ciovacco do not cite sources in their article, so this and a few other numbers they mention are hard to authenticate. Below, I list some of the troubling points about their article.
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dhakashohor, April 26th 2009 |
Posted in Army, political islam
As part of a programme marking the International Women’s Day, the government announced a National Women Development Policy on 8 March (see here). The announced policy was condemned by a section of the clerics as un-Islamic. Specifically, the clerics objected to any possible change to the inheritance laws such that women could get equal inheritance rights as men. On 11 March, the government announced that it had no intention of passing any law that is ‘anti-Islam’ (see here). On 27 March, the government formed a 20-member committee to identify inconsistencies in the policy as per Islamic rules and suggest steps (see here). While the committee deliberated, the clerical opposition continued. Following the Friday prayers on 11 April, violent protests broke out around Baitul Mukarram (see here). On 17 April, the committee recommended that the government amends its policy, replacing any commitment to equality between the sexes with ‘just rights’ for women (see here).
Drishtipat is committed to equal rights – irrespective of age, gender, ethnicity or faith – of all citizens. As such, it supports, without any reservation, equal property and inheritance rights for men and women. But this post is not about the commitment to these rights. Nor is it about theological discussions about what Islam has to say on the matter. Rather, it is about some lessons to be drawn from the developments described in the first paragraph.
(More in Mukti)
jyoti, April 29th 2008 |
Posted in Bangladesh, Politics, Women, political islam, reform
Jamaat-e Islami met with Election Commission this week. While BNP/AL are falling apart and failing to even agree on the team to meet EC, JI are highest ranking political party to meet w/ EC. Prothom Alo reports JI will oppose the following conditions in EC’s draft constitution:
1. No political party can contest election if they discriminate on basis of religion, race, ethnicity, language or gender
2. Each political parties’ committee must have 33% women membership
[Image: Jamaat amir Matiur Rahman Nizami]
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admin, October 25th 2007 |
Posted in jamaat-e-islami, political islam
Picture: the survivers
Over the last few days we heard a lot about reforms and we saw informal break ups of LDP, Awami League, BNP and JP. Amazingly, Jamat is completely missing from the picture. Neither they are talking about any of reform, nor their leaders are banned from travelling abroad in spite of having criminal cases on them (unlike some others we know). When Barrister Mainul Hossain was asked about this apparent favourtism, he expressed his ignorance and said he did not know Mr. Mujahid. Now Deshivoice blog exposes an old video of a conference of Islami Chatro Shibir where Barrister Mainul Hossain was present as a special guest sitting not too far from Mr. Mujahid and Delwar Hossain Sayeedi. If these two cases of favourtism and lying on camera was not enough, here is the most troubling news of institutionalizing presence of Jamat-i-Islami in the voter list creation by the election commission.
Election Commission has recently selected Bangladesh Masjid Mission to “be given the responsibility to encourage the people through mosque-based publicity to be enlisted in the voter enrolment with photographs.” Now first of all it may seem innocuous thinking that it is trying to encourage the picture taking of conservative Muslims through this mission. But let’s not make any mistake that this is indeed giving formal power to an organization that lists as its aim:
Making the mosques a living center to Islam to address all sorts of human problems & suffering in light of Masjid-e-Nababi. Even this would not have been so problematic had Bangladesh Masjid Mission wasn’t so close to Jamate Islami. Their website is adorned with pictures of Jamat Amir and former chief of Albadar Al Shams and a collaborator in our liberation war and alleged war criminal Matiur Rahman Nizami.
Here is a picture:
Also, here is another news story of Nijami and Babar using BMM’s platform to say Bangla bhai was a creation of India. If this doesn’t convince you of the link. Consider this — Bangladesh Masjid Mission was founded by one Maulana Alauddin Al Azhari who is brother in law of none other than our very own Golam Azam. The reference is from the Golam Azam’s own website.
Now that’s the kind of news that makes you go hmmmmm…
tiktiki, July 18th 2007 |
Posted in Politics, jamaat-e-islami, political islam, reform
Election 2008: Secular Vote Bloc
Election 2008: The Secular Vote Bloc
By Naeem Mohaiemen [Daily Star, December 29, 2008]
Standing at many intersections. What were the arguments in favor of secularism? In the 1960s, a push-back against West Pakistani colonization. In 1971, it was simply and joyfully, a decisive rejection of the Pakistan model. Later in the 1980s, it was also expanded to explain that religion was for private space, inner life, spiritual healing; but not for politics. Now in this decade, we also insistently emphasize that religion is to be respected (because secularism’s critics falsely accuse it of being anti-religion), but it should not be involved in the running of the state. Read more…
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Posted in Election 2008, political islam