Age-old violence and recriminations still provide the fuel for Bangladesh spring

Protesters gather during a demonstration against the Jamaat-e-Islami party in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Photograph: Pavel Rahman/AP

Gulf widens between those who think Shahbag Square rallies are righting historical wrong and those who see them as anti-Islam

SYED ZAIN AL-MAHMOOD

NAJMUL HOSSAIN had never been to a protest before. But for the past fortnight, the 45-year-old Bangladeshi banker has regularly made the short journey to Shahbag Square, a broad, tree-lined thoroughfare in the heart of Dhaka, the capital, to call for the hangings of Islamist politicians accused of war crimes during the country's 1971 war of independence.

On Saturday, Hossain took his six-year-old son with him to the protest, holding a banner with the message, "Razakars [Islamist collaborators] must be hanged". The child carried a toy gun. "My uncle was killed in 1971 by the Pakistan army," Hossain said. "I cannot forgive those who killed and stood with the killers."

On the other side of town, Shamsuz Zaman, a 58-year-old timber trader, is equally fired up but for different reasons when discussing Shahbag. "War crimes are just an excuse," he said. "Bangladesh has so many problems. The people who are leading these mobs are atheists who insult Islam, God and the prophet." The gulf between those who think the Shahbag protests – the largest in two decades, that some are calling the Bangladesh spring – is a movement for righting a historical wrong and those who consider it to be a veiled, government-sponsored attempt to curb the influence of Islam has never been wider.

At least five people have been killed since Friday in countrywide violence, including two opposition activists who were shot dead by police on Saturday morning, local police officials confirmed. The violence began when conservative Islamists clashed with police after Friday prayers, protesting against what they said were blasphemous online posts by bloggers at the forefront of the Shahbag protests.

An alliance of Islamist parties called for a general strike on Sunday to protest at what they see as the use of excessive force against opposition activists. The police said they were trying to maintain law and order.

Much of the mistrust is rooted in Bangladesh's tumultuous past. Bangladesh declared independence from Pakistan in 1971. The Pakistani army fought and lost a brutal nine-month war with Bengali fighters and Indian forces that had intervened. Hundreds of thousands of civilians died, many of them at the hands of Islamist militia groups who wanted the country to remain part of Pakistan.

In 2010, Sheikh Hasina, the prime minister, and daughter of wartime political leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, set up a war crimes tribunal to investigate atrocities committed during the 1971 conflict – a move she said would bring closure for victims and families and heal the rifts of war.

The leader of the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), Khaleda Zia, the widow of the independence war's best-known military commander, has accused Hasina of politicising the tribunal and conveniently using it to hound her political enemies. All of the 10 people indicted for war crimes by the tribunal are opposition politicians, eight of them from the Jamaat-e-Islami, the country's largest Islamist party and an ally of Zia's BNP.

Despite criticism from human rights groups about politicisation and procedural flaws, the war crimes tribunal has remained broadly popular. Last month the tribunal sentenced a former member of the Jamaat-e-Islami to death for his role in the 1971 war. On 5 February, a verdict of life imprisonment was delivered against Abdul Quader Molla, a senior leader of the Jamaat-e-Islami, sparking the Shahbag protests. Since then, hundreds of thousands of people have converged on Shahbag, the hub of protests, adamant that all of the men on trial for war crimes must receive the death penalty.

This week President Zillur Rahman signed into law an amendment to the statute that governs two functioning war crimes tribunals, giving prosecutors the power to seek stiffer sentences on appeal, a key demand of the protesters. The new law also gives the government the power to charge entire organisations with war crimes, another Shahbag demand.

The protesters, however, have ratcheted up the pressure, saying they will remain camped out in Shahbag until all of the accused currently before the war crimes tribunal are given the death sentence. They have pushed a broader set of demands, including banning the Jamaat-e-Islami and confiscating businesses linked to Islamist groups.

"We are protesting 40 years of injustice," said Lucky Akter, 23, a student and member of a leftwing political party who has become one of the faces of the protest with her fiery slogans. "We want those who collaborated with the Pakistan army hanged and their finances cut off."

Analysts say the broader demands from the Shahbag gathering show how the rifts of the past continue to play a major role in Bangladesh's present. "There is an ideological basis to protests," said Muhammad Musa, a political commentator and former newspaper editor. "There is the widespread perception that the Jamaat-e-Islami supported Pakistan during the war and should answer for this."

On Saturday a crowd in the thousands gathered in Shahbag, joining a hardcore group of activists, waving flags and chanting slogans such as, "Hang, hang, hang them all!" and, "The weapons of '71 must fire again!"

The Jamaat-e-Islami, whose activists have waged violent street agitations against the tribunal, says it is being scapegoated. Shafiqul Islam Masud, a party leader, said many people were blurring the difference between a political position and war crimes. "There are only about 50 people active in the party now who took any kind of a political position 42 years ago," he said. "It's possible some of them did not want to secede from Pakistan, but that's a far cry from war crimes. The party accepted the sovereignty of Bangladesh and is a registered political party, represented in parliament."

Sam Zarifi, the Asia director for the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ), a Geneva-based legal advocacy, said a fair trial process was necessary to heal the wounds of the war. "It is very important that victims of 1971 get justice," he said. "But justice must be ensured through a fair and transparent trial process. Unfortunately, if judges are intimidated by mass protests into handing out death sentences, that's not justice and may unleash yet another cycle of violence."

Such words of caution are dismissed by Shahbag protesters as intellectual posturing. The crimes of 1971, which have been thrust into the spotlight by the tribunals, have dominated Bangladeshi newspapers, airwaves and websites, uniting the youth of Dhaka in an unprecedented manner.

"The people have spoken," said Akter. "Now it is up to the courts and the politicians to implement."

Analysts say the protests have worked to the government's advantage and distracted attention from economic and governance issues the opposition had been agitating about. Last year, Hasina scrapped a constitutional provision under which a non-partisan caretaker government oversees elections, leading to the opposition threatening a boycott of parliamentary elections due in early 2014.

"Had it not been for the protests, now we would all be focusing on next year's elections and looking at the government's record in office and the opposition's pledges," said Zafar Sobhan, editor of the Dhaka Tribune, an English daily. "Now, all bets are off and elections seem a distant concern. It is hard to see how things will revert to politics as usual after this."

Asif Mohiuddin, a co-ordinator of the bloggers' network that called for the Shahbag protests, is keen to point out the group's struggle did not start with Shahbag. "We have been waging war on religious fundamentalists on the blogs for years," he said. "Shahbag has been successful because people are so outraged by the war crimes."

Yet some analysts say the narrative of a secular revolution leading the country towards a democratic future may be simplistic. The protests have polarised the country and led to tensions between those who identify themselves as progressive.

"Many are worried about the Shahbag protest's aggressive tone and narrow focus on the death penalty," said one of the editors ofalalodulal.org, an English language blog. "I wish the unique energy of Shahbag could be channelled into the energy and desire to do thorough research, digging out solid evidence that can result in fair trials that do not require government contortions."

First appeared in The Guardian, London, Saturday 23 February 2013

Syed Zain Al-Mahmood is an investigative reporter and editor based in Dhaka, Bangladesh

In Bangladesh, a generation turns its politics to the angry past

OWEN LIPPERT

IN DHAKA the other day, I saw children dancing in the streets, swinging nooses like festive streamers.

Bangladesh, a country of 160 million, is currently experiencing a “Bengal Spring.” Hundreds of thousands of young people have responded to text messages and online bloggers and gathered nightly in Shahbag square in downtown Dhaka and elsewhere around the country. Their demand is that Abdul Kader Mullah, a leader of the Islamic political party Jamaat-I-Islami, be hanged.

Four decades after the “war of liberation” from Pakistan in 1971, ending in the birth of Bangladesh, the government has set up a special war-crimes tribunal to prosecute sympathizers with Pakistan who committed “crimes against humanity.” The tribunal has found Mr. Mullah guilty, as a young student political leader, of committing serious crimes that warranted life imprisonment. Rather than accept Mr. Mullah’s sentence as justice too-long delayed, the crowds demand his execution.

After four days of Shahbag demonstrations, Prime Minister Sheik Hasina pledged to pursue a death sentence, only to discover that the legislation establishing the tribunal allows the government to appeal a verdict, but not a sentence. The problem has been solved: the government will amend the legislation to enable an appeal of the verdict to the Supreme Court. Few doubt that Mr. Mullah will hang.

The Bengal Spring raises key ethical issues in the prosecution of war crimes, in defining the rule of law and the nature of democracy itself.

Since independence, a combination of political crises and religious conservatism blocked the prosecution of Mr. Mullah and other Jamaat leaders. In 1975, the first prime minister, the secular and socialist Sheikh Mujib, was assassinated. That government was followed by the military dictatorship of General Zia Rahman, who in turn was assassinated. Finally, in 1990, the army retired to the cantonment. A hotly contested election in 1991 pitted the conservative Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) headed by Gen. Zia’s widow (in an alliance with Jamaat), against the Awami League, headed by Sheikh Mujib’s daughter, Sheikh Hasina.

For two decades these two women have dominated Bangladeshi politics, effectively sustaining the bitter hostilities of 1971. Each has enjoyed two terms in office, each one dogged by corruption, which prompted the most recent military intervention in 2007. Finally, in 2008 Sheikh Hasina won a resounding majority and proceeded with war-crime trials.

That her government in 2009 created a domestically controlled war-crimes tribunal rather than engage the International Criminal Court reflects the country’s suspicion of the West. Conveniently for the government, virtually all those prosecuted have affiliations with either Jamaat or the BNP – the two opposition parties.

Inexperienced judges and lawyers have led international observers (most notably The Economist) to question the integrity of the process. Still, despite procedural flaws, the trials have not been outright “drumhead justice.” The second verdict, Mr. Mullah’s, displayed a certain judicial desire for reconciliation. He received life imprisonment. Then he flashed a “V” sign as he left the courtroom – a bad move. Protests by elderly intellectuals began, but it took the bloggers to put thousands into the street.

One might expect to hear a lawyer or a human-rights activist object to retroactively changing the law in order to please the street. So far there has been silence, though in fairness events have moved quickly and unexpectedly.

What of the tribunal judges themselves? They clearly have limited independence. This appears to be a war-crimes tribunal that can issue only one verdict, guilty, and one sentence, death.

Bangladeshi political culture places great faith in mass protests, the tactic that Gandhi invented to end the British raj, and that Sheikh Mujib copied leading up to 1971. For forty years, all parties have relied on violent street demonstrations. The parliament plays a marginal role. On the one hand, the youthful composition of the crowds in Shahbag and their determination not to be suborned by any political party symbolize a refreshing rejection of politics as usual. On the other hand, their demand – death for those who fought with the Pakistani army – is a continuation of the politics of violent confrontation.

The media have proclaimed the rebirth of the “Spirit of 1971.” The movement must be welcomed if it leads to a more liberal and less violent polity. But will it? Will it go beyond settling old scores?

And herein lies the dilemma. The new leadership of bloggers and youth in Shahbag have not been calling with anywhere near as much fervor for safer conditions for garment workers, better schools, better health care, less corruption; rather, they have committed themselves to inflict deadly vengeance upon the old men of Jamaat.

A youth movement seeking death sentences regardless of the law carries within itself the germ of their parents’ politics. It is Lord of the Flies writ large. The goal should be to move beyond a four-decade-old civil war towards genuine democratic reform within the rule of law. Put away the noose.

First published in The Globe and Mail, February 19, 2013

Owen Lippert lives in Dhaka where he has served as head of two US AID democracy projects. He was senior policy adviser to the CIDA minister in 2007-08

Rallying in Shahbagh Square, Young Bangladesh Finds Its Voice

Jason Motlagh

A YOUNG girl’s call pierces through the din of the packed square. Like the macabre billboards that loom above featuring bearded old men in nooses, and the blood red headbands worn by scores of participants, her demands are direct and full-throated: “Hang the war criminals and long live Bangladesh!” The fact that she and most of her fellow protesters were not yet born when the crimes at issue were committed, more than four decades ago during the country’s bitter war for independence, is beside the point. “This is a shame on our nation,” says Nidhi Hossain, the 13-year-old girl holding the megaphone. “We must get rid of these criminals once and for all so we can move forward.”

Protests — even very, very large ones — are nothing new in the world’s most densely populated city. Tens of thousands are known to take to the streets to chant down rivals or the latest spike in petrol prices. The difference with the now two-week-old Shahbagh movement, say those old enough to know, is that it has managed to transcend Bangladesh’s stale party politics, religion and the age divide unlike any mass agitation in recent memory. While the ruling Awami League party has tried to co-opt some of the momentum and the opposition is crying foul, all have taken a backseat to a frustrated young generation that is finding its voice.

“The No. 1 thing about Shahbagh is that it’s political, yet nonpartisan,” says Toufique Imrose Khalidi, editor in chief of bdnews24.com, a leading online news outlet. In country where a maidservant is sure to get death for killing one person, he explains, young people are simply trying to figure out why convicted war criminals are not punished accordingly. “This is really about the rule of law and democracy, about justice in general. Nothing is fair in this country, and never has been.”

The protests began Feb. 5 after Abdul Kader Mullah, the leader of the country’s largest Islamic party, Jamaat-e-Islami (JI), was sentenced to life in prison for murder and abetting Pakistani forces during the 1971 liberation war. JI members were among those who collaborated with Pakistan in a brutal campaign to quell a nationalist uprising that included widespread rape, systemic killings and a targeted push against Bangladeshi intellectuals. All these years later, JI remains a fixture in national politics with vast, lucrative business interests. As such, analysts say, many Bangladeshis took the belated verdict against Mullah to be emblematic of a broken legal system — and a possible way out for the convicted, should the party’s political allies gain the upper hand in the future.

In response, online activists organized a gathering at the capital’s Shahbagh Square. What they initially hoped would draw between 400 and 500 people has since swelled to over 100,000, with some estimates placing the number far higher. The protests continue to swell, in the capital and other major cities, despite the threat of violence and intimidation. And, grim effigies notwithstanding, they have taken on a carnival-like atmosphere: floats and drum circles, ice cream vendors and free food are on hand for the mix of students, teachers, café owners and rickshaw pullers who say they have come together to right a historic wrong.

“We fought and died for liberation, but the people have not seen the benefits,” says Shiraz ul-Islam, 76, a war veteran who bore shrapnel scars on his shins and wrist and a bullet graze across his forehead. He first heard about the protests while in the hospital recovering from surgery and says he was restless to “help support the youth who want to finish the revolution that we started.” On his seventh day out, ul-Islam was accompanied by three of his daughters and his 12-year-old granddaughter as fresh crowds poured into the square waving banners and flags calling for Mullah’s execution.

The movement appears to have doubled down since the killing of one of its own. Late last Friday, Ahmed Rajib Haider, an outspoken blogger and co-organizer, was stabbed to death by unknown assailants. Activists blame members of JI’s youth wing, which has been involved in sporadic street attacks since the protests began. (JI officials reject the charge.) In the aftermath, Prime Minister Sheik Hasina vowed she would not rest until the party is banned and moved quickly to do so. Over the weekend, the government passed an amendment allowing a tribunal to punish any organization whose members committed crimes during the country’s fight for independence. Another gave prosecutors the right to appeal any of the panels’ verdicts, effectively laying the groundwork for a ban.

In a statement published on the JI’s website, acting general secretary Rafiqul Islam Khan asserted that the moves were part of a “plot to push the country into severe anarchy” by an Awami League–led government bent on “political revenge.” It could take weeks until Mullah goes back to court, but his lawyer Abdur Razzaq contends that under this kind of pressurized climate, any chance of a fair hearing is precluded. What’s more, he warns, the lack of “political space” for JI and its faithful is likely to cause more trouble in the weeks ahead.

Having already defied JI calls for a nationwide strike and the death of a comrade, the Shahbagh protesters insist they are undeterred. “Since killing, we have taken an oath not to leave until we have true justice,” says Mamudul Haque Munshi, 28, a protest organizer with the Blogger and Online Activist Network. “We can change the political equation here.” For his part, Khalidi, the editor, hedges that it’s too early to make facile comparisons with of a paradigm shift in the national politics, given the deep-seated corruption and powerful players. But, like many of his generation, he does not want to underestimate the youths now filling the streets either. “They are capable,” says the former activist. “Let’s wait and see.”

First appeared in TIME magazine, February 19, 2013

No one sings 'Bangladesh' anymore

"Back in the 1970s when ratings was not all that mattered to the super stars of the time, George Harrison and Ravi Shankar played for our conscience at the memorable ‘Concert for Bangladesh’ in Madison Square Garden. And then there was Joan Baez who let out a wail in the midst of a genocide. Her song rallied millions: 

Bangladesh, Bangladesh

Bangladesh, Bangladesh

When the sun sinks in the west

Die a million people of the Bangladesh

Today too, the sun sinks in the west,, but no one is singing for Bangladesh anymore."

People attend a mass candlelight vigil as they demand the execution of all war criminals, including Jamaat leader Abdul Quader Mollah, at Shahbagh intersection in Dhaka, Bangladesh, February 14, 2013. REUTERS/Andrew Biraj

TAREK FATAH

In a tiny country on the other side of the globe, far away from the glare of celebrity TV anchors and big-shot correspondents in jungle khaki, a revolution is unfolding, but not if you watch CNN, BBC or CBC.

For two weeks now, hundreds of thousands people from young men and women, aging former guerrilla fighters and grandmothers who still carry the scars of violence, have occupied the Shahbag Square in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

The collective anger of a nation, simmering for over 40 years below the surface, finally erupted this month.

The roots of this resentment lay in the genocide of the Bengali people that started in March 1971 by the Pakistan Army and its accuses jihadi collaborators, the mullahs of the Jamaat-e-Islami. The military-sanctioned massacres did not stop until nine months later in December that year when the Indian Army intervened and the Pakistan military promptly surrendered.

From the ashes of a war and three million dead people choking its rivers, the new country of Bangladesh emerged, but without its founding father, Sheikh Mujib.

He was being held as prisoner and hostage by the Pakistan military. To secure his release, international agreements were brokered, which in exchange allowed for most of the collaborating jihadis to not face war crime trials.

It was not until 2008 when Sheikh Mujib’s daughter, the current Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina campaigned on the promise to set up tribunals to try the 1971 collaborators for war crimes. On that promise, she was swept to power with an overwhelming majority in parliament and in 2010 the war crimes trials finally got off to a start.

Among the first to be convicted was a senior leader of the Jamaat-e-Islami, Abdul Quader Mollah. But instead of the death sentence, Mollah was given life imprisonment with possibility of future pardon. Hearing that his life had been saved, Mollah turned to the news cameras and with a huge grin on face, waved a victory sign to the crowd.

While the bearded Mollah was ecstatic, liberal and secular Bangladeshis were enraged. How could a man pronounced guilty of war crimes, accused of raping and shooting 344 civilians to death during the 1971 war, not receive the maximum punishment, the death sentence?

Within hours of the judgement, which was handed down of February 5, ordinary students and bloggers used Facebook and Twitter to rally their contacts. Soon an impromptu gathering of hundreds, then thousands and soon hundreds of thousands collected at Dhaka’s Shahbag square.

For 15 days, they have been there and despite the gruesome murder of one of the leaders, they have kept their movement peaceful. The protesters want the government to appeal the decision of the tribunal and ask the courts to deliver a death sentence. In addition, they want a ban on the Jamaat-e-Islami as a collaborator that took active part of the genocide.

For the first time ever in the Muslim world, there has been a popular uprising against the fascism of Islamist parties. One would have expected the western intelligentsia to be thrilled at this development and for the media to report from the square, but the Walter Cronkites of the world are no more.

Back in the 1970s when ratings was not all that mattered to the super stars of the time, George Harrison and Ravi Shankar played for our conscience at the memorable ‘Concert for Bangladesh’ in Madison Square Garden. And then there was Joan Baez who let out a wail in the midst of a genocide. Her song rallied millions:

Bangladesh, Bangladesh

Bangladesh, Bangladesh

When the sun sinks in the west

Die a million people of the Bangladesh

Today too, the sun sinks in the west,, but no one is singing for Bangladesh anymore.

First published in Toronto SUN, Canada, February 20, 2013

Dhaka sit-in evokes Tahrir Square spirit

Protesters in Bangladesh capital demand death penalty for those involved in atrocities during liberation war in 1971.

SUMI KHAN

Dhaka, Bangladesh - Slogans, songs, poetry, and street theatre - the heady mix of culture and protest has given burgeoning demonstrations in downtown Dhaka a unique Bengali ambience.

People in this country of 150 million first fought for their language, then independence, and again for an end of military rule. Now protesters gathering in central Dhaka believe they are fighting for a return of liberalism and secularism - and death to alleged war criminals from decades past.

A slogan in Bengali has been frequently shouted at the busy Shahbagh Square to annonce that the area is now the epicentre for change in Bangladesh: “Tomar aamar thikana, Shahbagher Mohona”  or "your address, my address, Shahbagh Square". 

Tens of thousands have gathered here in recent days demanding reform, and protesters believe the scenes are reminiscent of the uprising in Cairo’s Tahrir Square that led to the downfall of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

Another slogan often chanted is “Shahbagh does not sleep.” True, it doesn't these days. There is no room to rest for starters, and loudspeakers are constantly blaring.

Amid frequent calls for death to all war criminals, Shahbagh is alive with songs, poetry, film and street plays. The cultural muscle of Bengali nationalism is on raging display.

Punishing past atrocities

On February 5, one of Bangladesh’s two war crimes tribunals announced a life sentence for a leader of the Jamaat-e-Islami group, Abdul Quader Mollah, who had been accused of mass murder and rape during the 1971 civil war.

Many had wished for and expected a harsher punishment - a sentence of death. Messages flew fast and furious across social networking sites, mobile phones and by word of mouth. By that evening, thousands of mostly young men and women had gathered at Shahbagh, one of Dhaka’s busiest areas, to protest the perceived light sentence.

“Death for Quader Mollah,” they shouted, as more people converged on the square.

Two weeks have passed and the crowds have not gone away. In fact the numbers have steadily grown and those gathered are urging more Bangladeshis to come and show their support. Shahbagh has even been given the new name Projonmo Chattor, or Generation Square, to reflect the driving force of the movement, the youth of Bangladesh.

“This is the generation who have not experienced the Liberation War, but who appear to be as determined to uphold its secular and liberal spirit,” says Jogesh Sarkar, who fought as a guerrilla for the Mukti Bahini, or Liberation Army, against Pakistani soldiers and their allies.

Jamaat-e-Islami opposed the break-up of Pakistan and the independence of Bangladesh in 1971. In the bloody civil war that followed, its activists in large numbers allegedly joined irregular military units and fought alongside the Pakistani army.

The group’s members are believed responsible for some of the most horrendous atrocities committed during the eight-month war, which killed between 2.5 to 3 million people. Rape was routinely used as a weapon.

“We now want the death penalty for all war criminals. We want a ban on the politics of religious fundamentalism. We want a ban on the Jamaat-e-Islami,” says Imran H Sarker of the Bloggers and Online Activists Network, one of the leaders of the Shahbagh protest.

But Moulana Rafiqul Islam Khan, the general secretary of Jamaat, said the protests were part of a plot to create anarchy and force the tribunals to give verdicts as per its dictate.

“We want to clearly state that the people of the country won't let the government implement its plot chalked out to take its political revenge,” he said.

Coup derails tribunals

After the vicious civil war, the first government of the independent country enacted the International Crimes Tribunals Act in 1973, to try those responsible for the “crimes against humanity”.

But a coup in 1975 led to the assassination of Bangladesh’s first prime minister, Sheikh Mujibur Rehman, and the military rulers not only shelved the trials of those accused of war crimes, but allowed many of them to return to ordinary life.

Jamaat-e-Islami was even allowed to register as a legitimate political party. Mujib’s party, the Awami League, swept parliamentary elections in December 2008, and his daughter Sheikh Hasina became prime minister.

True to her pre-election pledge, Hasina’s government constituted two war crimes tribunals under the 1973 law - one that began work in 2010 and the other two years later.

Besides Mollah, eight other leaders of Jamaat-e-Islami and two of the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) are now on the dock, standing trial for crimes against humanity allegedly committed during the 1971 war.

“At last, the nation feels some justice is being done. Nobody here wants these war criminals to get away lightly,” says Shahriar Kabir, whose organisation Committee for the Elimination of the Killers and Collaborators of 1971 have pushed for the tribunals since the mid-1990s, after democracy was restored in Bangladesh.

The demonstration has not been entirely peaceful. Ten days after the protests started in Shahbagh, one of its leading figures, Ahmed Rajib Haider, was killed near his house in Dhaka’s Mirpur locality.

An architect by profession and passionate blogger, many believe Rajib represented the form and spirit of the Shahbagh protest, which is largely led by young professionals and students.

Struggle for the future

Lucky Akhtar, one of the main demonstration organisers, says there is more to the protests than just holding those to account for war crimes committed more than 40 years ago.

“The movement is led not by politicians but by those who feel concerned about Bangladesh’s future, those who want the country to return to the secular and liberal spirit of the Liberation War, those who believe in humanity, those who want Bangladesh to be distinctively its own self,” she says.

The movement will go far because it has risen above partisan politics, Akhtar says. “We have touched the soul of the nation.”

Akhtar says the government will have to ban Jamaat-e-Islami and all its affiliates, and finally nationalise its considerable assets.

“The Jamaat and its brand of religion-driven politics has to be eliminated from our soil. It is the unfinished agenda of the Liberation War,” she says.

The government has reacted swiftly to keep pace with the popular mood. Prime Minister Hasina and her party leaders have expressed solidarity with the Shahbagh demonstrators. “I am here but my heart is at Shahbagh,” she told parliament this week.

The government has hinted at a ban on Jamaat-e-Islami, and thousands of its activists have been arrested for acts of violence during a series of general strikes the Islamist party sponsored over the last few months.

An amendment to the 1973 crimes tribunal act was also recently passed in parliament, where the ruling Awami League-led coalition enjoys a huge majority. The amendment allows the government to appeal Quader Mollah’s life sentence and request the death penalty.

The legislation will now allow the war crimes tribunals to try organisations and political parties for alleged crimes committed during the war of independence.

Conspiracy to destroy Jamaat?

The opposition has denounced the parliamentary amendment, describing it as politically motivated. Jamaat leader Islam Khan says the government is clearly out to destroy his party.

The party has accused Prime Minister Hasina of backing the Shahbagh protests for possible electoral gains. Whipping up nationalistic sentiments and banning Jamaat - an important ally of the BNP - would seriously dent the opposition ranks and hand her the advantage in the run up to next year's elections.

The Shahbagh protesters, however, deny any ties to the government.

Many of Bangladesh’s most important historical moments have roots at Shahbagh. The rise of the Bengali-language movement, the call for independence by Sheikh Mujibur Rehman, and the surrender ceremony of the Pakistan army all happened within a few kilometers of the square.

Some observers say the current Shahbagh occupation could also be a defining moment for Bangladesh.

“History has a habit of repeating itself in Bangladesh,” says historian Sagar Lohani.

Journalist Haroon Habib, who also fought as a guerrilla during the 1971 war, says the Shahbagh demonstration is a struggle between secular Bengali nationalism against Islamic radicalism.

“It is all about which road Bangladesh will take,” Habib says.

First appeared in AlJazeera, Qatar, 19 February 2013

Sumi Khan is a journalist based in Dhaka, Bangladesh, she works as Head of News, Mohono TV

Shahbag protesters versus the Butcher of Mirpur

Abdul Quader Mollah has finally been convicted of war crimes committed in Bangladesh in 1971. Now a huge popular protest in Dhaka's Shahbag district is demanding the death penalty

TAHMIMA ANAM

IT ALL began with a victory sign. When Abdul Quader Mollah, assistant secretary-general of Bangladesh's Jamaat-e-Islami party, emerged from the supreme court on the afternoon of Tuesday 4 February, he turned to the press waiting outside, smiled, and made a victory sign. An odd reaction for a man just sentenced to life in prison.

Mollah smiled because for him, a man convicted of beheading a poet, raping an 11-year-old girl and shooting 344 people during the 1971 Bangladesh war of independence – charges that have earned him the nickname the Butcher of Mirpur – the life sentence came as a surprise. Earlier this month, a fellow accused, Abul Kalam Azad, who is reputed to have fled to Pakistan, was sentenced to death in absentia.

When Mollah emerged from the courthouse, a group of online activists and bloggers assembled to protest against the verdict, demanding that Mollah, like Azad, be given the death sentence. They set up camp in Shahbag, an intersection at the heart of Dhaka, near the university campus, and staged a small sit-in. They collected a few donations and ordered khichuri (a mixture of rice and lentils) to keep them going through the night. Word spread on Facebook and Twitter. The next day, a few news channels began covering their protest. By the end of the week, they had managed to put together the biggest mass demonstration the country has seen in 20 years.

The movement – centred around Shahbag, which some have renamed Projonmo Chottor (New Generation Roundabout) – shows no sign of abating. It reached its peak on Friday, when the organisers called a grand rally. Numbers vary, but are estimated to have been anywhere from 100,000 to 500,000. Traffic in the city, already notoriously slow, ground to a halt. Because it was a weekend, many people brought their children, their faces painted in the red and green of the Bangladeshi flag. The mood was like that of a fairground, with vendors selling fried snacks and spicy puffed rice; small groups within the throng sat in circles, singing, reciting poems and playing guitars. A tailor set up his sewing machine, making replicas of the national flag for people to wear around their heads. A play was staged at one end of the roundabout.

For people like me who are opposed to capital punishment, Shahbag has posed an uncomfortable question: can a movement that began with a call for the death penalty, with cries of Fashi Chai! Fashi Chai! (Let him hang!) go beyond a simple baying for blood?

But the call for Mollah's death is about more than revenge. He committed his crimes during Bangladesh's nine-month struggle for independence from Pakistan in 1971. Mollah and the 11 others who stand trial with him – 10 of whom are members of Jamaat-e-Islami – are accused of collaborating in war crimes with the Pakistani army. Between March and December of that year, the Pakistani army unleashed a campaign of mass murder against Bangladeshi civilians. War crimes were ubiquitous in 1971 – as is evidenced by the discovery of mass graves throughout the country, Pakistani documents detailing operations and massacres, hit-lists of local collaborators, journalists' reports, photographs and video footage, and, most importantly, the eyewitness accounts of the survivors.

Since Bangladesh's independence, the state had done little to bring people such as Mollah to justice. The erasure of the war began in 1972 with the granting of amnesty to the Pakistani army officers who led the killings. During the decades of political turmoil that followed in Bangladesh, the war, and its crimes, were buried, while one regime after another contributed to the rehabilitation of the Jamaat party. Internationally, charges of genocide were never formally brought to the United Nations. The world quickly forgot the Bangladesh war.

That is why Mollah flashed his victory sign outside the courthouse. because, for the first 40 years of independent Bangladesh, no government had sought to try him; because he, along with the rest of his party, were courted by politicians at home and abroad. His fellow party leaders were elected to parliament and made ministers. None of them ever thought they would appear in court. One of Mollah's fellow accused is rumoured to have regularly announced in public: "I am a Razakar!" (war criminal).

The tide finally turned in 2008, when the Awami League (the party whose then leader, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, had led the independence movement) won a landslide victory at the general election. The campaign included a promise to set up a tribunal to prosecute those who had committed war crimes in 1971. The International Crimes Tribunal was set up in 2010. Since then, the court has been gathering evidence and hearing testimonies against the accused.

Because the trial has been so long in the making, the verdicts are watched by millions of people waiting anxiously to see if their families will finally get justice. And for them, after 42 years, a life sentence for a man convicted of mass murder, arson and rape was not punishment enough.

In addition to the perceived inadequacy of the sentence is an abiding anxiety about the way it will be carried out. It is ingrained in the public imagination that justice always takes second place to political expediency. Mollah knows that if his party or its allies were to come to power again, he would almost certainly be freed. That is why the protesters at Shahbag are calling for his death: it is the only way they can be sure the episode will come to an end.

In Shahbag, the organisers have refused to allow political parties to take the stage. Instead, freedom fighters and activists are invited to speak. Zafar Iqbal, a beloved children's writer and columnist, arrived on stage mid-afternoon on Friday. The first thing he did was ask for the crowd's forgiveness. "I have complained about your generation, saying that all you do is go on the internet and check your Facebook. I said that you would never come on to the streets. I am so happy to have been proven wrong today." A few days later, the Bangladesh cricket team turned up to show their support. With the chanting and singing spreading across the grounds, the protesters of Shahbag often resemble a jubilant flash-mob.

Shahbag is unique for Bangladesh on two important fronts. First is the prevalence and visibility of women, who are among the core organisers. Unlike in many public spaces in Bangladesh, women have been highly visible. They frequently take the microphone to lead the crowd in chanting. Second is the movement's use of social networking on Facebook and Twitter, and dependence on the 24-hour satellite news channels that have been covering the protest since the first day.

In the days leading up to the Mollah verdict, the Jamaat party called a succession of hartals (strikes), in an attempt to bring the country to a standstill. Activists burned cars and clashed with police. Four innocent people died in the crossfire. Now the Shahbag demonstrators are calling for an end to Jamaat and its student wing, Shibir. Though the Jamaat party only won two out of 300 seats in the last election, their presence as a powerful third party in politics has remained unquestioned – until now. There is a sense of a shifting political landscape: the people keeping vigil at Shahbag are young, possibly undecided voters who are looking for leaders. Who knows what this means for the old guard?

The next few weeks will be crucial for the Shahbag movement. There is fear, and there is hope. Fear that the protest will be co-opted by greater political forces; that violence will erupt and women will no longer be safe; that the cries for Mollah's hanging will overpower all other forms of resistance, and anyone who disagrees will be branded a traitor. But there is hope, too: that the protest will become a movement for a fair trial, and for a final, definitive and unbiased account of what happened in 1971; for the strengthening of secular, progressive politics in Bangladesh.

First appeared in The Guardian, 13 February 2013

Tahmima Anam is a celebrated writer and author of The Good Muslim (Canongate) and A Golden Age was translated in 22 languages

Shahbagh Square: Bangladesh’s fourth awakening

The protests in Dhaka against attempts to subvert justice in the war crimes trials show that the new generation is alive to the horrific acts committed by anti-liberation forces

HAROON HABIB

THE YOUNGER generation of Bangladeshis has made history by not keeping silent when fundamentalist and communalist forces who had opposed the nation’s independence from Pakistan openly challenged the state. Since February 5, Dhaka’s Shahbagh Square has been the site of a mass protest in which young people have demanded capital punishment for all who committed crimes against humanity during the national liberation war in 1971. These young people have achieved what political parties locked in acrimonious feuding could not do.

Led through social networking

The new Gano Jagaran Mancha (Mass awakening platform) is almost a national reawakening; it could be the greatest social revolution Bangladesh has seen in four decades, and sends a clear signal to the Islamists, who seem determined to stage a comeback. At a rally on February 8, Bangladesh also saw the biggest mass mobilisation in recent memory. Hundreds of thousands of men and women, boys and girls from all walks of life, carrying national flags, banners and placards, demanded the death sentence for all war criminals and showed their determination to resist the fundamentalist Jamaat-e-Islami and its student wing, the Islami Chhatra Shibir.

The movement had started on February 5, soon after a war crimes tribunal had sentenced Jamaat-e-Islami leader Abdul Quader Mollah to life. The verdict shocked the nation; there had been widespread demands for the hanging of Mollah, who, in 1971, had led a local cohort of the Pakistan Army which killed several hundred people and carried out mass rape. Using social networks, young bloggers quickly occupied Shahbagh Square, and their peaceful sit-in became a people’s movement.

Counter-attacks

In the preceding months, the Jamaat-e-Islami had carried out terrorist attacks in an attempt to stop war crimes trials, on a scale which even suggested that the movement was challenging the Bangladeshi state, the independence of which it had violently opposed four decades earlier. With support from the main opposition, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), between November 2012 and January 2013, the Jamaat organised violent demonstrations against the war crimes tribunals, and sent hundreds of party cadres on hit-and-run attacks on the police. The new operatives are well trained, and their attacks revived memories of August 2005, when nearly simultaneous explosions occurred one morning in 63 of the country’s 64 districts.

Seven Jamaat leaders were in prison awaiting trial for crimes against humanity during the war of liberation, but the Jamaat warned of “civil war” if the trials were not cancelled and its leaders freed. The war crimes trials are a long-standing national demand; in the 2008 election, the Sheikh Hasina government was mandated to hold them, and Parliament has unanimously approved them.

Therefore, citizens irrespective of age and faith joined the Gano Jagaran Mancha in Shahbagh Square. “Hang all the war criminals” is not their only demand; they vow to boycott all businesses, banks, media outlets, and social and cultural entities connected to the Jamaat. “We pledge that we will continue our movement from Teknaf to Tetulia under the leadership of general people until highest punishment is given to Razakars-Al-Badrs who committed crimes against humanity like genocide and rape in 1971,” said the oath administered by Imran H. Sarkar, the young convener of the Bloggers and Online Activist Network.

Focus on media

The Mancha announced boycotting business and educational institutions run by “war criminals” including the Islami Bank and Ibn Sina trust, and sharply criticised some of the western media for “motivated coverage” of the war crimes trial. They added that they would maintain their demand that the Jamaat and Shibir be severely punished for sedition, and that they would use video and news pictures to identify members of those groups.

The current mass awakening could mean a new beginning in Bangladesh. It already constitutes a challenge to religious orthodoxy and extreme Islamism, and has reawakened secular nationalism of the kind that led the nation to rebel against religio-military subjugation by the then West Pakistan. The Opposition BNP under Khaleda Zia, a staunch ally of the Jamaat’s, has been taken aback by the movement’s success.

The young people who have reignited the flame of conviction did not march under any one political banner. They are united in their calls for justice against genocide and rape, and against fundamentalist resurgence. After they submitted to the Speaker of Parliament a list of demands including banning the Jamaat, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina promised in Parliament that her government would act on the oath thousands of protesters had taken. The cabinet promptly decided to move against the Quader Mollah verdict by amending the war crimes legislation, which had lacked provision for prosecution appeals.

Bangladesh’s history has always been made by the young, by students — in the language movement of 1952, the mass upsurge of 1969, and the armed struggle for national independence in 1971. There was an impression that the younger generation had forgotten the horrific acts committed by forces that were ranged against the country’s liberation, but the new generation has disproved that.

First appeared in The Hindu, Chennai, India, February 16, 2013

Haroon Habib, news correspondent of The Hindu is a Bangladesh liberation war veteran and a writer and columnist. Email: hh1971@gmail.com