Why Conservative Muslims in Bangladesh believe Ahmadiyya are heretic?

SALEEM SAMAD

The recent spate of racial attacks on Ahmadiyya Muslims during their annual congregation at a sprawling complex in northern Bangladesh on a pretext that they are not ‘Muslims’ and demanded that the sect should be declared ‘non-Muslims’.

The perpetrators were radicalised Sunni Muslims, says political historian researcher and writer Mohiuddin Ahmad.

The Sunnis are majoritarian in Bangladesh, nearly 91 per cent. They have been indoctrinated by conservative Wahabi and Salafimanhaz at tens of thousands of Islamic theological seminaries (madrasas) dotted all over Bangladesh and authorities could not tame them to adopt secularism, the writer/researcher explained.

Ahmadiyya, a Muslim sect is a member of a minority religious community and are spread all over Bangladesh since 1913.

The Ahmadiyya are indeed conservative Sunni Muslims and are tolerant of other faiths, practitioners and beliefs. They regularly hold inter-faith dialogues with other religious leaders in their mosques, which prompted the radicalised Muslims to reject the place of worship as a mosque for Muslim prayers.

Last week, the Ahmadiyya Muslim Jama’at, Bangladesh, at a press conference in Dhaka expressed their satisfaction over the investigation of the civil and police administrations over the racial riots, and said their actions were deemed appropriate.

The sect’s disciples demands that the secular fabric for centuries and equal status of all religions, ethnic community and other minorities should be respected as guaranteed in the constitution. Roughly 100,000 Ahmadis live in Bangladesh today.

Ahmed Tabshir Chowdhury, spokesperson of the Ahmadiyya’s in Bangladesh told journalists that the civil administration and police swift action have saved hundreds of lives and properties in Panchagarh district, where the annual ‘Salana Jalsha’ was scheduled to be held.

The three-day annual congregation was abruptly cancelled when Islamists clashed with police after the Friday Jumma prayer on March 3. Hundreds of Islamists armed with sticks, metal bars and some with containers of flammable substances [police claimed it was gun-powder] in a bid to occupy the site of the congregation.

Earlier, the Ahmadiyya management had to postpone or cancel their annual congregation several times in the faceoff with angry Islamists over 32 years.

In an hour, the violence turned into the worst sectarian riot in living memory, which killed two persons, one was an Ahmadiyya. Nearly 85 persons were seriously wounded by the rioters. The protesters torched 185 homes, and 30 business establishments were looted.

Hefazat-e-Islam, an ardent advocate of strict Sharia swiftly said the “non-Muslim” [Ahmadiyya] should not have been given permission to hold the ‘Jalsha’ and instead blamed the “Qadiyani” [slang for Ahmadiyya] for the unrest.

The allocation of BDT one crore (IRS 7.6 million or USD 95,000) for rebuilding the damaged dwellings and shops by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina sends a strong message to the perpetrators and others.

The district administration and police swiftly arrested more than a hundred rioters after identifying them from CCTV footage and other video footage. Others are on the run.

The onslaught of the Islamists in the last three decades on the Ahmadiyya properties and desecration of mosques in Brahmanbaria, Dhaka, Gazipur, Jashore, Khulna, Kushtia, Natore, Rajshahi, Satkhira, Sherpur and elsewhere, according to news published in media.

Since its establishment in Bangladesh at the beginning of the last century, the members of the Ahmadiyya Community have faced persecution from conservative Muslims. The perpetrators never faced the music of justice under previous governments.

The Islamist and radicalised Sunni Muslims demanded of the government to delist Ahmadiyya from Islam. The call was purportedly raised by Jamaat-e-Islami founder Abul Ala Maududi in 1953, leading to bloody atrocities which killed more than 2,000 Ahmadis in Lahore, Pakistan.

The [Ahmadiyya] fate was further sealed by Pakistan’s military dictator General Zia-ul-Haq, when he issued the anti-Ahmadiyya law on 26 April 1984, which prohibits Ahmadis from preaching or professing their beliefs.

Not to anybody’s surprise, Pakistan’s abandoned orphans [the Mullahs] born in Bangladesh are demanding similar repressive laws to ban and punish the ‘heretic’ Ahmadiyyas.

Islamist party Jamaat-e-Islami during Khaleda Zia’s regime in the mid-90s proposed a blasphemy law to punish the Ahmadiyya and secularists. Incidentally, the proposed bill was a photocopy of the blasphemy law of Pakistan.

The radicalised Islamic groups including the Islami Andolon Bangladesh, Majlis-e-Tahaffuz-e-Khatme Nabuwwat, and of course Hefazat-e-Islam believe the Ahmadiyya are heretic and demands that the sect should be banned and declared ‘non-Muslim’ like Pakistan in September 1974.

According to a thought-provoking article in the Dhaka Tribune, the Constitution of Bangladesh, which recognises Islam as the state religion, the state shall not discriminate against any citizen on grounds only of religion, race, caste, sex or place of birth.

Moreover, Article 41 states that (a) every citizen has the right to profess, practise or propagate any religion; (b) every religious community or denomination has the right to establish, maintain and manage its religious institutions.

Hypothetically speaking, Ahmad explained that declaring Ahmadiyya a heretic will cost Bangladesh dearly. The principles of the state constitution need to be overhauled and delete the clauses where secularism has been guaranteed.

More than a year ago, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina at a press conference in defence of religious freedom and tolerance said if Muslims believe in the ‘Last Day of Judgment’ laid in the Holy Quran, then a Muslim cannot point fingers toward someone to judge who is a good Muslim or a bad Muslim.

Quran, the holy book of the Muslims says a day will come when the whole universe will be destroyed and time will end. The dead will be resurrected for judgment by the All Mighty. This day is the Day of Judgment where people will be rewarded by the Supreme Creator, according to their beliefs and deeds.

The video clip of her statement was broadcast from all TV channels in Bangladesh and is available on YouTube, where she rebukes the Islamist and radicalised Muslims, who have sworn to eliminate a certain community or religious practitioners (she did not name any religious group), should be banished from Islam.

The brutal birth of Bangladesh in 1971 which shattered the controversial ‘two-nation theory’ paved the way to establish a nation based on democracy, secularism, pluralism, equality and social justice. That legacy needs to be preserved and persevered in the future as well.

First published in the India Initiative, New Delhi, India on 29 March 2023 

Saleem Samad is an award-winning independent journalist based in Bangladesh

Ahmadiyya Muslims, Religious Freedom and Bangladesh Constitution

SALEEM SAMAD

When the Muslims in Bangladesh attack the Adivasis or ethnic communities, we remain silent. When the Muslims attack the Hindus, Christians and Buddhists, we remain silent. When they attack the Ahmadiyya Muslims, we again remain silent.

If you ask any persons from among the majoritarian Sunni Muslims, they spontaneously argue that Ahmadiyyas are not Muslims. If you ask again whether the person is a good or bad Muslim? There is silence for a few seconds and after a heave of sigh, that person would say, how do I know, only Allah determines.

The Holy Quran says a day will come when the whole universe will be destroyed and time will end. The dead will be resurrected for judgment by the All Mighty. This day is the Day of Judgment where people will be rewarded by the Supreme Creator according to their beliefs and deeds.

More than a year ago, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina at a press conference in defence of religious freedom and tolerance said if Muslims believe in the Last Day of Judgment then a Muslim shouldn’t point their finger towards someone who is a good Muslim or a bad Muslim.

The video clip of the statement was broadcast from all TV channels in Bangladesh and is available on YouTube, where she rebukes the Islamist and radicalised Muslims, who have sworn to eliminate a certain community or religious practitioners (not naming any Muslim sect), should be banished from Islam.

The radicalised Muslims and Islamists have attacked, vandalised and desecrated hundreds of places of worship, shops and homes of Hindus, Christians, Buddhists and of course the Adivasis soon after the birth of Bangladesh.

Adivasi leaders often lament the grabbing of lands and forcible occupation of their properties by influential local persons who are affiliated with the ruling parties – whichever party remains in power.

None of the perpetrators listened to the music of justice. They enjoyed impunity and they remain free from justice, which is frustrating for human rights organisations.

Ahmadiyya, a Muslim sect is members of a minority community and are spread all over Bangladesh since the beginning of the twentieth century. 

The Ahmadiyya are conservative Sunni Muslims and are tolerant of other faiths and practitioners. They regularly hold inter-faith dialogues in their mosques, which prompted the radicalised Muslims to reject that their place of worship is a mosque.

The Islamist and conservative Sunni Muslims demand that the government should banish Ahmadiyya from Islam. The call was purportedly raised by Jamaat-e-Islami founder Abul Ala Maududi in 1953, leading to the bloody atrocities which killed more than 2,000 Ahmadis in Lahore, Pakistan.

Jamaat-e-Islami during Khaleda Zia’s regime in the mid-90s proposed a blasphemy law to punish the Ahmadiyya and secularists. Incidentally, the proposed bill was a photocopy of the blasphemy law of Pakistan.

The [Ahmadiyya] fate was further sealed by Pakistan’s military dictator General Zia-ul-Haq, when he issued the anti-Ahmadiyya law on 26 April 1984, which prohibited Ahmadis from preaching or professing their beliefs.

Not to anybody's surprise, Pakistan’s abandoned orphans [the Mullahs] born in Bangladesh are demanding similar repressive laws to ban and punish the ‘heretic’ Ahmadiyyas.

The radicalised Islamic groups including the Islami Andolon Bangladesh, Majlis-e-Tahaffuz-e-Khatme Nabuwwat, and of course Hefazat-e-Islam believe the Ahmadiyya are heretic and demands that the sect should be banned and declared ‘non-Muslim’ like Pakistan in September 1974.

A few years ago, the Islamist protesters in Panchagarh invited Hefazat-e-Islam leader Allama Shah Ahmad Shafi on a chartered helicopter from his base in Hathazari, Chattagram and warned the government, the civil and police administrations not to cooperate with the Ahmadiyya Muslim in holing the ‘Salana Jalsha’ (annual congregation) at their Ahmadnagar complex.

During the last three decades, the Islamists attacked and vandalised the members of Ahmadiyya properties and mosques in Brahmanbaria, Dhaka, Gazipur, Jashore, Khulna, Kushtia, Natore, Rajshahi, Satkhira, Sherpur and elsewhere, according to news published in media.

Ahmadiyya management had to postpone and cancel their annual congregation several times due to opposition of the minority Islamists in the last 32 years, minus the mainstream majoritarian Muslims who believe in Sufism and are tolerant.

The recurrence of the cancellation of Jalsha, no doubt were instigated by the Islamist groups and not surprising the district and police administration bowed down to the vile threats of the Islamist.

The recent flare-up of the racial riot in Panchagarh after Friday's Jumma prayer (3 March) became violent after police attempted to disperse the militant protesters, which turned berserk.

Local journalists said after eight hours the paramilitary Borders Guards Bangladesh (BGB) and elite police force RAB were deployed. The delay caused to deaths of 2 persons including an Ahmadi.

More than 100 homes of the Ahmadiyya community were torched, vandalised and looted, claimed Ahmed Tabshir Chowdhury, an Ahmadiyya leader who was at the complex during the riot.

Hefazat-e-Islam promptly said the non-Muslim [meaning Ahmadiyya] should not have been given permission to hold the Jalsha and instead blamed the Qadiyani [slang for Ahmadiyya] for the unrest.

The following day agitation was further fuelled by rumours by a group of young people, local journalists claim that they are from a madrassa.

The Ahmadiyya families in Panchagarh have fled their homes for safety and are living in fear.

According to a thought-provoking article published in the Dhaka Tribune writes, the Constitution of Bangladesh, which recognises Islam as the state religion, also ensures the rights of all other religions, irrespective of race, caste, sex or place of birth.

According to Article 28 (1) of the Constitution, the State shall not discriminate against any citizen on grounds only of religion, race, caste, sex or place of birth.

Moreover, Article 41 states that (a) every citizen has the right to profess, practise or propagate any religion; (b) every religious community or denomination has the right to establish, maintain and manage its religious institutions.

As per Article 44 (1), a citizen can move to the High Court if his/her religious freedom is violated.

Despite bifurcating after a brutal war of independence in 1971 to establish a nation based on democracy, secularism, pluralism, equality and social justice, the ghost of the Islamic state of Pakistan seems to have rested on the shoulders of Bangladesh Mullahs.

Sunni Muslims commonly know that Ahmadiyya does not believe in the last Prophet of Islam. Secondly, the Quran of Ahmadiyya has been distorted. Thirdly, their prayers are not following Muslim practitioners. Finally, the interpretation of Islam follows the propaganda of the Jews and Christians.

The Ahmadiyyas are funded by Zionists and instigated against the Muslims and their Headquarters is located in Israel. The list of conspiracy theories lengthens.

The Ahmadiyya Muslim’s headquarters in London has the largest collection of translated copies of the Quran in more than 70 languages, also in Hebrew and Chinese [both Mandarin and Cantonese].

Despite the negative campaign and conspiracy theories agog in social media, the Ahmadiyyas are growing, spreading and shining all over the world. An estimated 10 million Ahmadis are living around the world, in more than 200 countries.

In Cuba, where religious practices were a social taboo, the Ahmadiyyas have their footprint and boast the establishment of their first mosque in Havana – in near future in China and North Korea.

First published in The News Times, Dhaka, Bangladesh on 5 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

Too little, too late to protect Hindus in sectarian violence

Slain Dilip Das left behind his wife Rupa Das, daughter Priya Das and son Partha Das - Photo: Saleem Samad

SALEEM SAMAD

Law enforcement’s lack of response during the Cumilla riots lead to greater escalation

Dilip Das, 62, was a commercial washerman for the Sadar Hospital and other clinics in Cumilla. For nearly 30 years, he laundered hospital bed sheets and linens.

When pedestrians rushed Dilip to the emergency department of the hospital, he was not attended to. His family shifted him to the 250-bed government hospital, where again he was left unattended. For six hours, he did not get medical care in Cumilla hospitals. His condition deteriorated as his forehead wound was bleeding.

Dilip’s wife Rupa Das did not expect to hear the tragic news in her life. The sky had fallen on her head. She was not aware that rioters had gone berserk in the city.

At Dhaka Medical College Hospital, the surgeons and physicians struggled for eight days to treat the patient who had gone into a coma from a fatal brain haemorrhage. His daughter Priya Rani Das, 25, said the brain surgeons had twice operated upon him in Dhaka.

She also said that he was struck with full force with a metal bar by Islamic vigilantes, which badly fractured his forehead skull, and he sank into a coma. She dashed from her house at Thana Road, accompanied by Ruma Das, sister of Dilip.

The armed vigilantes had taken positions in the streets and the intersection became dangerous for Hindus to venture out. She and Ruma were desperate to reach the hospital.

The vigilantes, mostly teenagers with machetes, bamboo sticks, and metal bars, threatened them to cut them into pieces. They yelled at her -- how dare they desecrate the Holy Quran?

Ruma told the youths, “You can kill us, but we need to go to the hospital for the emergency treatment of my elder brother.” Rupa had no clue about what had happened at Nanua Dighirpar Puja mandap in the morning when all hell had been let loose in Cumilla.

On that ominous day, Dilip went to Rajeshwari temple in Manoharpur to clean the premises as a volunteer. He told his wife not to cook for him as he would have prasad (religious offering of food) at the temple. At noon, he was walking towards Darogabari Mazar, a tomb of a Sufi saint, to clean the premises. He was caught in the violence near the temple. The vigilantes caught him and, with a metal bar, fractured his skull.

The residents of the city had not experienced such rage in 50 years, since the genocidal campaign by marauding the Pakistan military in March 1971.

While Dilip was fighting for his life in the hospital at Dhaka, the neighbours offered milad and dua mehfil (prayers) in at least two mosques and several Muslim homes for his early recovery. The neighbours mourned his death.

He was adored by thousands for his volunteerism at temples, mosques, and the shrines of Sufi saints. He had respect for all religions, but had given his life to the brutalities of Islamic vigilantes with political clout.

When the mobs and mobsters roamed the towns in Cumilla and Chowmuhani, Noakhali for several hours, the police were squarely blamed for the slow response.

Scores of survivors, Durga Puja committee members, and priests of temples claimed to have called the civil administration, police stations, 999 emergency police helpline, and even ruling Awami League leaders, but unfortunately, nobody responded.

Members of the Human Rights Alliance Bangladesh, Research and Empowerment Organization (REO), and Nipironer Birudhey Shahbag, a sister organization of Gonojagaron Mancho, visited the place and met Achintya Das Tito, secretary of the Cumilla Mahanagar (city) Puja Committee. He was an eyewitness to the desecration of the Nanua Dighirpar Puja. He had frantically called the police chief, the police station, civil administration, and Awami League leaders for help to stop the mayhem.

Their conspicuous silence was questioned by the media, civil society, rights groups, and Hindu leaders.

Interestingly, at one end of the large pond, a stone’s throw away was the home of Cumilla City Mayor Monirul Haque Sakku and, on the other corner, lived ruling party MP AQM Bahauddin Bahar. None came forward for decisive action.

“The desired help never came. It came only then when everything was lost to sectarian violence,” he lamented.

First published in the Dhaka Tribune, 2 November 2021

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

Backlash against Bangladeshi bloggers

GITA SAHGAL

The bloggers of Shahbagh are facing a backlash – hunted by fundamentalists, denounced in mosques as atheists, arrested by the government. Those abroad are under threat. Meanwhile activists are still demanding justice and cyber movements are using their mobilising power to deal with disasters

This has been a troubling week for those who care about Bangladesh. The April 26 collapse of Rana Plaza, the garment factory building owned by a prominent member of the ruling party, the Awami League, shows the economic costs of the country’s “economic miracle.”  Bangladeshi cyber-activists threw themselves into raising funds and helping to buy medicines for hospitals running out of supplies. If lives are being saved, one told me, it is because ordinary people are helping to mobilise relief.

The movement for accountability for war crimes, consists of several generations of activists - from those who feel strongly about the war because they witnessed its atrocities, to the children of victims demanding justice, to younger generations born since the mass movements of the 1990s first demanded war crimes trials. Each generation has experienced a backlash against it from both fundamentalists and the state.

And this is true of the most recent of these movements. The mass populist uprising occupying Shahbag in Dhaka, calling for ‘maximum punishment’ (the death penalty) for war criminals, was sparked by the triumphant V sign made by a convicted man. He saw his life sentence as a victory.  At first, the political parties courted the Shahbag movement, with the government promising to rush through legislation that reflected its main demands – allowing the prosecution to challenge the sentence to make it harsher, and amending the law to enable  the Jamaat e Islami  to be put on trial as an organisation. The Jamaat-e-Islami,the largest Islamist political party in Bangladesh, responded to the conviction and death sentence of the Deputy leader of the party, Delawar Hussein Sayeedi, with a country-wide campaign of violence, with particularly vicious attacks on religious minorities, including killing Hindus and destroying temples and homes. Christian Bangladeshis also reported attacks, but in some cases people were too afraid to make an official report.

Abroad, the conviction was referred to as ‘judicial murder’, to capitalise on the revulsion against the death penalty. But Western criticism of the Tribunal process failed to note also that peaceful opposition to religious fundamentalism was met by death threats, assault and murder. All  opposition to them was labelled ‘atheists’, and a label that seemed intended to provoke mass revulsion, promote extra-judicial killings as well as create a climate for  laws criminalising blasphemy.

Rajib, a young blogger, activist and professed atheist who was targeted online and then murdered,  has become an iconic figure in the movement. The fundamentalists have gone after a number of individual bloggers, beating people up and issuing death threats online or on mobiles. Labelling people as atheists, whether they are or not, puts them at risk of attack, and the bloggers have been targeted as atheists by both Muslim fundamentalists and the government.

In their defense, atheists, humanists and secularists  and declared April 25 an International Day to Defend Bangladesh's Bloggers. With some more protests planned on 4th May in deference to the tragedy currently gripping Bangladesh. The young bloggers need all the support they can get, for another fundamentalist group has arisen out of nowhere with a familiar list of fundamentalist demands. On April 7 this group, Hefazat e Islam, staged a mammonth “long march” of half a million people to protest against the mixed sex, peaceful, candlelit gatherings in Shahbagh. They made 13 demands,which contain many of familiar obsessions of fundamentalists. Apart from demanding a defamation law with the highest punishment (in other words making blasphemy punishable by death), Hefazat wants to declare Ahmadiyas to be non-Muslim, attacks practices such as candle lighting and putting up sculptures, opposes sexual mixing and “promotion of Islamophobia among the youth,” wants compulsory Islamic education at all levels and an end to “ungodly education, inheritance laws and unIslamic laws generally.” Christian and other NGOs are attacked for proselytizing and “an immediate and unconditional release of all detained Islamic scholars” is demanded.

Rather than defend the Shahbagh bloggers against fundamentalists, the government has found it expedient to crack down on them. When Hefazat e Islam prepared a list of 84 “atheist” bloggers, the government responded with its own list of those who had “hurt religious sentiments.” Four bloggers have been taken into custody and more arrests are threatened.  In order to humiliate and terrify dissenters, the police paraded the bloggers and had them photographed with their computers as if they found a cache of stolen goods. One blogger wrote, “it broke our hearts but it will not break our spirits.” Their accounts have been hacked, whether by non-state or state-backed people it is hard to say. Some bloggers have noticed that their arrested colleagues’ accounts remained active even after they were arrested, and have speculated that “evidence” may have been planted in them.

These demands are nothing new to Bangladesh, where Islamists have been trying to get a blasphemy law passed since the early nineties, when they went after the writer Taslima Nasrin. By labelling all bloggers as atheists, the fundamentalists hope turn the tide of public opinion against them. Throughout the war crimes trials, Jamaat’s strategy has been to say that they are being attacked as Muslims and as an opposition party, and to evade addressing the grave crimes  of which they are accused. Their lobbying campaign has been very persuasive for many MPs in Britain, who  demanded an invitation to monitor the Tribunal while also instructing the government of Bangladesh that they should not have ‘a retributive process’ but adopt a reconciliation model.

That is why it was heartening to see support for the principle of accountability from MPs from a range of parties. Two British MEPs, Charles Taylor, Conservative, and Jean Lambert of the Green Party, addressed a rally on war crimes in London on 28th April, which passed off peacefully. Emily Thornberry, the Shadow Attorney General, who has recently travelled in Bangladesh, acknowledged the strong democratic mandate for the trials and the immense strength of feeling on the issue. She said that if people were assured that life actually meant life, rather than a sentence that could be reversed by a change in government, the issue of the death penalty may not have arisen at all.

Writing in 2002 about the campaign by Jamaat e Islami and other fundamentalist organisations to make blasphemy a criminal offence, Bangladeshi Supreme Court lawyer Sara Hossain described a three-pronged strategy, “invoking criminal laws to curtail speech by targeted individuals and groups, fomenting a climate of intolerance against them, and mobilising public sentiment for the enactment of draconian new laws – as key tools in their project of silencing expressions of difference, and asserting their vision of a monolithic Islam.” All these elements are present in today’s battles.

The conflict between Bangladeshi secularists and fundamentalists has spread to London’s East End where, on Feb. 8th, at Altab Ali Park, young demonstrators supporting Shahbagh clashed with men from the Jamaat-dominated East London mosque.  For older anti-racists, the scenes were remniscent of decades old battles where the police simply protected the aggressors ‘freedom of speech’ and right to threaten and intimidate. Fundamentalist demonstrations from the Jamaat associated East London Mosque have been taking place regularly after Friday prayers, according to activists. Secular Bangladeshis of all religious backgrounds and none were finally able to rally and march outwards from Altab Ali park through Brick Lane and the surrounding streets. It was a suitable demonstration that the secular activists who have been receiving regular death threats have not been cowed into retreat.

Thousands of leaflets have been distributed from the East London Mosque and across the world labelling prominent bloggers as atheists. Sermons have been read attacking atheists, Hindus and suggestive statements made regarding sexual assault. In Bangladesh, fundamentalists  paraded a banner which said, ‘we demand the death penalty for atheist bloggers because they use obscene language to criticise Allah, Mohammed and the Quran.’  Statements such as these, along with murderous attacks on atheist and free thinking bloggers, need to be considered alongside the leaflets identifying named individuals as atheists and accusing them of insulting religion, to see whether they amount to incitement to  murder. Fundamentalists consider it an obligation for believers to kill apostates; a recent Moroccan fatwa  makes this very clear, as does the experience of an atheist from Bangladesh, applying for asylum in Canada.

It is clear that free-thinking activists will be actively targeted first by fundamentalists, and then by the state, so can expect no protection anywhere.

As Asif Mohiuddin, one of the Bangladeshi bloggers said just before his arrest, “To drag religion into politics and playing with it like a football is the real offence towards religion.”  Authorities in both London and Dhaka are playing with fire if they think protecting hate campaigns is the same as defending freedom of religion.

First appeared in the openDemocracy.net,  29 April 2013

Gita Sahgal, is a film maker and writer, formerly worked with the Amnesty International. She is founder of the Centre for Secular Space, which opposes fundamentalism, amplifies secular voices and promotes universality in human rights.

Bangladesh: Talibanised Surge

S. BINODKUMAR SINGH

On April 6, 2013, in the biggest-ever show of force by Islamists in the country in recent times, hundreds of thousands of members of the Chittagong-based radical Islamist group Hefazat-e-Islam (HeI), organized a 'Long March' from Chittagong to Dhaka, and held a massive rally in the Bangladesh capital. Over two million people are estimated to have participated in the rally. The HeI demanded enactment of blasphemy laws by authorities to punish people who 'insult Islam'. In a written statement, HeI Ameer (Chief) Shah Ahmad Shafi declared, "Our current movement is not political. Government has to agree to our 13-point demand in order to continue in office." HeI gave the Government an April 30, 2013, deadline to meet its demands or face a 'Dhaka Siege' programme from May 5, 2013.

Earlier, on March 9, 2013, Shafi had put forward a 13-point demand at the Olama-Mashayekh (Islamic Scholars) Convention organized at the Darul Uloom Hathazari Madrassah (Islamic Seminary) Convention Hall in Chittagong District. On the same day, HeI's "central joint secretary general" Maulana Moinuddin Ruhi, gave the call for the April 6 rally.

The Sheikh Hasina-led Awami League (AL) Government initially attempted to clamp down on the Long March, with Security Force (SFs) arresting 30 HeI cadres from a bus in Palashbari area of Gaibandha District on April 5, 2013, while they were going towards Dhaka to join the rally. This, however, led to a rise in tensions, culminating in large scale violence. Notably, Junaed Babunagri, HeI 'secretary general', addressing a Press Conference in Dhaka on April 5, 2013, warned, "(the) Long March towards Dhaka will be spread across the country if the Government resists the HeI cadres on their way to Dhaka." According to partial data compiled by the Institute for Conflict Management, since that incident, at least five AL activists have been killed and 286 others have been injured across the country (all data till April 21, 2013) in incidents involving HeI.  Some of the violent incidents include:

April 5: HeI cadres killed AL activist Shahidul Islam (36) at Dhaka's Kamrangirchar.

April 6: An AL activist identified as Nowsher Ali (25) was killed by HeI cadres at Bhanga Chourasta in Bhanga sub-District of Faridpur District.

April 11: Three AL activists were killed as HeI and Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI) cadres clashed with AL men in Fatikchhari sub-District of Chittagong District.

The HeI-provoked violence and success of the rally forced the Government to announce that it would "consider the demands" of the fundamentalist formation, and emboldened Shafi, who, on April 11, 2013, declared that the Islamists had united under the HeI banner after a long time, and threatened the AL regime, "If you want to stay in power, you will have to meet our demands. Or else, there will be dire consequences."

Formed some time in 2010 under Shafi's leadership, the HeI only came to prominence after it raised its 13-point demands and subsequently provoked violence. Reports suggest that some HeI leaders have close links with the Pakistani Army as well as various Islamist terrorist and fundamentalist organizations. HeI's chief, Shafi, moreover, had allegedly collaborated with the Pakistan Army during the 1971 Liberation War. Maulana Habib ur Rahman, the principal organiser of the April 6, 2013, Long March, was a leader of the terrorist Harkat-ul-Jihad-al Islami Bangladesh (HuJI-B) and has links with international Islamist terrorist formations, a fact he personally confirmed in an interview in a special bulletin of Islami Biplob (Islamic Revolution), published in Sylhet on August 20, 1998.

More worryingly, HeI maintains close ties with the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) as well as JeI, which, along with its student wing Islami Chhatra Shibir (ICS), has brought the nation to a standstill since the beginning of 2013, and many of whose top leaders are at the centre of the War Crimes Trials.South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP) data shows that Bangladesh has recorded 145 fatalities related to Islamist extremism since January 21, 2013, when the first verdict in the War Crimes Trials was delivered against JeI leader Maulana Abul Kalam Azadalias Bachchu Razakar. Razakar was sentenced to death.

Indeed, State Minister for Law Quamrul Islam on April 5, 2013, observed, "There are JeI-BNP men in HeI. They may unleash terrorism and create anarchy under the guise of HeI." He warned, however, "No matter who you are, action will be taken if you are used by JeI-BNP men in creating anarchy." Further, on April 11, Syed Ashraful Islam, AL General Secretary and Local Government and Rural Development Minister, while addressing a Roundtable Conference, stated, "The April 6 grand rally was not HeI's; BNP-JeI had organized the programme under the banner of HeI, and had hoped that the rally would have continued for four days, and that the Government would have been forced to step down within this period."

On the positive side, however, progressive and pro-Liberation groups have come forward to protest against HeI's 'demands'. The Bangladesh Islamic Front (BIF), a leading Islamic political party which supported the Liberation War in 1971, condemned HeI and its (BIF) secretary-general M. A. Momen, noted, on April 5, 2013, "HeI has no Islamic ideology, rather they are confusing the innocent Muslims." Likewise, Bangladesh Khedmot-e-Islam, another pro-Liberation religious group, termed the followers of HeI 'atheists' and declared that the 'non-Muslims' had called for the Long March.

Later, on April 8, 2013, some 400 Dhaka University teachers demanded punishment of HeI for its stand against the spirit of the Liberation War and core ideals of the country. Urging the Government not to give in to the radical Islamist group, their statement read: "All 13-points of this organization's demand clash with the core principles and spirit of Bangladesh. This is a blatant attempt to hinder the progress of Bangladesh." Similarly, leaders of Peshajibi Shomonnoy Parishad, a body of professionals, addressing a Press meet at Dhaka Reporters Unity on April 11, 2013, declared that HeI's 13-point demand was against the progress of women and the nation. They observed, moreover, that HeI cadres barred women from entering its rally in Dhaka city and harassed several female journalists performing their professional duties, on April 6.

Bangladesh is locked in a struggle between those who supported the Liberation war, and those who collaborated with Pakistan in the atrocities of 1971. The latter have sought to protect themselves under the banner of radical Islam, and to manipulate public sentiments, both to escape culpability for their criminal past, and to dominate the fractious politics of the country. This struggle has now come to a decisive point, with many of the worst offenders now arraigned before the War Crimes Tribunals, and three of them already convicted. If this process continues unhindered, the very existence of Pakistan-backed radical Islamist formations in Bangladesh will come under threat. Unsurprisingly, these groupings are fighting back with everything they can harness. For the first time in recent history, however, a popular resistance to these extremist creeds and the violence and disruptions they are engineering, has taken shape in the Shahbagh demonstration, which has continued, uninterrupted, since February 5, 2013, in support of the War Crimes Trials and the Government's initiatives to bring their perpetrators to justice. The Islamist extremist parties appear willing to lead Bangladesh into anarchy to push their agenda. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has shown determination, on April 8, 2013, by firmly rejecting the HeI's demand for a new anti-blasphemy law. It remains to be seen whether her determination will suffice to neutralize the extremist surge and the Opposition's mischief, as elections approach.

First published in South AsiaIntelligence Review, Weekly Assessments & Briefings, Volume 11, No. 42, April 22, 2013

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

Bangladesh blogs blackout in protest of crackdown on blogger

Free internet...u fools!

SALEEM SAMAD

More than ten blogs blacked out their sites in protest amidst series of government harassment and arrests on pro-secular, anti-Islamist bloggers over allegations of being “atheist” and accusing them for blasphemy.

The blogs homepage posted messages decrying government’s crackdown on the blogging community.

“Muzzle Me Not,” homepage of nagorikblog.com, states, “Resist and protest government’s appeasement of fundamentalists — arrest and torture of bloggers — harassment of blog platforms.”

Other blogs, including Shachalayatan, Amarblog, Amar Bondhu, Muktangong, Mukto-mona, Choturmatrik and Unmochon, echoed the same.

So far, law enforcers have arrested four bloggers in the last three days, sparking widespread criticism and outrage from different quarters, especially from the blogging community.

Abu Mustafiz (m), moderator of Unmochon blog said, “we have closed our sites in protest at the arrest and harassment of bloggers and closing of blogs as part of a hateful political ploy.”

However, Syeda Gulshan Ferdous Jana, founder of SomeWhereInTheBlog, Khaledur Rahman Shakil’s blog http://site.voiceofbangladesh.us/ and few others have disagreed to blackout their homepage. They argue that at this crucial period of harassment, it is imperative to have their blogs in cyberspace to inform the public. To inform is also a social responsibility, Jana said.

Source: The Daily Star, April 5, 2013

Saleem Samad is an Ashoka Fellow (USA) and correspondent for Reporters Without Borders (RSF), a Paris based media freedom watchdog

Bangla 2.0: Net wave paradox

INDRAJIT HAZRA

The last Facebook update that Ahmed Rajib Haider posted was on February 15. Not too long after he had uploaded this post, his hacked body was discovered around 9.30pm in front of the house where he lived with his brother in the Mirpur area of Dhaka. 

The 30-year-old architect had an online persona of Thaba Baba (loosely translated as ‘Paw Daddy’, which he wrote as ‘Claw’ in English as an explanation).

His blogs on the popular Amarblog site regularly and primarily dealt with the menace of rising Islamic fundamentalism in Bangladesh.

Haider, one of the main organisers of the anti-Jamaat demonstrations at Dhaka’s Shahbagh square, was uninhibited about his distaste towards the Jamaat-e-Islami.

He had also proudly declared himself to be an atheist, something that the Jamaat has subsequently used to brand every ‘blogger’ demanding its ban as being ‘un-Islamic’ and therefore morally degenerate.

While his murderer(s) are yet to be found, most Bangladeshis believe Haider’s untimely death to be the handiwork of the Jamaat-Shibir, the lumpen youth wing of the Jamaat.

In a way, it’s rather apt that in his final Facebook post, Haider had posted the link of a news story from the Bengali daily Kaaler Kantha that detailed the massive network of assets and business interests under the Jamaat’s control.

In his comments above the link, he had strongly recommended the boycott of Jamaat-linked establishments — from banks and educational establishments to hospitals and media companies — adding that there should be a proper set of guidelines to identify Jamaat fronts since a simple transfer of shares could suggest new ownership of a company.  

This had not been the first attack on an online activist in Bangladesh. Only a month before, Asif Mohiuddin, another openly atheist blogger, was stabbed by suspected Islamists. Fortunately, he survived.

In the case of Haider, authorities and fellow bloggers point to the death threats he had received from a pro-Jamaat blog, Sonar Bangla.

If Pakistan was horrified by the brutal attack on 14-year-old blogger Malala Yousafzai by the Taliban in October last year, Haider’s murder has enraged secular Bangladesh and split the nation into two.

Facebook friends 

Inside the compound of Dhaka Art College, Asif Saleh, blogger-tweeter and senior director at the development organisation BRAC (formerly, Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee), sips on his tea and explains how the popular movement against Islamist politics has been intimately connected to the successful ‘Digitial Bangladesh’ drive that has been aggressively pushing for the use of digital technology to spread education, poverty alleviation, health as well as democracy and human rights.

“The youth in Bangladesh was not politically sensitised. They were apathetic towards what was going on in the country,” says Saleh.

“With the arrival of social media platforms, ‘being political’ became cool. Young Bangladeshis have now suddenly found out that their actions do matter, their actions can lead to change,” says Saleh.

On the first day of the Shahbagh demonstrations on February 5, there were about 500 people who had gathered to protest against the life sentence, as opposed to a sentence of death, handed by the international war tribunal to Jamaat leader and accused 1971 war criminal Abdul Qader Mollah.

This core group had connected and vented online, and had decided their plan of action on Facebook.

The protests of this initial small gathering was picked up by the media, which in turn fed the news on the internet for others to join in. The media – social as well as mainstream –became force-multipliers for the movement.

 “It’s been a year since the advent of 24-hour news channels. The 24-hour format has to fill news round the clock. It was fortuitous that the Shahbagh protests filled much of news TV.

Suddenly you also saw the white-haired pundits, the usual suspects on political discussions, being joined by youngsters airing their views,” says Saleh, a computer technology graduate who came back from the United States leaving a Goldman Sachs job five years ago.

But at the core of the Shahbagh revolution lies Bangladesh’s internet revolution. Over the last three years, the cost of online communication has nosedived.

In 2009, a megabyte of information would set the consumer back by 27,000 takas. Today, a megabyte costs 5,000 takas.

Thanks to affordability, by November 2011, there were 9 million users with an internet connection in a country of 142 million people. The figures go up if one considers the many more mobile phone users.

Tech has no ideology

But here’s the flip side. The resources-rich Jamaat is disproportionately stronger online than offline.

Technology being ideologically neutral, the same social media platforms and penetrative telephony are tools for the enemies of the Shahbagh activists.

It is in the terrain where the online seeps into the offline and then feeds the online again that a new kind of war of propaganda is being fought.

Knowing that the Jamaat has already started to successfully conflate the idea of ‘blogger’ with ‘atheist’, the Awami League government has ‘cracked down’ on internet sites, removing blog posts that are deemed to be “spreading hatred, provoking social disorder and hurting religious sentiments of the people”.

Last week, information minister Hasanal Haque Inu urged the media “not to publish any indecent remark against Islam, the Koran and the Prophet Muhammad”.

The government had swiftly blocked YouTube after an allegedly blasphemous film on the prophet was “shown there”. 

These are measures that were taken by the government to ‘protect’ secular bloggers from the violent reactive politics of the Islamists — and not give a handle to the opposition BNP-Jamaat to accuse the government of being anti-Islamic.

But here’s the paradox: it was through social media that those demanding Bangladesh remain secular found their voices heard, voices that would ultimately reverberate through Shahbagh and Bangladesh.

To get that volume knob turned down as a precaution would be exactly what the Islamists want. To make the people disinterested again.

Hindustan Times, Dhaka, February 23, 2013

http://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/Bangladesh/Bangla-2-0-Net-wave-paradox/Article1-1016469.aspx