Tag Archives: Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh

Bad ideas

Islamo-fascists in Bangladesh – Whose side are you on?: Javed Anand

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 Guest post by JAVED ANAND

[This piece by Javed Anand  was sent to a major daily but not published for undisclosed reasons]

Leaders and the led from a host of rightwing Indian Muslim organisations – Jamaat-e-Islami Hind (JEI), All India Muslim Majlis-e Mushawarat, All India Milli Council, All Bengal Minority Youth Federation, West Bengal Sunnat Al Jamaat Committee included – have not been sleeping well in the last several weeks. Their angst is on two counts.
One, the International Crimes Tribunal (ICT) set up by the ruling Awami League in 2009 to investigate and prosecute suspects for the genocide committed in 1971 by the Pakistan army and their local collaborators, Razakars, Al-Badr and Al-Shams during the Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971.
 
Two, the “atheist conspiracy” to banish Islam from Bangladesh that is supposedly behind the lakhs who have been thronging Shahbagh.
So far, nearly a dozen men including nine currently top-ranking leaders of the Jamaat, the largest Islamist party in Bangladesh, have been held guilty and served stiff sentences. According to the sleepy-heads, the ongoing trials are a sham, a mere cover for the ruling Awami League’s “vendetta politics” against the Jamaat and its youth wing, Islami Chhatra Shibir. That the Jamaat had any hand in the genocide is news to them. Continue reading Islamo-fascists in Bangladesh – Whose side are you on?: Javed Anand →
Bad ideas, Identities, Right watch, Violence-Conflict

The Jamaat factor in Bangladesh politics: Jyoti Rehman

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jamaat-train
A train in Bangladesh set on fire by activists of the Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh

This is a guest post by Bangladeshi commentator JYOTI REHMAN: Delwar Hossain Sayedee, an Islamic preacher and a senior leader of Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh, the country’s largest Islam-pasand party, was sentenced to death on 28 February for war crimes committed during the 1971 Liberation War. Within hours, Jamaat cadres and activists clashed violently with police and law enforcement agencies. Scores have been killed in some of the worst political violence the country has experienced in recent years.

Five other senior Jamaat leaders, including its current and former chiefs, are being prosecuted for war crimes committed in 1971. Another leader was sentenced to life imprisonment on 5 February. That sentence triggered what has come to be called the Shahbag Awakening—a month of largely peaceful gathering of tens of thousands of people in the middle of Dhaka. A key demand of the largely government-supported Awakening is to ban Jamaat. Continue reading The Jamaat factor in Bangladesh politics: Jyoti Rehman →

Bad ideas, Identities, Law, Mirror Worlds, Right watch, Violence-Conflict

Wave of violent attacks against Hindus in Bangladesh: Amnesty International

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Press release put out on 6 March by AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL: A wave of violent attacks against Bangladesh’s minority Hindu community shows the urgent need for authorities to provide them with better protection, Amnesty International said.

Over the past week, individuals taking part in strikes called for by Islamic parties have vandalised more than 40 Hindu temples across Bangladesh.

Scores of shops and houses belonging to the Hindu community have also been burned down, leaving hundreds of people homeless. Continue reading Wave of violent attacks against Hindus in Bangladesh: Amnesty International →