Why Taliban's Are Afraid Of Purple?

SALEEM SAMAD

The radicalised Taliban after recapturing Afghanistan in August 2021, the regime has promulgated a series of misogynist decrees which targeted women only.

Women are barred from higher education, jobs and business. The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan issued nearly 20 decrees against women during the last one and a half years inviting global outcry. The

International Women’s Day on 8 March is observed worldwide, but Afghanistan is the world’s most repressive country for women and girls, deprived of their basic rights, said the United Nations.

Despite the dark clouds over Afghanistan, there is two good news on an international day.

First, Afghan broadcaster Tolo News aired an all-female panel in its studio with an audience of women to mark International Women’s Day, a rare broadcast since the Taliban took over the vibrant country, reports BBC.

Second, despite the strict enforcement of protests, the women held a protest in Kabul on International Women’s Day, calling for women’s access to education and work. The protestors called for the removal of blanket restrictions on women in Afghanistan.

Since 1908 International Women’s Day’s thematic colour purple stands for dignity and justice, green for hope, and white for purity. Purple is the colour of women’s empowerment and gender equality, which the Taliban hates to listen to.

Tolo News to mark the auspicious day held a discussion session. The panel of three women and one female moderator with surgical masks covering their faces discussed the topic of the position of women in Islam. Taliban is not prepared to hear a sermon on Islam from a woman.

International media rights defender Reporters Without Borders (RSF) is aghast that the Taliban has continued to erase women journalists from the media landscape in Afghanistan.

In less than two years. Half of the 526 media outlets that existed until the summer of 2021 have had to close and, of the 2,300 women journalists since the Taliban takeover in August 2021, fewer than 200 are still working. Almost all of the women journalists (90%) have had to leave their jobs and some have fled the country, although exactly how many have managed to flee is not known.

Those still working must accept conditions that are becoming more and more draconian if not impossible. The Taliban Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Repression of Vice has also imposed a strict dress code. When women journalists are on camera, they must be covered from head to toe and only their eyes may be seen.

The female protestors issued a statement saying the current challenges against women should not be forgotten.

“It is March 8 but women in Afghanistan have no right to celebrate this day. We are the women who are imprisoned in the country. The restrictions are worsened day-by-day,” said Jolia Parsa, a member of Junbish Itlaf Khodjosh Zanan.

The protesters appealed to the international community to pay attention to the situation of women in Afghanistan.

“Today, the gates of gyms, schools, universities and parks have been closed for women,” said a member of Junbish Itlaf Khodjosh Zanan.

The UN Secretary-General António Guterres laments that women and girls “are erased from public life” in Afghanistan.

On the other hand, hopes are dashed as universities reopen after a winter vacation, but it’s another painful reminder to young women of how their world is shrinking.

Due to growing restrictions as well as the country’s severe economic crisis, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) said female employment had fallen 25 per cent last year since mid-2021. It added that more women were turning to self-employed work such as tailoring at home.

The United Nations Mission to Afghanistan called on the Taliban to reverse restrictions on the rights of girls and women, calling them “distressing.”

The Taliban have said the authorities have set up a committee to examine perceived issues to work towards re-opening girls’ schools. But there is no light at the end of the tunnel.

The Islamic Emirate has repeatedly said that they are committed to the rights of women and girls in Afghanistan and that their rights are preserved within strict Islamic Sharia laws.

First published in The News Times, Dhaka, Bangladesh on 9 March 2023

Saleem Samad, is an award-winning independent journalist, media rights defender, recipient of Ashoka Fellowship and Hellman-Hammett Award. He could be reached at <saleemsamad@hotmail.com>; Twitter @saleemsamad

Why Pakistan Is Upset With The Taliban?

SALEEM SAMAD

Maryam Marof Arwin, founder of Afghanistan Women and Children Strengthen Welfare Organisation in a Twitter post lament: Afghanistan has been made a cage for Afghan women and girls.

This tweet tells a million words, which depicts the state of Afghanistan after a 16-month rule by the barbarian Taliban, who has pushed the nation into the 7th-century medieval era.

Last week, Pakistan’s envoy in his deliberation made a damning assessment of Taliban’s rule at the so-called “Moscow Format of Consultations” by key regional countries mostly neighbours held on 16 November hosted by Russia.

In an unusual move, the envoy from Islamabad tells despite assurances from Kabul, the rights of women and girls have regressed.

The assessment shared by Ambassador Muhammad Sadiq, Pakistan’s special envoy on Afghanistan, said the interim government has done little to form an inclusive government, protect the rights of women and eradicate dreaded terrorist networks.

The fourth meeting of the Moscow Format since 2017 was held with participation from Russia, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Iran, Pakistan, China, Turkmenistan, India, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan at the level of Special Representatives or Envoys on Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, the portal Khaama Press News Agency of Afghanistan blasted the Moscow Format and argued that the meeting was ‘incomplete’ without Taliban representatives.

It is understood that Kremlin is frustrated and decided not to invite Taliban representative to Moscow for the consultation.

Russia’s displeasure was caused by negative progress made toward an inclusive Afghan government reflecting the interests of all the ethnic and political forces of the country, as promised by the Taliban’s end.

The joint statement released at the end of the consultation of the Moscow Format on Afghanistan called the Taliban a “new reality,” and stressed the formation of an “inclusive government”, respecting the interests of all major “ethnopolitical” forces.

Ambassador Sadiq in his address took an unusually harsh attitude against the Taliban regime.

In the last meeting in Moscow last year laid down broad principles to govern practical engagement with the Interim Afghan government based on i) promoting inclusivity; ii) respecting fundamental human rights including rights of women; iii) countering terrorism; and iv) sustained support to the Afghan people, including the provision of humanitarian and economic support.

The Moscow Format hoped that as friends and neighbours of Afghanistan, stood up for the Afghans. The consultation advances desired goals by bringing together the regional countries in a process of meaningful dialogue and engagement on Afghanistan.

Sadiq said the progress barometer signalled some of the worst fears, including a rapidly deteriorating security situation in Afghanistan, the mass exodus of refugees and a prolonged period of instability and violence did not materialise, the interim Afghan government had also not made the kind of progress that the international community consistently urged the interim Afghan government to promote greater political inclusivity.

Incidentally, Rawalpindi funded, trained and abetted the Taliban fighters. Earlier, to oust the Soviet invader of Afghanistan in the 70s channelled American weapons, funds and sanctuaries to the Mujahideen including Al Qaeda brainchild Osama Bin Laden.

The proliferation of military-grade weapons and violent terrorism have spilled over to Pakistan. Rawalpindi is feeling the pinch in their shoes of the threats of violence and civil war in the regions along the borders with Afghanistan.

The Taliban fighters returned to power in August 2021 and deliberately ignored all the commitments made separately in Doha as well as in Moscow.

Despite assurance from the interim Kabul government, the rights of women and girls also appeared to have regressed, not progressed, according to the Pakistani envoy. He added that the footprint of terrorist organisations in Afghanistan had yet to be fully eradicated.

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) claims that opium cultivation in Afghanistan has increased by 32% over the previous year.

Opium cultivation has caused a larger drug problem in Afghanistan. It has invited a nexus of the international network of the opium trade and money laundering.

Not to anybody’s surprise, the terror network protects the drug lords to collect funding to augment the outfit’s clandestine operations from the opium trade.

Well, the Taliban regime for their survival in the face of global economic sanctions benefitted from the opium trade.

With the lack of progress, Pakistan observed that the critical support needed by Afghanistan to deal with the humanitarian and economic crises and other challenges has faltered.

Apparently, Afghanistan remains cut off from the international banking system and faces serious liquidity challenges. Billions of Afghan assets are frozen, thus deprived of being gainfully used for the benefit of the people of Afghanistan.

The opium trade has threatened the neighbouring countries Pakistan, Iran, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan vulnerable to combating and controlling the overland drug trafficking worth $1.8 – $2.7 billion in 2021.

On the other hand, the Moscow Format of consultation appealed for help to millions of Afghans, who were in desperate need of urgent humanitarian support, including food, medicine and essential life supplies.

To conclude the stakeholder of peacebuilding in volatile Afghanistan was a collective failure of the international community to stand by the people of Afghanistan – the international commitments to provide humanitarian support to Afghanistan remain largely unfulfilled.

First published in The News Times, November 20, 2022

Saleem Samad, is an independent journalist, media rights defender, recipient of Ashoka Fellowship and Hellman-Hammett Award. He could be reached at <saleemsamad@hotmail.com>; Twitter @saleemsamad

Islamist threat challenges LGBT, Gay and Lesbian in Bangladesh

Saleem Samad

Tourist’s most popular guidebook Lonely Planet, advises gay travellers to be discreet in Bangladesh, and warns that homosexuality is illegal in Bangladesh, and homosexual acts are punishable under Bangladesh law with deportation, fines and/or prison.

In December 2008, Bangladesh was one of 59 countries that signed a statement opposing lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) rights at the United Nations General Assembly.

Unfortunately, Bangladesh is one of 75 countries that currently have laws criminalizing homosexuality and the highest punishment for “unnatural intercourses” is life imprisonment, but lesser jail terms of up to 10 years in prison and fines might also be handed out under the existing law, writes Dhaka Tribune.

Primarily the country is a Sunni Muslim majoritarian nation, a major challenge for the LGBT, gay and lesbian communities facing in Bangladesh.

Despite Bangladesh being a conservative country, the government in July 2016 has recognized the ‘trans-gender’ community as ‘third gender’ with a single-sentence: “The Government of Bangladesh has recognized the Hijra community of Bangladesh as a Hijra sex.”

This circular represented a significant step toward securing a range of rights for Bangladesh’s ‘hijras’ — people who, assigned “male” at birth, identify as feminine later in life and prefer to be recognized as ‘hijra’ or a third gender.

According to Section 377, the country’s British colonial-era penal code, voluntary carnal intercourse against “the order of nature with any man, woman or animal” is punishable with imprisonment for life or with imprisonment which may extend to ten years and fines.

The Dhaka Tribune in an editorial writes against section 377 of the criminal code stating their belief that while most people in Bangladesh were against homosexuality, they did not want to see people put in jail for it or for the government to waste resources treating it as a crime.

Same-sex romantics or sexual activities are not accepted in society, with LGBT people facing discrimination, verbal and physical abuse, and unique legal and social challenges. Same-sex sexual activity, whether in public or private, is illegal and punishable with fines and up to life imprisonment, though this law is rarely enforced. However Bangladeshi societies view it as a negative activity. Consequently, Bangladesh does not recognise the relationship between same gender.

The New York based rights defender, Human Rights Watch (HRW) states that “Discrimination against LGBT people is pervasive in Bangladesh”.

Homosexual relations are criminalized in Bangladesh and many LGBT activists have been forced into exile.

According to NBC, those who have fled the country are slowly reconnecting and trying to organize a meeting to assess the situation. The attacks have driven local LGBT activists underground, French news agency AFP reported.

On March 30, Labannya Hijra, a third gender activist became a Bangladeshi hero. Witnessing the murder by Islamist militants of the secular blogger Washiqur Rahman Babuon a street in capital Dhaka, she grabbed the fleeing assailants. Her courageous intervention led to the arrest of two men, who later confessed to the killing.

Days after Xulhaz Mannan and Tonoy Mahbub hacked to death in a Dhaka apartment on the evening of April 25, 2016, HRW urged the Bangladesh authority to immediately probe the killings of two LGBT human rights activists.

Ansar-al Islam, the Bangladeshi branch of dreaded Al Qaeda on the Indian subcontinent, claimed responsibility for the attacks.

The groups said “the two were killed because they were ‘pioneers of practicing and promoting homosexuality in Bangladesh’ and were ‘working day and night to promote homosexuality … with the help of their masters, the U.S. crusaders and its Indian allies,’” CTV reported.

Mannan was an editor of Roopban, Bangladesh’s first LGBT specialised magazine, which began publishing in 2014. He was a visible and openly gay human rights activist who supported and protected LGBT people even in the face of threats against the community.

The assassination of two LGBT rights activists follow a spate of 30 killings since early 2015, targeted attacks on writers, educators, bloggers, and editors who advocated liberal and secular democracy, that radical groups believe are against Islamic ideology.

In the face of police and civil authorities’ reluctance to provide security to those who sought help in the wake of death threats by the Muslim bigots has caused shiver and fear among them.

“This one incident broke the sense of security. More than 15 people left the country. More than 10 want to leave. People in Bangladesh don’t want to talk to us. The whole community is so scattered and scared,” an activist told the Thomson Reuters Foundation on the sidelines of an international LGBT conference in Bangkok, Thailand in end of 2016.

In 2013, the country’s National Human Rights Commission called on the government to protect sexual and gender minorities from discrimination.

To add fuel into fire, Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina advised bloggers and social media activists to use restraint in their exercise of free speech or leave the country for their safety.

In recent years, LGBT people in Bangladesh have also been targeted with extremist rhetoric. For example, in November 2015, when activists began publishing a cartoon series featuring a lesbian character, religious groups issued hateful anti-LGBT statements, calling on the government to prosecute LGBT people under section 377 and Sharia (Islamic Law).

Even though a small number of gay rights organisations and activists in Bangladesh were raising their voice to establish rights for the LGBT community, none of them has so far engaged in a legal fight to recognise the status of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people in the country, said Supreme Court lawyer Jyotirmoy Barua.

First published in Shuddhashar online magazine, October 2019

Saleem Samad, is an Ashoka Fellow (USA), recipient of Hellman-Hammett Award and also Bangladesh correspondent of Paris based international media rights organization, Reporters Without Borders (RSF). Email: saleemsamad@hotmail.com; Twitter @saleemsamad

Imagine Pakistan without terror!

Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan - Photo: Reuters

SALEEM SAMAD

The Islamic Republic of Pakistan is quite possibly the only Muslim country which has mainstreamed Islamic militancy in its national extra-curricular activities.

In utter hypocrisy, the Sunni Muslim majoritarian country is the primary contributor to UN peacekeeping … while also aiding and abetting Jihadists.

Recently, Pakistan’s Interior Minister Ijaz Ahmed Shah exposed the truth that the national exchequer has footed millions of rupees on terror outfit Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD).

The top official of Prime Minister Imran Khan’s government, while speaking to journalist Nadeem Malik, stated on Pakistani private TV channel Hum News that the Imran Khan government has spent billions of rupees on the banned terror outfit JuD to attach them to the mainstream.

Earlier, during his maiden visit to the US in July, Khan had made a similar revelation that his country still has about 30,000 to 40,000 militants “who have been trained and fought in some part of Afghanistan or Kashmir,” according to a wire service report.

Pakistan’s pioneering role of deployment of non-state actors began from the insurrection in Kashmir in 1947-48, which was masterminded by Major General Akbar Khan.

In the book Raiders in Kashmir by Akbar Khan, he described the evil behind Pakistan’s invasion of the state of Jammu and Kashmir in 1947. Later in the 1970s, during General Zia ul Haq’s regime, he overtly nurtured jihadists with weapons, logistics, and training facilities for Mujaheddin’s fight with Russia in Afghanistan.

Years after the Mujaheddin coalition government came to power, General Pervez Musharraf, through 1994-96, pushed tens of thousands of Taliban into Afghanistan.

The militants were recruits from madrasas in Pakistan, especially from those in the North-West Frontier Province (now Khyber Pakhtunkhwa). Hundreds of foreign fighters from across the Muslim world joined the Taliban militia, mostly Pashtuns in Pakistan, Uzbeks, and Turkmens. Soon after, the world’s dreaded terror network, Al-Qaeda, moved its headquarters and covert operations into Taliban-controlled Afghanistan.

Afghanistan was shackled under the strictest Islamic Sharia -- where women were barred from going to school or getting jobs, and music and theaters were banned outright.

The men were forced to grow beards and pray five times, while women were covered with a black abaya or burka when they stepped outside their homes on the condition that they should be accompanied by a male. 

The Taliban moral police were cruel with violators of so-called Islamic rules, especially with women.

The Taliban regime in Afghanistan collapsed soon after the ruthless Al-Qaeda suicide operatives rammed into the World Trade Centre building in New York with hijacked commercial airlines on September 11, 2001.

Years later, Western intelligence confirmed that Pakistan was secretly harboring the dreaded Taliban leader Mullah Omar and Osama bin Laden -- founder of Al-Qaeda and other terror outfits including Harkat-ul-Jihad al-Islami, Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammed, Harkat-ul-Mujahideen, and Al-Badr -- who were particularly engaged with infiltration into India-administered Kashmir.

Bin Laden, a blue-eyed boy of the Pakistan military hierarchy, had been lying in front of the proverbial nose of the military establishment in Abbottabad.

It was exposed when the United States Navy Seal Team made a dramatic search-and-kill operation and eliminated Bin Laden -- the world’s most wanted terrorist -- and his bodyguards in 2011.

As Tarek Fatah, a Pakistan-born Canadian journalist writes: “Pakistan, the country that nurtured the mastermind of 9/11, Khaled Sheikh Muhammad, and hosted Al-Qaeda head Osama bin Laden, escaped all scrutiny as its wily diplomats ran circles of deceit around Western governments while corrupt Jihadi generals profited immensely and still do.”

Most Pakistan-born journalists, academics, and rights activists living in exile believe that Minister Ijaz Ahmed Shah’s comments were a face-saving strategy ahead of the upcoming meeting of the Paris-based Financial Action Task Force (FATF) in October.

Last month, the FATF’s regional affiliate Asia-Pacific Group put Pakistan in the red list, for having major deficiencies in their anti-money-laundering and counter-financing of terrorism framework and implementation.

But the question still remains: Is Naya Pakistan doomed to fail as well? 

First published in Dhaka Tribune, 16 September 2019

Saleem Samad, is an independent journalist, recipient of Ashoka Fellow and Hellman-Hammett Award

Bangladesh: Islamist Terrorism: New Challenges

S. BINODKUMAR SINGH

In an attempt to derail Sheikh Hasina Wajed’s Awami League (AL)-led Government’s efforts to suppress Islamist extremism and terrorism within the country, Islamist militant formations have started reorganizing themselves, presenting a rising challenge to the regime and its enforcement apparatus. On September 3, 2013, Mukhlesur Rahman, Director General of Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), disclosed, "We have information that the militants are trying to reorganize their groups under different banners. All the 13 anti-militant wings of RAB have been asked to remain vigilant across the country to collect advance information of their regrouping." Following this, intelligence operations were stepped up across the country, especially in remote areas, to collect advance information of regrouping of Islamist militants to frustrate their activities.

 

Significantly, on August 25, 2013, the Detective Branch (DB) of the Police stated that a new extremist formation, the Ansarullah Bangla Team (ABT) has now emerged and was following in the footsteps of Islamist terrorists in other Muslim countries. The ABT plans to gain control of a part of the country (Bangladesh) and conduct armed jihad(Islamic uprising) from there to make Bangladesh a Sharia-based Islamic State. Mufti Jasimuddin Rahmani, the head of ABT, was arrested along with 30 of his followers, on August 12, 2013, while they were allegedly holding a secret meeting to plan to attack Police Stations and other state establishments in order to create disorder, destabilize Bangladesh, and overthrow the Government through jihad. Again, Police arrested nine ABT extremists from different parts of Dhaka city on August 25, 2013, along with an instruction manual on how to explode grenades and use rocket launchers, as well as some books on jihad. Dhaka Metropolitan Police Joint Commissioner Monirul Islam commented, “They were planning to overthrow the Government through jihad.” Senior Assistant Commissioner of the Detective Branch, Mohammad Touhidul Islam, added, “They [ABT] are closely following al Qaeda in running their organization.”

 

ABT started their extremist activities under the banner of a Non Government Organisation (NGO), Research Centre for Unity and Development, way back in 2004. The group follows the ideals, policy and strategy of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and the Pakistan-based Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).

 

Another growing concern in Bangladesh is the Hizb-ut-Tahrir (HuT, ‘Party of Liberation’). Colonel T.M. Jobaer, Director of National Security Intelligence, described HuT as “currently the biggest threat of all the Islamic outfits… the organization is strong because it has a strong international agenda - it wants to establish a Khilafat (Islamic State) in many countries."

 

Meanwhile, other terrorist formations that had been forced into dormancy over the past years, have also been trying to regain lost ground. According to a September 9, 2013, report, the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al Islami Bangladesh (HuJI-B), which had been paralyzed since the arrest of its ‘operations commander’ Mufti Abdul Hannan in Dhaka city on October 1, 2005, has, over the past five years, recruited around 10,000 cadres and supporters through cyber services such as the social network website Facebook. On August 14, 2013, Police arrested nine cadres of HuJI-B at Kademul Islam Qaumi Madrassah mosque in the Jhalakati District, while they were allegedly participating in a ‘training session’.

 

Disturbingly, the Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), which was responsible for the countrywide serial bombings in 2005, and had been crippled when virtually its entire top leadership was executed in 2007, is presently trying to reorganize, albeit on a "very small scale". On August 16, 2013, RAB Legal and Media Wing Director A.T.M. Habibur Rahman observed, “With its whole network dismantled, the banned militant outfit has almost no strength left to carry out any subversive activity. Some JMB members were recently caught printing leaflets and posters, suggesting that they were active…” On June 20, 2013, a Dhaka court sentenced 10 JMB terrorists to death over a suicide bomb attack at the Gazipur Bar Association office on November 29, 2005, in which eight people were killed, including four lawyers, and another 80 were injured.

 

Other groups, including the Jagrata Muslim Janata Bangladesh (JMJB) and Hizb-ut-Tawhid (HT), among others, continue to propagate appeals for jihad. In a recent incident, on August 22, 2013, Police arrested two female cadres of HT from the Kanaikhali area of Natore District while they were distributing books on jihad.

 

Further, Hefazat-e-Islam (HeI, 'Protectorate of Islam'), which came to prominence after it raised its 13-point demands on March 9, 2013, has expanded the space for all Islamist extremist formations to extend their subversion in the name of political activism.

 

Home Minister Mohiuddin Khan Alamgir, for instance, claimed that cadres of Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI) and its student wing Islami Chhatra Shibir (ICS) had joined the violent May 5, 2013, rally under the aegis of HeI. Alamgir stated, on May 5, 2013, “We have talked to the leaders of the HeI and they have confirmed that the people who attacked Police are not their activists.” On September 5, 2013, Police identified seven political parties – JeI, Islami Oikya Jote, Muslim League, Nezam-e-Islam (Latif), Nezam-e-Islami (Izharul Islam), Khelafat-e-Islam, and Khelafat-e-Mazlish – that participated in the rally and engaged in widespread violence, intimidation and disruption. At least 35 people were killed in their campaigns between May 5 and 14, 2013.

 

On August 26, 2013, at a ‘views-exchange meeting’ organized by the Islami Dalsamuha (an alliance of some 15 Islamic Parties), at the head office of one of the alliance partners, Bangladesh Khelafat Andolon (BKA, ‘Bangladesh Caliphate Movement’), in Dhaka city’s Lalbagh area, ended with a declaration that the alliance would act against the ruling Awami League (AL), which they considered an “anti-Islamic element”. Zafrullah Khan, ‘secretary general’ of BKA and a member secretary of Islami Dalsamuha declared, “Our first target is to oust the ruling AL government and take steps so that the party cannot come to power in the next general election.” BKA, an Islamist political party founded by Moulana Mohammadullah alias Hafezzi Huzur, on July 30, 2008, had demanded that women be made ineligible for the posts of head of Government or State.

 

Further, reviewing the role of Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI, Pakistan’s external intelligence agency) in Bangladesh, State Minister for Law, Advocate Quamrul Islam, on May 8, 2013, claimed that the mayhem on May 5, 2013, in Dhaka city was backed by the ISI. Moreover, the clashes between Rohingya Muslims and Buddhists in the Rakhine State in Myanmar, which resulted in some 200 deaths and the displacement of over 22,000 people in 2012, have provided a new opportunity to ISI-backed Islamist formations to consolidate their hold in Bangladesh, and to make the Bangladesh-Myanmar Border their operational base.

 

Meanwhile, violence perpetrated by JeI-ICS cadres with the tacit support of the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) continued unabated. According to partial data collected by the South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP), the country has witnessed 206 Islamist related fatalities in total, including 116 civilians, 77 militants and 13 Security Forces (SFs) through 2013 (all data till September 15). By contrast, only three Islamist extremism-linked fatalities had been recorded in 2012, including one civilian and two terrorists; no fatalities were reported in 2011; and in 2010, six fatalities were recorded, including three civilians and three militants.

 

These worrying developments have the potential to undermine the Hasina Government’s work over the past years. Indeed, since it came to power on January 6, 2009, on the promise of taking drastic measures to tackle terrorism in its election manifesto, the regime has been able to rein in Islamist extremist groups in substantial measure. Despite tremendous and sustained opposition, the Government has pushed on with the War Crimes Trials, where a total of 13 persons, including 11 JeI and two BNP leaders, have been indicted thus far. 12 of these persons had been indicted till August 1, 2013, while the thirteenth, JeI central executive committee member Mir Quasem Ali, was indicted on September 5, 2013. Quasem Ali faces 14 charges, including murder, torture, abduction and confinement of people and complicity in crimes against humanity during the Liberation War of 1971. Out of 13 persons indicted, four have already been awarded death sentence, while another two have been given life imprisonment. Trials of the remaining seven are under process.

 

The SFs have arrested at least 2,861 extremists belonging to various Islamist groups in 2013, as against 1,832 such arrests in 2012; 578 in 2011; and 958 in 2010.

 

The achievements of the Sheikh Hasina Government in its counter-terrorism and de-radicalization programmes have been extraordinary, and they have established a measure of stability in a State that, just a few years ago, appeared to be going the Pakistan way. Nevertheless, these gains remain fragile. The hold of subversive and extremist Islamist formations remains significant and is spread across the country, and the possibility of a dangerous and disruptive revival has not been eliminated.

First published in the South Asia Intelligence Review, Weekly Assessments & Briefings, Volume 12, No. 11, September 16, 2013

S. Binodkumar Singh is Research Associate, Institute for Conflict Management