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Friday, April 23, 2010

[ALOCHONA] A White Paper on 1/11



A White Paper on 1/11

 

Obaid Chowdhury

New York , USA

 

General MoinU, the former army chief, said in his memoirs that the main reason for his patriotic action on 1/11 was the UN warning that if army helped in the scheduled elections of January 22, 2007, Bangladesh's participation in the UN Peacekeeping activities would be hampered. Renata Lok Dessallien, the UN Resident Representative in Bangladesh recently came out with the truth that there was no such communication from the UN. So who is telling the truth? The people of Bangladesh deserve to know it.

 

The two-year emergency rule of the MoinU instigated Care Taker Government (CTG) though brought an immediate halt to the Awami League led savagery that killed scores of people and damaged properties worth millions it left a deep scar in the nation's nascent democratic process as well as development activities.

 

In an interview with the Weekly Thikana of New York last year, MoinU bragged—or perhaps lamented---that nobody could have stopped him if he wanted to be the President on 1/11. In fact, it sounded more like 'It was my mistake; I should have run the show as the President of the country rather than from behind the scene.'

 

Within the first few months of the CTG, jails were filled with arrested 'criminals', including the two former lady prime ministers. After about a year, these very criminals turned into saints overnight and walked out of the jails. These very Dhoa Tulsi Patas of politicians were voted to the Sangsad again, some to rule while others to oppose. The people of Bangladesh definitely need an explanation of this Tamasha  by the MoinU and CTG at a huge cost to the exchequer of a poor country.

 

We saw the real or make-belief pictures of many such leaders dying at every moment due to physical abuse, torture, third degree method, poisoning and sedation applied by the law enforcing and intelligence agencies during custody. Yet, the perpetrators of such terrible and inhuman crime are not made to answer today for their actions. But the people want to know the facts, not the fiction.

 

People of Bangladesh would also like to know how over 90% people voted on December 29, 2008. Such thing does not happen even in the most developed countries and in the most educated and affluent societies of the world having the most advanced voting facilities. Conscientious people have since been wondering for whom the bell tolled on that day! They shudder to think today if they will one day find an independent and sovereign country called Bangladesh being eclipsed!

 

We need a White Paper on how the 1/11was made, the two-year Emergency Rule of the MoniU/CTG and the road to December 29, 2008.

 

 



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[ALOCHONA] Chatra League/Juba League



AL fails to discipline BCL rowdies 

Measures taken by the prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, also the Awami League president, including her relinquishing the position of the Chhatra League's organisational leader and formation of a committee with three Awami League organising secretaries to discipline the BCL seem to have fallen flat.
 
http://www.prothom-alo.com/detail/date/2010-04-24/news/58554

On April 4, 2009, Hasina had stepped down as the organisational leader of Chhatra League amid violent factional clashes in the organisation and widespread allegations of its involvement in crimes.


In a latest development, five noted educationists of the country on Thursday urged the prime minister to sever all direct and indirect links between the Awami League and Chhatra League for the sake of congenial atmosphere in educational institutions.

'The Awami League needs to sever its direct and indirect links with Chhatra League to keep students and youths away from destructive politics and maintain a congenial atmosphere in educational institutions,' said a statement signed by professors Kabir Chowdhury, Zillur Rahman Siddiqui, Serajul Islam Chowdhury, Jamal Nazrul Islam and Anisuzzaman.

They came up with the advice with reports pouring in that unruly activities by the BCL men continued to vitiate the atmosphere at educational institutions and caused deterioration of law and order across the country.
http://www.amardeshonline.com/pages/details/2010/04/24/28827

In the latest spate of such activities, Faruk Hossain, organising secretary of the Ward 1 unit Chhatra League was killed and 15 others were injured in a clash between the BCL and Juba League on April 8 over submission of tender bids for the lease of 10 ponds in Panchagarh.

In Pirojpur, several hundred activists of BCL attacked and ransacked Swarupkati police station on April 21 in reprisal for the arrest of one of its activists.

The unruly activists attacked the police and damaged the thana complex leaving five police personnel wounded. The police had fired rubber bullets and tear gas to disperse the activists staging violent protest at the arrest of the BCL activist, Rony Dutta.Rony was arrested on a complaint lodged by upazila chairman Mohitul Islam Muhit.Two separate cases were filed in this connection and police arrested nine BCL leaders and activists and the court sent them to jail.

At Chittagong University, BCL activists staged violent protests on April 16 at the killing of Asaduzzaman, a second-year student of accounting department, by neighbouring villagers following an altercation at the Pahela Baishakh festival.

Following the killing, the BCL called an indefinite strike forcing suspension of all academic activities on April 20.The unruly activists set fire to a teachers' bus in Sholashahar area and also halted the university-bound shuttle trains and public transports to prevent students from going to the campus.Police arrested six activists of the BCL's Chittagong University unit in connection with the arson attack on a teachers' bus.

At Jahangirnagar University, at least 30 persons were injured and 30 rooms in Kamal Uddin Hall and Shaheed Salam-Barkat Hall were ransacked following a row between BCL activists Shishir and Miraj of Kamal Uddin Hall and Rajib, Biplob and Monir of Shaheed Salam-Barkat Hall on April 21.

In Rajshahi, seven activists of the BCL were injured in a factional clash at Rajshahi University of Engineering and Technology early April 22, over establishment of supremacy on the campus.
Witnesses said a group of BCL activists led by Al-Amin attacked the activists loyal to Rezaul Karim Reza at Selim Hall and Ziaur Rahman Hall leaving seven students injured.

In Manikganj, several hundred activists of BCL attacked Dhamrai police station after police arrested an activist on charge of snatching and kidnapping a young man on April 21.

Besides, at least 20 people, including top leaders of the National Committee to Protect Oil, Gas, Mineral Resources, Power and Ports, were injured when BCL men pounced on them in front of Dhaka College Thursday afternoon.

The BCL activists also attacked rallies organised by the main opposition BNP in protest at the crisis of electricity, water and gas supply in different parts of the city over the last couple of days leaving many people injured.

 


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[ALOCHONA] ETV chairman Salam held at Mumbai airport



Pistol, bullets seized


 
The chairman of Ekushey Television Ltd (ETV) was arrested yesterday at Mumbai International Airport for carrying arms illegally, said Mumbai police.

ETV Chairman Abdus Salam Mohammed Kareem, 50, was inside the airport when Central Industrial Security Force personnel frisked him and recovered a pistol and seven cartridges from his bag, said Inspector B N Tambe of Sahar Airport Police Station.

Abdus Salam was then handed over to police while his luggage seized.He was booked under the Indian Arms Act and placed on a two-day police remand, Tambe said. "Abdus Salam claimed that he had come to Mumbai on business purpose and had his flight to Bangladesh in the morning today (Friday)," the officer said.

He was carrying a valid passport and arms licence of Bangladesh, said police, adding that further probe was on.
 


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[ALOCHONA] 2-Repeal of the Mardin Fatwa




 


Subject: My article
To: ;

From jihad to ijtihad

 

By Asghar Ali Engineer


'JIHAD', with its imbued wrong meaning, became a notorious word in the West after 9/11. Terror now has an overwhelming presence in parts of the Muslim world, including Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq. Violence there seems at times to be out of control as it is Muslims themselves who are targeted by terrorists.


The ulema have repeatedly condemned suicide bombing and terrorism as un-Islamic. Several consultations and conferences of ulema from different parts of the Islamic world have been held to make it clear that violence has no place in Islam. Last month prominent ulema from several Islamic countries from Senegal to Indonesia gathered at Mardin, Turkey and unanimously rejected the medieval fatwa known as the Mardin fatwa issued by Ibn Taymiyyah, saying it has no place in the contemporary globalised world which respects faith and civil rights.


The Mardin fatwa was quoted by Osama bin Laden to justify his terrorist attacks. Followed by this, on April 12, the highest religious Saudi body denounced terrorism. This body issued a fatwa denouncing all acts of terrorism and even criminalised its financing. Those who finance such acts are also part of the crime, it said. Thus terrorists cannot find any justification in Islam for their acts. Their very support base has been knocked off.However, one can hardly expect much impact of such fatwas on terrorists, though they would certainly help wean away those Muslims from terrorists who justify such attacks on the basis of their religion. This is not a small achievement.

Our attention must now shift from 'jihad' to 'ijtihad', which means to strive intellectually to comprehend problems facing the Islamic world and find their solutions in keeping with the basic principles and values enshrined in the Quran. Ijtihad has been called by many scholars, including Allama Iqbal, the dynamic spirit of Islam and Islamic law.


Ijtihad was very much a living process in early Islam; its gates were shut, many scholars maintain, around the time of the sack of Baghdad in 1258 by Mongol hordes. Ironically, it was half a century after that when Ibn Taymiyyah, defining his own Hanbali school of law, issued his fatwa on jihad. Thus the gates of ijtihad were closed and those of aggressive jihad flung open.


Now that jihad in its new incarnation as terrorism is being denounced by all prominent ulema of the Islamic world it is time the practice of ijtihad was opened and a fresh approach developed to solve the many legal and social problems affecting Muslim societies today. Blind imitation and stagnation have become the bane of Islamic law. While changes are taking place in the world around us, we continue to imitate the pre-1258 jurists in the religio-legal field.


We are unable to think afresh and derive inspiration from the Quran. We keep on quoting only certain imams and medieval authorities who have become more sacrosanct for us than the Holy Quran. I propose a few basic steps in developing a fresh approach and throwing open the gates of ijtihad.


Firstly, at least a few ulema and Muslim intellectuals (and there are many who have been trained in the traditional Islamic literature of tafsir, hadith and jurisprudence and who feel the need for change) must show courage and come forward to develop a fresh approach, defying powerful vested interests manning the religious establishment as it were.


Secondly, we must transcend all existing schools of Islamic law and develop a unified law applicable to all Muslims. This will also give greater meaning to the otherwise hollow slogan of Islamic unity. It does not mean that we reject all provisions of existing schools of law but that we select from all these that which is best in them and in keeping with the Quranic principles and values.


Thirdly, a new ijma (consensus) should be developed on issues that are peculiar to our age and time. If the ulema could do it in the first three centuries of Islam, why not us today? The past ulema's ijma was limited to their own school; today in a globalised world a much wider consensus across all Islamic schools of thought will have to be developed. Modern means of information and communication technology have made it much easier.


In medieval Islamic jurisprudence they used qiyas (analogical reasoning) and ijma, and both are intellectual instruments to solve legal problems. Why can't we develop new analogies on a global scale today? What passes on as divine in the Sharia law is nothing but local, culturally embedded elements and practices, particularly of the Arab and Persian cultures, as they existed centuries ago.


We must transcend all such elements and, like the Quran itself, develop a more universal outlook whilst formulating Sharia laws for our own time. While the sources of Sharia cannot change, Sharia laws must change based on the enshrined principles of ijtihad and ijma for them to be responsive to the needs of Muslims today.






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