Islamist Militants' Hit List in Bangladesh

 

Bangladesh

Militant group publishes global hitlist of bloggers, activists and writers

Nine UK-based bloggers on list published by Bangladesh group Ansarullah Bangla Team, who have been blamed for a series of murders

 

 Bangladeshi secular activists take part in a torch-lit protest against the killing of blogger Niloy Chakrabarti, who used the pen-name Niloy Neel, in Dhaka on 8 August. Photograph: Munir Uz Zaman/AFP/Getty Images

Jason Burke in Delhi

Wednesday 23 September 2015 05.00 BST Last modified on Thursday 24 September 201500.00 BST

An Islamic militant group in Bangladesh has issued a hitlist of secular bloggers, writers and activists around the world, saying they will be killed if its demands are not met.

The list will raise fears that Islamic militant violence within the unstable south Asian country could take on an international dimension.

The targets in the list include nine bloggers based in the UK, seven in Germany, two in the US, one in Canada and one in Sweden. Some are Bangladeshi citizens living overseas. Others are dual nationals or citizens of the western nations.

 

British jihadis in Bangladesh fanning flames of extremism, says Dhaka

 

The list was issued in a statement on the internet by the Ansarullah Bangla Team (ABT), a group that has been blamed for a series of murders of bloggers and activists in Bangladesh over the last 18 months. All those killed have been prominent critics of extremist religious doctrines, especially in Islam.

The acting leader of the ABT and two close associates were arrested earlier this month in Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, on suspicion of involvement in the murder of a secular blogger earlier this year.

Individuals on the new list have told the Guardian they intend to keep writing and blogging.

“Our weapon is [the] pen, and we can use it without hurting anybody. We just want to make people conscious about their rights. So that nobody can use them to fulfill bad intentions,” said Ananya Azad, a Bangladeshi blogger who has been forced into exile in Europe and is on the list.

There has been no previous indication that the ABT was targeting bloggers overseas and the list will worry security authorities in Europe and the US.

Bangladesh police escort ABT head Abul Bashar (left), Zafran Hassan (centre) and Julhas Bishas (second right). Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

British-based bloggers of Bangladeshi origin named on the list have approached police in London and elsewhere following its publication. They say authorities have have advised them to take precautions to minimise the risk of attack.

Police have charged an ABT organiser and four supporters with the murder of a 27-year-old blogger, Washiqur Rahman, in Dhaka in March.It is unclear if the ABT has the capability to carry out their threats, but its call for action may prompt individuals to mount “lone wolf” attacks.

Rahman’s death came just weeks after a Bangladesh-born American atheist blogger was murdered in Dhaka by machete-wielding attackers.

The murder in February of Bangladeshi-born US citizen Avijit Roy, a science writer and blog moderator, prompted outrage around the world. His US-based widow is among those named on the new list the group appear to have issued.

Officials suspect the ABT is close to the Ansar ul-Islam organisation, which is part of al-Qaida in south Asiaand launched by the extremist organisation about a year ago.

The statement featured a logo comprising a black flag carrying the seal of the prophet Muhammad, often favoured by extremist groups, and the phrase: “We do not forget, we do not forgive” in English.

 ‘I will write until the end of my life’ – Ananya Azad, a Bangladeshi blogger on the list. Photograph: AM Ahad/AP

Al-Qaida has publicly praised violent operations by the ABT and has hailed activists charged with the murder of bloggers as “lions of the international community”.

The new list is accompanied by an incoherent demand to strip bloggers of their citizenship. It appears to be addressed to the government of Bangladesh’s prime minister Sheikh Hasina, though many of those on the hitlist have dual nationality or are citizens of Britain, the US or European nations.

“Cancel the Bangladeshi citizenship of enemies ofIslam and [Muslim religious] education, atheists, apostates, unbelievers, anti-Islamic ... bloggers, agents of India ... otherwise they will be killed wherever they can be found in the Almighty’s world,” said the statement.

The origin of the list is unclear, and some have doubted it is an official statement from the ABT in Bangladesh, but instead compiled or published from the UK or elsewhere in the west.

More than 150 writers, including Margaret Atwood, Salman Rushdie, Yann Martel and Colm Tóibín, signed a letter condemning the series of fatal attacks and calling on the government of Bangladesh “to ensure that the tragic events … are not repeated”.

Authorities in Dhaka have been previously criticised for requesting local bloggers and activists to avoid provocative statements on sensitive religious issues.

Bangladeshi social activists in protest at the killing of Avijit Roy in Dhaka on 27 February. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

Human Rights Watch, the international campaigning group, last month called for the government “to recall that its duty is to uphold the constitution and protect people’s lives, as well as their religious freedom”.

“It’s shocking that Bangladesh authorities not only failed to protect the bloggers despite complaints to the police about threats against them, but instead are proposing self-censorship,” said the spokesperson.

Repeated efforts to contact senior Bangladeshi officials for comment this week were unsuccessful.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

officially secular country, but more than 90% of its 160 million people are Muslim. It gained its independence from Pakistan after a brutal civil war in 1971, which left deep scars. In recent years a new surge of extremism has exacerbated long standing tensions between conservatives and secular liberals.

Those on the list say they are aware of the dangers of their activism. “I can’t give you assurance that I can’t be hurt here also. Fundamentalists have threatened that they will come and kill me,” said blogger Azad.

“I can’t say that I am fully safe, as the fundamentalists know where I am residing. I can’t say what will happen in future, but I can give you this assurance that I will write until the end of my life.”

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/23/militant-group-publishes-hit-list-of-bloggers-activists-and-writers

Identity Crisis of Bengali Muslims: Arabisation of Bangladesh

http://www.thedailystar.net/op-ed/arabisation-bangladesh-112009

Daily Star July 14, 2015

12:00 AM, July 14, 2015 / LAST MODIFIED: 12:00 AM, July 14, 2015

STRANGER THAN FICTION

Arabisation of Bangladesh

An Asset, Liability or Threat?

Taj Hashmi

Visitors to Bangladesh, who enter the country for the first time through the Hazrat Shah Jalal International Airport in Dhaka, might get the wrong impression about the major languages spoken in the country. Even before disembarking the aircraft, the first thing they notice is the name of the airport in bold Arabic letters on top of the airport building, along with Bengali and English on two sides. There was no Arabic sign on public buildings and thoroughfares until the late 1970s, when religion was inserted in the Constitution by General Ziaur Rahman. The introduction of Islam as the “State Religion” by General Ershad in 1988 was a big step towards further Islamisation of the polity.

However, these steps towards Arabisation and Islamisation were at best nothing more than symbolic gestures, in a country afflicted with tremendous identity crisis; and at worst politically motivated, opportunistic, and hypocritical. 

Nevertheless, playing with people's religious sentiment for the sake of legitimacy by the rulers, and their appeasing the Islamist parties and individuals with Islamic symbols like Arabic signs, and Islam as “State Religion” have already backfired. Unabated cultural Arabisation and Islamisation in the long run could drag the country towards religious extremism.

Arabisation is a generic term. I define it as a process of adopting elements of Arabian culture by non-Arab Muslims and non-Muslims, in historical and contemporary perspectives. One may mention all areas of acquired habits by human beings, including religion, language, politics, law, social customs, food habit, art, attire, and music in this regard. This happened after the phenomenal rise of Islamic empires. Awe-stricken Europeans learnt Arabic and indigenised Arabic/Islamic culture – art, architecture, philosophy, music, medicine and science –in the 9th and 13th centuries during the heydays of Arab/Islamic empires. Historians are unanimous about Arabic/Islamic contributions to European Renaissance.

We need to understand the Arabisation of Bangladesh in historical as well as in the contemporary socio-political, psychological and geo-political perspectives. Overwhelming majorities of people in the Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia adopted Islam and Arabised their language and culture soon after the expansion of Islam by sword, trade and other means; what is Bangladesh today is no exception in this regard. However, as Islam came here through Persianised Turco-Afghan-Iranian conquerors and Sufis, Bangali Muslims' religious beliefs, vocabulary and rituals – very similar to elsewhere in the subcontinent – have been predominantly Turco-Afghan-Iranian rather than Arabian.

However, Bangali Muslims retained their language, script and many other aspects of the indigenous Bengali culture in the wake of mass conversion. Some of them are still unwilling to give up certain indigenous/Turco-Persian rituals and beliefs – such as showing reverence to dead Sufis/Pirs, and believing in certain cults, including the Satya Pir, the Bangali Muslim version of the Hindu Satya Narayan. In sum, a syncretistic Islam evolved in Bengal, which ultra-orthodox Wahhabi-Faraizi-Deobandi-Salafi Muslims have been trying to supplant with orthodoxy, at least for the last 200 years. Their success is partial.

Thanks to the Persian influence, Bangali Muslims (very similar to Indian and Pakistani ones) often use the Farsi khuda and paighambar to denote Arabic Allah and rasul (messenger or prophet), respectively. Despite the ongoing Arabisation process, Farsi not Arabic is still widely used as the “Islamic language” in Bangladesh. Thus Farsi namaz for prayer (not Arabic salat); roza for fasting (not Arabic  saum); Ramzan  for the fasting month (not Arabic Ramadan); and jaynamaz for prayer mat (not Arabic musalla) are integral parts of Bangali Muslim vocabulary.

However, due to the patronage of ultra-conservative Arab Muslims and their local adherents in Bangladesh, sections of Bangladeshi Muslims are fast indigenising ultra-orthodox Wahhabi-Salafi ideologies, practices and vocabulary. Meanwhile, many Bangladeshi Muslim women have adopted the previously unknown, the Middle Eastern hijab, which is a variant of the Lebanese Catholic nuns' habit. Muslim men and women in the country are fast adopting some weird and hitherto unfamiliar Arabic expressions and Arabian practices in the name of purifying their faith.

Now many Bangladeshi Muslim children have unique (often difficult to pronounce and remember) Arabic names. Many Bangali Muslims have discarded certain old rituals during milad in commemoration of the birth of the Prophet. They have introduced new ones from the Arab World. Bangladeshi Muslims at home and abroad organise halaqa, religious gatherings for learning about Islamic theology from one or more speakers, followed by intense question-answer sessions, prayers, supplications and food; mostly in segregations, Muslim brothers and sisters sitting in separate chambers.

Of late, the hitherto unheard of Arabic expression, “Allah Hafiz” (introduced by General Zia ul-Haq in Pakistan) to bid good-bye to someone, is gradually replacing the Farsi “Khuda Hafiz” (May God protect you) in Bangladesh. 

Appraising the Arabisation process in Bangladesh is difficult. The phenomenon is as strange as the stories of The Arabian Nights. One is not always alert enough to notice the changes that have already crept into the psyche of the nation – and the ongoing undercurrents of the process – in the realms of Islamic religion, rituals, and popular culture in the country since the 1970s. Sometimes the government, but mostly adherents of “Islam-loving” political parties, cultural organisations and Islamic scholars flaunt, push and glorify Arabian culture in the name of one religion. Bangladeshi Muslim workers in the Gulf countries – labourers to professionals – have also been Arabising the popular culture in the country. Due to inadequate knowledge of Islam, neither these workers nor their relatives, neighbours and friends differentiate between Islam and Arabisation.

As Badruddin Umar has brilliantly explained in his writings, many disempowered Bangali Muslims during the British period nurtured a romantic extra-territorial loyalty towards Afghan-Arab-Iranian-Turkish lands, their language, rituals, and attire and food habit, and identified themselves as descendants of “original Muslims” from outside India. Tracing one's origin to the Middle East and Central Asia or to some aristocratic families is still fashionable in Bangladesh. It indicates Bangladeshi Muslims' identity crisis and inferiority complex. Many of them still fail to identify which one is their primary identity, Muslim or Bangali.

The quest for Arabisation has some similarities with a section of the Hindu population's quest for upward mobility through the Sanskritisation process, by indigenising Brahmin culture, food habit, attire and gods in South Asian history. Although Arabisation has elements of non-Arab Muslims' quest for upward mobility, it is also an elite plan of action to politically hegemonise mass consciousness.

In sum, since the late 1970s, Muslims of Bangladesh have failed to distinguish between what is Islamic and what is Arab. Arabisation of the popular culture has become synonymous with the Islamisation process in Bangladesh. This synonymy is ominous. It has long-drawn implications for the country. Moderate Muslims, liberal/secular Bangladeshis, and the friends of Bangladesh need to understand the long-term consequences of this slow and steady transformation of the popular culture of Bangali Muslims. Cultural transformation of people is a major step towards their political orientation and makeover. 

The writer teaches security studies at Austin Peay State University. Sage has recently published his latest book, Global Jihad and America: The Hundred-Year War Beyond Iraq and Afghanistan.

End of a Secular Bangladesh: Lipika Pelham

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/06/opinion/end-of-a-secular-bangladesh.html?ref=world&_r=0

 

New York Times

March 6, 2015

 

OP-ED

 

End of a Secular Bangladesh?

By LIPIKA PELHAM

 

Covered in blood, she stands over the body of her husband lying on a sidewalk on the Dhaka University campus. Onlookers, their faces stunned and fearful, circle the protagonists in what looks like a macabre scene from a Bengali jatra, or village opera.

 Except this is not a play. The dead man is Avijit Roy, the Bangladeshi-American blogger known for his staunch atheism, and he has just been butchered with machetes. Islamist extremists are suspected in the attack.

 This picture was relayed around the world after Mr. Roy and his wife, who were living in the Atlanta suburbs, were brutally attacked during a visit to Bangladesh as they were returning by cycle rickshaw from a book fair.

The spot where the attack took place is close to the university’s teacher-student center, where young people typically crowd around the tea stalls debating politics, philosophy and current affairs.

Some 25 years ago, I sat on those rickety wooden stools and discussed the same issues Mr. Roy wrote about in his blog, Mukto-mona (Free Mind) and his recent book, “The Virus of Faith.” We students openly proclaimed our atheism. We probably provoked some strong reactions, but we did not fear for our lives. We were proud of the Bengali tradition of secularism, unique to the Indian Subcontinent.

Bangladesh has changed. The expansion of the garment industry and the rise of microfinance and community development banks put an end to the stereotype of Bangladesh as a “basket case.” But economic empowerment also brought mass access to information. Today the disenfranchised and disgruntled can identify themselves with extremists anywhere in the world. What is their common identity? Religion.

When India was divided in 1947, East Bengal became part of Muslim Pakistan purely on the basis of its religious majority. A year later, Urdu was imposed as the national language. The Bengali language has always been linked with secular Bengali nationalism. Protests followed, and on Feb. 21, 1952, the Pakistani police opened fire on students at Dhaka University. That day — perhaps the beginning of the conflicts that culminated in the 1971 war of independence — is remembered every year in Bangladesh and in the Indian state of West Bengal, and the monthlong book fair is one of the commemorative events. When I tried to visit the fair just a few days before Mr. Roy was killed, I couldn’t make it through the crowds at the entrance to the university campus.

I had gone back to Bangladesh with two of my children so they could experience the sounds and colors that I grew up with. The first sign that things had changed was at Heathrow, when an attendant at the Bangladeshi airline desk said that we would not be allowed to enter the country because of the Israeli stamps on our British passports. I explained that I had visited with the same passport before, and we entered Dhaka without any hiccups. My confidence in Bengali liberal-mindedness thus restored, the children and I got in a motorized rickshaw, headed for the port of Sadarghat.

On the way, my 13-year-old daughter observed, “I thought it would be much more colorful. Are there no women in Dhaka?” Looking around, I realized that most women were covered in black burqas or hijabs — a style that I had seen in such large numbers only in the Middle East. Many of their male companions wore long white dishdashas and skullcaps.

I remembered that stretch as being one of the most colorful streets, with shop fronts spilling over with spices and trinkets, men and women loudly bargaining to get the best deal. Even in Dhaka’s swanky areas, I was dismayed to find stores filled with hijabs and full-face coverings, with signs on the front windows reading “For True Muslim Women.”

Were the Muslim women of my childhood, who simply flung the ends of their saris over their heads, not “true” enough?

My father was Muslim, but before I became an atheist, I had embraced my ancestral Hinduism, visiting temples and lighting lamps for the festival of lights, Deepavali. I never feared being treated as an apostate. Now I do. Now if a passport control officer in Dhaka asked me what religion I belonged to, I would think twice before saying I was a former Hindu. Or worse: an atheist.

Thinking of Mr. Roy’s book, “The Virus of Faith,” I asked my Bengali friends: How did this virus find such a welcome platform? How did it spread so far that secularism has become a restricted word?

“Unfortunately, over the past decade or so, all the attacks on secular thinkers — who include people from all religious backgrounds — were committed by self-styled defenders of Islam,” Jibanananda Jayanta, a Dhaka-based social activist, told me.

This prompted many secularists from Muslim backgrounds to distance themselves from Islam. They were in turn accused of blasphemy. The poet and author Taslima Nasrin went into exile in 1994 to flee death threats from Islamist radicals. But what were then threats or fatwas became in more recent years coldblooded killings on crowded streets.

Some friends described the murder of Mr. Roy as “copycat violence,” imitating similar attacks by fanatics elsewhere — part of the globalization of Islamism. In 2004, another writer, Humayun Azad, was severely injured during an attack that also occurred at the annual book fair. And in 2013, Ahmed Rajib Haider, an atheist blogger, was killed by machete-wielding Islamic radicals.

In both of those cases, the attackers demanded that the government pass a law against blasphemy, similar to the one that exists in Pakistan. Although the current government has strongly opposed such a law, it has nonetheless catered to Islamic political parties by harassing and arresting many secular bloggers. It has also used the existing law against hurting “religious sentiment” to punish dissenters.

After Avijit Roy’s murder, mourners placed a banner at the temporary memorial near the site of the attack. Its words could not be more true: “If Avijit is beaten, so is Bangladesh.”

Lipika Pelham is the author of the memoir “The Unlikely Settler.”

BHBCUC, USA’s Meeting with the US Ambassador to Bangladesh, New York, March 2014

Press Release

For Immediate Release

New York

March 17, 2014

BHBCUC, USA’s Meeting with the US Ambassador to Bangladesh,

His Excellency Dan W. Mozena Held

Dear Minority Rights Advocates/Activists:

Bangladesh Hindu Buddhist & Christian Unity Council, USA is held a meeting with the US Ambassador to Dhaka the Honorable Dan W. Mozena on Sunday, March 16, 2014 at the Gulshan Terrace of Woodside, Queens, New York City. Ambassador Mozena accompanied by two Department of State officials, Dr. Erick Eide and Mr. Christopher Elms, arrived promptly at 9: 45 AM and were greeted by 350 to 400 members of the Bangladeshi-Americans belonging to various Hindu, Buddhist and Christian organizations, a dozen print media and TV cameras (BHBCUC, USA apologizes to the scores of people who, responding to our invitation, enthusiastically came there braving the Sunday morning cold to express their solidarity with the victims of religious & ethnic cleansing in Bangladesh and let the Hon. Ambassador know that America must act to protect them).

Seated on the stage were the three co-presidents of the organization Dr. Jiten Roy, Mr. Julius Gomez and Mr. Ranabir Barua, the Honorable Ambassador Mozena and the two other State Department officials: Dr. Erick Eide and Mr. Christopher Elms. And, the meeting was very efficiently conducted by the organization’s Vice Chairman/Board of Director and an articulate speaker Mr. Bidyut Das.

The meeting started with Anandita offering the ambassador a bouquet of flowers and President Julius Gomez offering him a gift on behalf of BHBCUC, USA.

Figure 1Ambassador Mozena with Presidents Dr. Jiten Roy & Mr. Julius Gomez

Ambassador Mozena was introduced by young Attorney Rakesh Roy and Professor Dastidar by Mr. Akash Das, an intern of BHBCUC, USA. All the presentations were supported by relevant Power Point slides containing pictures portraying atrocities as well as data, which were prepared and/or projected on the screen simultaneously with the speech by BHBCUC, USA Advisor Mr. Ranjit Roy.

The speakers included Distinguished Professor of SUNY Old Westbury Campus, Dr. Sachi Ghosh Dastidar, Dr. Dwijen Bhattacharjya, Lecturer in Bengali/Columbia University, Mr. Amit Chowdhury, Director Policy, Mr. Rup Kumar Bhowmick, Director Communications & Publications, and Ms. Sathi Roy.

Following the welcome address by Mr. Amit Chowdhury, Director Policy, Mr. Rup Kumar Bhowmuck, Director of Communications & Publications, apprised the audience of the fact that BHBCUC, USA was a politically non-aligned Human Rights advocacy group, focused only on helping the religious & ethnic minorities of Bangladesh regain their equal rights and the right to live in their ancestral homeland, Bangladesh, with human dignity and safety of life and property. He pointed out that this organization brutally honest when it comes to presenting facts about which political party or its leaders & cadres have played what role in this on-going state-sponsored campaign of religious & ethnic cleansing in Bangladesh.

In presenting the Position Paper on behalf of the organization, Dr. Bhattacharjya ( henceforth “the paper”) started out by arguing that the vicious campaign of blatant discrimination and religious & ethnic cleansing that has raged in Bangladesh for decades, has been a state sponsored, goal-oriented and targeted campaign. The paper substantiated the claim by citing Kennedy Report of November 1971, Sydney Shanberg’s (NY Times Dhaka correspondent in 1971 who is world famous for his role in “Killing Field”) reports, both of which says that particularly the Hindus were targeted in 1971 – their houses were marked “H,” reminiscent of what the Nazis did to the Jewish population during World War-II.

Then by referring as well as showing in slides such notices served by the Islamists’ as “Leave Bangladesh or face dire consequences,” “Islam has been declared state religion, and therefore you must convert to Islam or leave the country,” “Hindus must convert to Islam if they want to vote., etc.,” including in January 2014, the paper argued that the campaign has always been driven by the Islamic nationalist’s and extremists goal of ridding the country of its minorities through violence.

By describing select heart rending cases of atrocities that occurred between 1988 and 2014, e.g., that of the Logang Massacre of the indigenous people on April 10, 1992 by Prime Minister Begum Zia’s armed forces and Muslim settlers (referring to the letter that 17 US Congressmen wrote Prime Minister Begum Zia expressing concern it was stated that 600 residents of that village were systematically killed after raping their women and looting their dwelling houses), the Banskhali Massacre, the slaughtering of the internationally famous Buddhist monk Gnanajyoti Mahasthabir, Principal Muhuri, the celebration of their election victory by the cadres of BNP and Jamaat-
e- Islami by raping 200 girls in one night (The Daily Star Editorial), and the case of rape-murder where they urinated in the mouth of dying person begin for a drop of water, the paper further argued that when the deadly combination of BNP and Jamaat-E- Islami returns to power Bangladesh becomes a “killing field” for its minorities as well as the secular Muslims (the case of the cadres of BNP gang raping a secular Muslim girl after their election victory in 2001 was cited).

Although everything that was included in the Position Paper was shown in the Power Point slides along with the presentation, the Hon. Ambassador was also provided two books: one our own publication Bangladesh: a portrait of covert Genocide (2004) and Professor Barakat’s book (about the effects of Enemy Property Act on the minorities), in which such documents as the letter that 17 US Congressmen wrote to Begum Zia in November 1992, expressing concern over the Logang Massacre, the Kennedy Report of 1971, the Shanberg Report, American Taliabn John Walker Lindh’s interview with CNN On Line etc., were conspicuously flagged.

Referring to Professor Barakat’s resercah the paper Dr. Bhattacharjya told the audience that BNP and Awami League both seized the highest quantiy of peroperty during the time they were in power, and, thus, there is little difference among parties when it comes to minority persecution/cleansing.

Upon firmly establishing that the minorities have been persecuted regardless of which party has been in power, varying only in terms of the degree of intensity, the paper argued that while the goal of the Islamic extremists ( Jamaat, Shibieer and its allies) behind this campaign has been to (i) rid the country of its “infidel” population, i.e., the Hindus, Buddhists and Christian including the indigenous peoples, so the country could be turned into a monolithic Islamic; the goal of the Islamic nationalist BNP has been also been the same for a different reason: reduce Awami League’s vote bank by 14%, so it could never win the parliamentary election again. The Awami League’s goal has been totally different -- by not preventing or stopping pogroms by using the the police or armed forces, when the attacks are conducted against the minorities, it has always wanted to show the world how evil BNP and Jamaat-E- Islami are. Thus, to all the parties the minorities are simply an expandable commodity, and not human beings like them.

The paper then pointed out how BNP reinstated the killers and murderers of 1971 into politics and started the process of Islamizing Bangladesh through the passage of the 5^th amendment and how Lt. General Ershad firmly established Islam as the state religion through the 8^th Amendment, thus rendering the minorities as 2^nd rate citizens and other religions as less important. It also pointed out that Awami League and its so called secularist allies put a permanent seal on the issue by reaffirming what Lt. General Ershad had done to the minorities by passing the 8^th Amendment or the State Religion bill. Dr. Bhatatcharjya argued that by taking this unthinkable backward action Awami League reverted to its original character that it had when it was born as the Awami Muslim League.

The paper further argued that Bangladesh experienced an astronomical rise in Islamic militancy during the BNP-Jamaat rule between 2001 and 2006. It pointed out that Prime Minister Begum Zia - Nijami’s government provided shelter to the shipload of Al-Qaeda soldiers who entered Bangladesh by M. V. Mecca after the fall of Kandahar.

By citing the American Taliabn John Walker Lindh’s interview with CNN On Line, the paper pointed out that they sent a full Brigade of Bangalee jihadists to Afghanistan to fight alongside Bin Laden’s’ Ansar Al Islam and the Urdu speaking Pakistani brigade. He clearly told the Ambassador that the combination of BNP and Jamaat is lethal one, which brought Bangladesh to the brink of being turned into a semi Taliban state. The paper citing two famous reports established that Islamic Chatra Shibeer is the third most danger non-governmental armed terrorist group in the world and hence must be banned along with Jamaat-E- Islamic, which is its funding source.

He said that in 1971 it is today’s leaders of the Jamaat-E-Islami who collborated w ith the pakistani army in the killing of 3 million unarmed civilians raping of 200, 000 women and the exodus of nealry 10 million people to India, majority of whom were minorities. Pointing out that a lot is being said about the trial of the War Criminals, but BHBCUC, USA holds the postion that if anyone is found guilty of crime agsint humanity in during the war or afterwards, that person must be brought to justice like the Nazis are being tried and punished if found.

The paper also pointed out how the minorities were shocked and stunned again and again by the centrist party of Awami League and its secular democratic allies. This included reference to the Father of the nation Bangobondhu’s refusal to return the Ramna Kali Temple to the Hindus after liberation, deliberate failure to to repeal the Enemy Property Act (thus allowing successive government seize 2.8 million acres of land from the minorities), and create Hindu, Buddhist and Christian Foundations along with the Islamic Foundations that he had created through legislation.

He criticized the Bangobondhu government for looking the other way when the Islamic nationalists & extremists desecrated deities and temples during the Durga Pooja in October 1972, thus signaling to the Islamists that minority persecution was all right in secular democratic Bangladesh as it had been in Islamic Pakistan.

The paper accused Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s government for all the above plus her failure to prosecute the perpetrators of crime against the minorities despite the existence Shahabuddin Commissions’ report which lists thousands of them.

He also pointed out how it took decades before the minorities got access to the Ramna Kali Temple and finally repeal the Enemy or Vested Property Act, under tremendous international pressure, which was still an exercise in chicanery in that the losers of property , unlike the Jews of Nazi Germany or the Armenians of Turkey, cannot reclaim their property. He also criticized Prime Minister Hasina for her failure failure to take decades before addressing the issues only under tremendous international pressure (e.g. rebuilding the Buddhists Temples under international pressure but not the hundreds of Hindu Temples that have been destroyed). The position Paper also criticized Prime Minister Hasina for her failure to implement the Chittagong Hill Tracts Peace Accord of 1997 that she herself had signed.

The paper pointed out that although whenever a minority candidate was nominated they won the parliamentary election, e.g., 14 in the 2008 election, the centrist Awami League and its allies refuse to nominate them, and that there is not single cabinet minister in the current cabinet, whereas in India there have been several Muslim Presidents and even the current External Affairs Minister is a Muslim.

The paper pointed out that due to the campaign of discrimination and atrocities there has been an exodus of 16 million minorities to India since 1971, who live there as stateless people for India doesn’t grant asylum to Bangladesh’s minorities and thus they were not economic migrants, which is what has been claimed by the agents of BNP and Jamaat, who have consistently denied that minority persecution has ever occurred in Bangladesh.

Having thus very fairly criticizing all the political parties and arguing that perpetrators of crime against the minorities are primarily the cadres of BNP and Jamaat, Dr. Bhattacharjya profusely praised Awami League for completely separating the state and Mosque/Church and for Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s stellar records in combating terrorism, women empowerment, child mortality, economic development, generation of electricity, etc and that her government does not bar the promotions due to the minorities which is why they vote for the secularists and that he himself would also vote for Awami League, if he were to go back to Bangladesh. He clearly let the ambassador know that, as in every nation, the minorities always tend to vote for the relatively more secular party and they will thus vote for Awami League and its allies, as would he himself.

Dr. Bhattacharjya, gratefully acknowledged the assistance the secular democratic people of Bangladesh have provide whenever the minorities have have come under attack by the cadres of BNP and jamaat and pointed out that in every country the minorities have been able to survive and even regain their rights only with the help of the secular democratic forces of the majority group and that the same is the case in Bangladesh, too.

Having said that, he urged the Ambassador to support the secular democratic forces in Bangladesh and roll the country back into a secular democratic state like his predecessor Ambassador Moriarty did in Nepal.

He pointed out that the religious minorities of Bangladesh looked up to the United States to device a permanent solution because it has done so all over the world, e.g., in East Timor, South Sudan, Bosnia and the likes.

Dr. Bhattacharjya suggested that the US take the following steps to accomplish that goal:

i. Advise BNP and Jamat-E- Islami to end their vicious campaign of religious & ethnic cleansing in Bangladesh.

ii. Advise Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to take precautionary measures whenever attacks on the minorities are anticipated, and not use them to show the world how evil the BNP and Jamaat are for the world already knows that.

iii. Encourage Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to constitutionally uphold secular democracy (as opposed to Islamic democracy that her party has perpetuated by reaffirming Islam as the state religion through the 15^th Amendment to the constitution).

iv. Encourage Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to enact a Hate Crime Law and try the perpetrators of crime against the country’s minorities under that law in a special tribunal, starting the process using the Justice Shahabuddin Report or Probe Commission report.

v. Encourage Prime Minister Hasina to create separate foundations for the Hindus, Buddhists and Christians like the existing Islamic foundation.

vi. Encourage Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to complete the trial and punishment of the perpetrators of crimes against humanity (If this is done the Islamist will not dare conduct pogroms against the minorities and secular Muslims of the country. Trial of those criminals is as non-negotiable as that of the Nazis, RSS and).

vii. Encourage Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to empower the country’s minorities politically and economically.

viii. Advise Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to rehabilitate and compensate the victims of violence by rebuilding their places of worship, dwelling houses that have ever been destroyed by the religious nationalists and extremists, and making arrangements for dealing with their psychological trauma.

ix. Encourage Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina ban religious extremists parties like Jamaat-e-Islami, Islami Chatra Shibir and Islami Oikya Jote who have links to terrorist activities as per proposal of European Parliament.

x. Advise Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to fully implement the Chittagong Hill Tracts Peace Accord of 1997, so the indigenous peoples of Chittagong Hill tracts may live in peace.

xi. Encourage Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to empower the country’s minorities politically and economically (Please note that, in her current cabinet there is not a single full minister from among the minority groups.)

xii. Consistently promote and support the secular democratic forces.

xiii. Provide a permanent solution to the problems facing the minorities of Bangladesh like you did in East Timor, South Sudan, Bosnia and the likes.

Dr. Bhattacharjya ended the presentation of the position paper by reiterating three requests to the Hon. Ambassador:

i. Consistently promote and support the secular democratic forces in Bangladesh.

ii. Roll Bangladesh back into a secular democracy that it was at birth.

iii. Device a permanent solution to the problem facing Bangladesh’s religious and ethnic minorities.

Professor Sachi Dastidar’s valuable paper focused on the minority exodus of over 50 million people under duress, which was supported by a detailed statistical analysis, very much like the papers he previously presented at two Congressional Hearings in Washington D.C., in 2008 and 2011.

Ms. Sathi Roy’s insightful paper focused on the use of rape and conversion as tools of choice in the campaign of religious and ethnic cleansing. It argued that when these tools are used in combination the victims have no alternative but to leave the country because no parents want to witness their daughters violated again and again in front of their eyes.

Responding to the presentations, Ambassador Mozena held the hands of the introducer from the young generation, Attorney Rakesh Roy and Akash Das, and said, they were the future of Bangladesh.

He said having traveled throughout Bangladesh he noticed that at the deeper level the majority group was willing to live side by side with the minorities as they have for centuries; however that he has also witnessed this harmony disrupted through violence against the minorities again and again, in 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, etc. He argued that in order to maintain that history of peaceful coexistence Bangladesh’s majority group must respect the rights and dignity of the minorities. He said a few times that he personally believed and also it was the U. S. policy to protect the minorities everywhere. The ambassador said that Bangladesh could not make progress complete neglecting the minorities, and hence minority persecution must stop.

The Hon. Ambassador said he believed in Lord Krishna’s statement that he is present inside every human being, and thus he believes that people must love each other. He ended his speech by thanking BHBC, USA for hosting this event.

In the question/Answer session, Dr. Jiten Roy asked: “We hear that another election might be held soon. But experience shows that, another election is unlikely to help the democratic process because the opposition parties never go to the parliament. What another election would certainly do is cause another wave of atrocities against the country’s minorities followed by yet another wave of minority exodus. So, what would be the point of another election soon?

The ambassador skillfully avoided this question.

The meeting ended with the thank You note from Mr. Ranabir Barua, President who had previously introuduced Councilman Weprin to the audience.

Finally, on a different note we would like our fellow human rights advocates/ activistsworldwide to know that, the man who has created counter-Oikya Parishad committees in various places defying the central committee yet claiming that he was the international coordinator of this organization, and who had his surrogate writers write articles in New York's weeklies likening Major General C.R. Datta to the traitors Jogendra Mandal and Rasaraj Mandal and then e-mailed to most of you in order to defame him ( He also did the same thing with the General Secretary of the Central Committee Advocate RananDas-Gupta the prosecutor of Delwar Hossain Syedee and Salhauddin Qader Chowdhury), simply because they refused to make Oikya Parishad a tool for promoting the his political masters, called many people of New York City trying to dissuade them from coming to our event. Recipients of that villain’s call contacted us one after another to find out what was going on, but did show up, thus overcrowding the hall, and raising the number of attendees to well above 350 ( Journalists told us they never saw so many people show up at a meeting so early in the morning and then attend it for three hours on their feet.)

Thank you.

Sincerely,

Mr. Rup Kumar Bhowmick, Director Communications & Publications

On Behalf of

Presidents: Dr. Jiten Roy Ph. D., Mr. Julius Gomez & Mr. Ranabir Barua

General Secretary: Dwijen Bhattacharjya, Ph. D. & Treasurer: Mr. Dilip Chakraborty

Chairman/Board of Directors: Mr. Shyamal Sharma

Vice Chairman/Board of Directors: Mr. Bidyut Das

Members Secretary: Mr. Ranjit Bhaduri

Director Policy : Mr. Amit Chowdhury & Director Organizaiton: Mr. Bappi Sen Chowdhury

Ambassador Mozena with Presidents Dr. Jiten roy & Mr. Julius Gomez

Attorney Rakesh Roy & Akash Das.JPG