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Saturday, August 20, 2011

[ALOCHONA] Becoming Muslim - Nuh Ha Mim Keller





Becoming Muslim

By Nuh Ha Mim Keller

I studied philosophy at the university and it taught me to ask two things of whoever claimed to have the truth: What do you mean, and how do you know? When I asked these questions of my own religious tradition, I found no answers, and realized that Christianity had slipped from my hands." The story of American former Catholic, Nuh Ha Mim Keller, who in the 25 years since his conversion has gone on to become one of the leading contemporary scholars of Islam.
Born in 1954 in the farm country of the northwestern United States, I was raised in a religious family as a Roman Catholic. The Church provided a spiritual world that was unquestionable in my childhood, if anything more real than the physical world around me, but as I grew older, and especially after I entered a Catholic university and read more, my relation to the religion became increasingly called into question, in belief and practice.
One reason was the frequent changes in Catholic liturgy and ritual that occurred in the wake of the Second Vatican Council of 1963, suggesting to laymen that the Church had no firm standards. To one another, the clergy spoke about flexibility and liturgical relevance, but to ordinary Catholics they seemed to be groping in the dark. God does not change, nor the needs of the human soul, and there was no new revelation from heaven. Yet we rang in the changes, week after week, year after year; adding, subtracting, changing the language from Latin to English, finally bringing in guitars and folk music. Priests explained and explained as laymen shook their heads. The search for relevance left large numbers convinced that there had not been much in the first place.
A second reason was a number of doctrinal difficulties, such as the doctrine of the Trinity, which no one in the history of the world, neither priest nor layman, had been able to explain in a convincing way, and which resolved itself, to the common mind at least, in a sort of godhead-by-committee, shared between God the Father, who ruled the world from heaven; His son Jesus Christ, who saved humanity on earth; and the Holy Ghost, who was pictured as a white dove and appeared to have a considerably minor role. I remember wanting to make special friends with just one of them so he could handle my business with the others, and to this end, would sometimes pray earnestly to this one and sometimes to that; but the other two were always stubbornly there. I finally decided that God the Father must be in charge of the other two, and this put the most formidable obstacle in the way of my Catholicism, the divinity of Christ. Moreover, reflection made it plain that the nature of man contradicted the nature of God in every particular, the limitary and finite on the one hand, the absolute and infinite on the other. That Jesus was God was something I cannot remember having ever really believed, in childhood or later.
Another point of incredulity was the trading of the Church in stocks and bonds in the hereafter which it called indulgences. Do such and such and so-and-so many years will be remitted from your sentence in purgatory. That had seemed so false to Martin Luther at the outset of the Reformation.
I also remember a desire for a sacred scripture, something on the order of a book that could furnish guidance. A Bible was given to me one Christmas, a handsome edition, but on attempting to read it, I found it so rambling and devoid of a coherent thread that it was difficult to think of a way to base one's life upon it. Only later did I learn how Christians solve the difficulty in practice, Protestants by creating sectarian theologies, each emphasizing the texts of their sect and downplaying the rest; Catholics by downplaying it all, except the snippets mentioned in their liturgy. Something seemed lacking in a sacred book that could not be read as an integral whole.
Moreover, when I went to the university, I found that the authenticity of the book, especially the New Testament, had come into considerable doubt as a result of modern hermeneutical studies by Christians themselves. In a course on contemporary theology, I read the Norman Perrin translation of The Problem of the Historical Jesus by Joachim Jeremias, one of the principal New Testament scholars of this century. A textual critic who was a master of the original languages and had spent long years with the texts, he had finally agreed with the German theologian Rudolph Bultmann that, without a doubt, it is true to say that the dream of ever writing a biography of Jesus is over, meaning that the life of Christ as he actually lived it could not be reconstructed from the New Testament with any degree of confidence. If this were accepted from a friend of Christianity and one of its foremost textual experts, I reasoned, what was left for its enemies to say? And what then remained of the Bible except to acknowledge that it was a record of truths mixed with fictions, conjectures projected onto Christ by later followers, themselves at odds with each other as to who the master had been and what he had taught. And if theologians like Jeremias could reassure themselves that somewhere under the layers of later accretions to the New Testament there was something called the historical Jesus and his message, how could the ordinary person hope to find it, or know it, should it be found?
I studied philosophy at the university and it taught me to ask two things of whoever claimed to have the truth: What do you mean, and how do you know? When I asked these questions of my own religious tradition, I found no answers, and realized that Christianity had slipped from my hands. I then embarked on a search that is perhaps not unfamiliar to many young people in the West, a quest for meaning in a meaningless world.
I began where I had lost my previous belief, with the philosophers, yet wanting to believe, seeking not philosophy, but rather a philosophy. I read the essays of the great pessimist Arthur Schopenhauer, which taught about the phenomenon of the ages of life, and that money, fame, physical strength, and intelligence all passed from one with the passage of years, but only moral excellence remained. I took this lesson to heart and remembered it in after years. His essays also drew attention to the fact that a person was wont to repudiate in later years what he fervently espouses in the heat of youth.
With a prescient wish to find the Divine, I decided to imbue myself with the most cogent arguments of atheism that I could find, that perhaps I might find a way out of them later. So I read the Walter Kaufmann translations of the works of the immoralist Friedrich Nietzsche. The many-faceted genius dissected the moral judgments and beliefs of mankind with brilliant philological and psychological arguments that ended in accusing human language itself, and the language of nineteenth-century science in particular, of being so inherently determined and mediated by concepts inherited from the language of morality that in their present form they could never hope to uncover reality. Aside from their immunological value against total skepticism, Nietzsche's works explained why the West was post-Christian, and accurately predicted the unprecedented savagery of the twentieth century, debunking the myth that science could function as a moral replacement for the now dead religion.
At a personal level, his tirades against Christianity, particularly in The Genealogy of Morals, gave me the benefit of distilling the beliefs of the monotheistic tradition into a small number of analyzable forms. He separated unessential concepts (such as the bizarre spectacle of an omnipotent deity's suicide on the cross) from essential ones, which I now, though without believing in them, apprehended to be but three alone: that God existed; that He created man in the world and defined the conduct expected of him in it; and that He would judge man accordingly in the hereafter and send him to eternal reward or punishment.
It was during this time that I read an early translation of the Koran which I grudgingly admired, between agnostic reservations, for the purity with which it presented these fundamental concepts. Even if false, I thought, there could not be a more essential expression of religion. As a literary work, the translation, perhaps it was Sales, was uninspired and openly hostile to its subject matter, whereas I knew the Arabic original was widely acknowledged for its beauty and eloquence among the religious books of mankind. I felt a desire to learn Arabic to read the original.
On a vacation home from school, I was walking upon a dirt road between some fields of wheat, and it happened that the sun went down. By some inspiration, I realized that it was a time of worship, a time to bow and pray to the one God. But it was not something one could rely on oneself to provide the details of, but rather a passing fancy, or perhaps the beginning of an awareness that atheism was an inauthentic way of being.
I carried something of this disquiet with me when I transferred to the University of Chicago, where I studied the epistemology of ethical theory how moral judgments were reached reading and searching among the books of the philosophers for something to shed light on the question of meaninglessness, which was both a personal concern and one of the central philosophical problems of our age.
According to some, scientific observation could only yield description statements of the form X is Y, for example, The object is red, Its weight is two kilos, Its height is ten centimeters, and so on, in each of which the functional was a scientifically verifiable is, whereas in moral judgments the functional element was an ought, a description statement which no amount of scientific observation could measure or verify. It appeared that ought was logically meaningless, and with it all morality whatsoever, a position that reminded me of those described by Lucian in his advice that whoever sees a moral philosopher coming down the road should flee from him as from a mad dog. For such a person, expediency ruled, and nothing checked his behavior but convention.
As Chicago was a more expensive school, and I had to raise tuition money, I found summer work on the West Coast with a seining boat fishing in Alaska. The sea proved a school in its own right, one I was to return to for a space of eight seasons, for the money. I met many people on boats, and saw something of the power and greatness of the wind, water, storms, and rain; and the smallness of man. These things lay before us like an immense book, but my fellow fishermen and I could only discern the letters of it that were within our context: to catch as many fish as possible within the specified time to sell to the tenders. Few knew how to read the book as a whole. Sometimes, in a blow, the waves rose like great hills, and the captain would hold the wheel with white knuckles, our bow one minute plunging gigantically down into a valley of green water, the next moment reaching the bottom of the trough and soaring upwards towards the sky before topping the next crest and starting down again.
Early in my career as a deck hand, I had read the Hazel Barnes translation of Jean Paul Sartres "Being and Nothingness", in which he argued that phenomena only arose for consciousness in the existential context of human projects, a theme that recalled Marx's 1844 manuscripts, where nature was produced by man, meaning, for example, that when the mystic sees a stand of trees, his consciousness hypostatizes an entirely different phenomenal object than a poet does, for example, or a capitalist. To the mystic, it is a manifestation; to the poet, a forest; to the capitalist, lumber. According to such a perspective, a mountain only appears as tall in the context of the project of climbing it, and so on, according to the instrumental relations involved in various human interests. But the great natural events of the sea surrounding us seemed to defy, with their stubborn, irreducible facticity, our uncomprehending attempts to come to terms with them. Suddenly, we were just there, shaken by the forces around us without making sense of them, wondering if we would make it through. Some, it was true, would ask God's help at such moments, but when we returned safely to shore, we behaved like men who knew little of Him, as if those moments had been a lapse into insanity, embarrassing to think of at happier times. It was one of the lessons of the sea that, in fact, such events not only existed but perhaps even preponderated in our life. Man was small and weak, the forces around him were large, and he did not control them.
Sometimes a boat would sink and men would die. I remember a fisherman from another boat who was working near us one opening, doing the same job as I did, piling web. He smiled across the water as he pulled the net from the hydraulic block overhead, stacking it neatly on the stern to ready it for the next set. Some weeks later, his boat overturned while fishing in a storm, and he got caught in the web and drowned. I saw him only once again, in a dream, beckoning to me from the stern of his boat.
The tremendousness of the scenes we lived in, the storms, the towering sheer cliffs rising vertically out of the water for hundreds of feet, the cold and rain and fatigue, the occasional injuries and deaths of workers these made little impression on most of us. Fishermen were, after all, supposed to be tough. On one boat, the family that worked it was said to lose an occasional crew member while running at sea at the end of the season, invariably the sole non-family member who worked with them, his loss saving them the wages they would have otherwise had to pay him.
The captain of another was a twenty-seven-year-old who delivered millions of dollars worth of crab each year in the Bering Sea. When I first heard of him, we were in Kodiak, his boat at the city dock they had tied up to after a lengthy run some days before. The captain was presently indisposed in his bunk in the stateroom, where he had been vomiting up blood from having eaten a glass uptown the previous night to prove how tough he was. He was in somewhat better condition when I later saw him in the Bering Sea at the end of a long winter king crab season. He worked in his wheelhouse up top, surrounded by radios that could pull in a signal from just about anywhere, computers, Loran, sonar, depth-finders, radar. His panels of lights and switches were set below the 180-degree sweep of shatterproof windows that overlooked the sea and the men on deck below, to whom he communicated by loudspeaker. They often worked round the clock, pulling their gear up from the icy water under watchful batteries of enormous electric lights attached to the masts that turned the perpetual night of the winter months into day. The captain had a reputation as a screamer, and had once locked his crew out on deck in the rain for eleven hours because one of them had gone inside to have a cup of coffee without permission. Few crewmen lasted longer than a season with him, though they made nearly twice the yearly income of, say, a lawyer or an advertising executive, and in only six months. Fortunes were made in the Bering Sea in those years, before overfishing wiped out the crab.
At present, he was at anchor, and was amiable enough when we tied up to him and he came aboard to sit and talk with our own captain. They spoke at length, at times gazing thoughtfully out at the sea through the door or windows, at times looking at each other sharply when something animated them, as the topic of what his competitors thought of him. "They wonder why I have a few bucks", he said. "Well I slept in my own home one night last year."
He later had his crew throw off the lines and pick the anchor, his eyes flickering warily over the water from the windows of the house as he pulled away with a blast of smoke from the stack. His watchfulness, his walrus-like physique, his endless voyages after game and markets, reminded me of other predatory hunter-animals of the sea. Such people, good at making money but heedless of any ultimate end or purpose, made an impression on me, and I increasingly began to wonder if men didn't need principles to guide them and tell them why they were there. Without such principles, nothing seemed to distinguish us above our prey except being more thorough, and technologically capable of preying longer, on a vaster scale, and with greater devastation than the animals we hunted.
These considerations were in my mind the second year I studied at Chicago, where I became aware through studies of philosophical moral systems that philosophy had not been successful in the past at significantly influencing peoples morals and preventing injustice, and I came to realize that there was little hope for it to do so in the future. I found that comparing human cultural systems and societies in their historical succession and multiplicity had led many intellectuals to moral relativism, since no moral value could be discovered which on its own merits was transculturally valid, a reflection leading to nihilism, the perspective that sees human civilizations as plants that grow out of the earth, springing from their various seeds and soils, thriving for a time, and then dying away.
Some heralded this as intellectual liberation, among them Emile Durkheim in his "Elementary Forms of the Religious Life", or Sigmund Freud in his "Totem and Taboo", which discussed mankind as if it were a patient and diagnosed its religious traditions as a form of a collective neurosis that we could now hope to cure, by applying to them a thoroughgoing scientific atheism, a sort of salvation through pure science. On this subject, I bought the Jeremy Shapiro translation of "Knowledge and Human Interests" by Jurgen Habermas, who argued that there was no such thing as pure science that could be depended upon to forge boldly ahead in a steady improvement of itself and the world. He called such a misunderstanding scientism, not science. Science in the real world, he said, was not free of values, still less of interests. The kinds of research that obtain funding, for example, were a function of what their society deemed meaningful, expedient, profitable, or important.
Habermas had been of a generation of German academics who, during the thirties and forties, knew what was happening in their country, but insisted they were simply engaged in intellectual production, that they were living in the realm of scholarship, and need not concern themselves with whatever the state might choose to do with their research. The horrible question mark that was attached to German intellectuals when the Nazi atrocities became public after the war made Habermas think deeply about the ideology of pure science. If anything was obvious, it was that the nineteenth-century optimism of thinkers like Freud and Durkheim was no longer tenable.
I began to re-assess the intellectual life around me. Like Schopenhauer, I felt that higher education must produce higher human beings. But at the university, I found lab people talking to each other about forging research data to secure funding for the coming year; luminaries who wouldn't permit tape recorders at their lectures for fear that competitors in the same field would go one step further with their research and beat them to publication; professors vying with each other in the length of their courses syllabuses. The moral qualities I was accustomed to associate with ordinary, unregenerate humanity seemed as frequently met with in sophisticated academics as they had been in fishermen. If one could laugh at fishermen who, after getting a boatload of fish in a big catch, would cruise back and forth in front of the others to let them see how laden down in the water they were, ostensibly looking for more fish; what could one say about the Ph.D.'s who behaved the same way about their books and articles? I felt that their knowledge had not developed their persons, that the secret of higher man did not lie in their sophistication.
I wondered if I hadn't gone down the road of philosophy as far as one could go. While it had debunked my Christianity and provided some genuine insights, it had not yet answered the big questions. Moreover, I felt that this was somehow connected I didn't know whether as cause or effect to the fact that our intellectual tradition no longer seemed to seriously comprehend itself. What were any of us, whether philosophers, fishermen, garbagemen, or kings, except bit players in a drama we did not understand, diligently playing out our roles until our replacements were sent, and we gave our last performance? But could one legitimately hope for more than this?
I read "Kojves Introduction to the Reading of Hegel", in which he explained that for Hegel, philosophy did not culminate in the system, but rather in the Wise Man, someone able to answer any possible question on the ethical implications of human actions. This made me consider our own plight in the twentieth century, which could no longer answer a single ethical question. It was thus as if this century's unparalleled mastery of concrete things had somehow ended by making us things. I contrasted this with Hegel's concept of the concrete in his "Phenomenology of Mind". An example of the abstract, in his terms, was the limitary physical reality of the book now held in your hands, while the concrete was its interconnection with the larger realities it presupposed, the modes of production that determined the kind of ink and paper in it, the aesthetic standards that dictated its color and design, the systems of marketing and distribution that had carried it to the reader, the historical circumstances that had brought about the readers literacy and taste; the cultural events that had mediated its style and usage; in short, the bigger picture in which it was articulated and had its being.
For Hegel, the movement of philosophical investigation always led from the abstract to the concrete, to the more real. He was therefore able to say that philosophy necessarily led to theology, whose object was the ultimately real, the Deity. This seemed to me to point up an irreducible lack in our century. I began to wonder if, by materializing our culture and our past, we had not somehow abstracted ourselves from our wider humanity, from our true nature in relation to a higher reality.
At this juncture, I read a number of works on Islam, among them the books of Seyyed Hossein Nasr, who believed that many of the problems of western man, especially those of the environment, were from his having left the divine wisdom of revealed religion, which taught him his true place as a creature of God in the natural world and to understand and respect it. Without it, he burned up and consumed nature with ever more effective technological styles of commercial exploitation that ruined his world from without while leaving him increasingly empty within, because he did not know why he existed or to what end he should act.
I reflected that this might be true as far as it went, but it begged the question as to the truth of revealed religion. Everything on the face of the earth, all moral and religious systems, were on the same plane, unless one could gain certainty that one of them was from a higher source, the sole guarantee of the objectivity, the whole force, of moral law. Otherwise, one man's opinion was as good as another's, and we remained in an undifferentiated sea of conflicting individual interests, in which no valid objection could be raised to the strong eating the weak.
I read other books on Islam, and came across some passages translated by W. Montgomery Watt from "That Which Delivers from Error" by the theologian and mystic Ghazali, who, after a mid-life crisis of questioning and doubt, realized that beyond the light of prophetic revelation there is no other light on the face of the earth from which illumination may be received, the very point to which my philosophical inquiries had led. Here was, in Hegel's terms, the Wise Man, in the person of a divinely inspired messenger who alone had the authority to answer questions of good and evil.
I also read A.J. Arberrys translation "The Koran Interpreted", and I recalled my early wish for a sacred book. Even in translation, the superiority of the Muslim scripture over the Bible was evident in every line, as if the reality of divine revelation, dimly heard of all my life, had now been placed before my eyes. In its exalted style, its power, its inexorable finality, its uncanny way of anticipating the arguments of the atheistic heart in advance and answering them; it was a clear exposition of God as God and man as man, the revelation of the awe-inspiring Divine Unity being the identical revelation of social and economic justice among men.
I began to learn Arabic at Chicago, and after studying the grammar for a year with a fair degree of success, decided to take a leave of absence to try to advance in the language in a year of private study in Cairo. Too, a desire for new horizons drew me, and after a third season of fishing, I went to the Middle East.
In Egypt, I found something I believe brings many to Islam, namely, the mark of pure monotheism upon its followers, which struck me as more profound than anything I had previously encountered. I met many Muslims in Egypt, good and bad, but all influenced by the teachings of their Book to a greater extent than I had ever seen elsewhere. It has been some fifteen years since then, and I cannot remember them all, or even most of them, but perhaps the ones I can recall will serve to illustrate the impressions made.
One was a man on the side of the Nile near the Miqyas Gardens, where I used to walk. I came upon him praying on a piece of cardboard, facing across the water. I started to pass in front of him, but suddenly checked myself and walked around behind, not wanting to disturb him. As I watched a moment before going my way, I beheld a man absorbed in his relation to God, oblivious to my presence, much less my opinions about him or his religion. To my mind, there was something magnificently detached about this, altogether strange for someone coming from the West, where praying in public was virtually the only thing that remained obscene.
Another was a young boy from secondary school who greeted me near Khan al-Khalili, and because I spoke some Arabic and he spoke some English and wanted to tell me about Islam, he walked with me several miles across town to Giza, explaining as much as he could. When we parted, I think he said a prayer that I might become Muslim.
Another was a Yemeni friend living in Cairo who brought me a copy of the Koran at my request to help me learn Arabic. I did not have a table beside the chair where I used to sit and read in my hotel room, and it was my custom to stack the books on the floor. When I set the Koran by the others there, he silently stooped and picked it up, out of respect for it. This impressed me because I knew he was not religious, but here was the effect of Islam upon him.
Another was a woman I met while walking beside a bicycle on an unpaved road on the opposite side of the Nile from Luxor. I was dusty, and somewhat shabbily clothed, and she was an old woman dressed in black from head to toe who walked up, and without a word or glance at me, pressed a coin into my hand so suddenly that in my surprise I dropped it. By the time I picked it up, she had hurried away. Because she thought I was poor, even if obviously non-Muslim, she gave me some money without any expectation for it except what was between her and her God. This act made me think a lot about Islam, because nothing seemed to have motivated her but that.
Many other things passed through my mind during the months I stayed in Egypt to learn Arabic. I found myself thinking that a man must have some sort of religion, and I was more impressed by the effect of Islam on the lives of Muslims, a certain nobility of purpose and largesse of soul, than I had ever been by any other religions or even atheisms effect on its followers. The Muslims seemed to have more than we did.
Christianity had its good points to be sure, but they seemed mixed with confusions, and I found myself more and more inclined to look to Islam for their fullest and most perfect expression. The first question we had memorized from our early catechism had been Why were you created? to which the correct answer was "to know, love, and serve God". When I reflected on those around me, I realized that Islam seemed to furnish the most comprehensive and understandable way to practice this on a daily basis.
As for the inglorious political fortunes of the Muslims today, I did not feel these to be a reproach against Islam, or to relegate it to an inferior position in a natural order of world ideologies, but rather saw them as a low phase in a larger cycle of history. Foreign hegemony over Muslim lands had been witnessed before in the thorough going destruction of Islamic civilization in the thirteenth century by the Mongol horde, who razed cities and built pyramids of human heads from the steppes of Central Asia to the Muslim heartlands, after which the fullness of destiny brought forth the Ottoman Empire to raise the Word of Allah and make it a vibrant political reality that endured for centuries. It was now, I reflected, merely the turn of contemporary Muslims to strive for a new historic crystallization of Islam, something one might well aspire to share in.
When a friend in Cairo one day asked me, Why don't you become a Muslim?, I found that God had created within me a desire to belong to this religion, which so enriches its followers, from the simplest hearts to the most magisterial intellects. It is not through an act of the mind or will that anyone becomes a Muslim, but rather through the mercy of God, and this, in the final analysis, was what brought me to Islam in Cairo in 1977.
Is it not time that the hearts of those who believe should be humbled to the Remembrance of God and the Truth which He has sent down, and that they should not be as those to whom the Book was given aforetime, and the term seemed over long to them, so that their hearts have become hard, and many of them are ungodly? Know that God revives the earth after it was dead. We have indeed made clear for you the signs, that haply you will understand. (Koran 57:16-17)
©Nuh Ha Mim Keller
http://www.whyislam.org/BecomingMuslimbyNuhHaMimKeller/tabid/306/Default.aspx
 




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[ALOCHONA] Violation of human rights in police custody rampant



Violation of human rights in police custody rampant


Md Abdul Kader, a student of Dhaka University,was too injured to move alone because of police torture and he had to beproduced before a High Court bench on a wheel chair on July 28.In the court, Kader described how police tortured himbrutally in custody, violating human rights (HR).


In fact, violation of human rights in police custody hasbecome a regular phenomenon in the country, ignoring a HC judgment passed eightyears ago. The constitutional and the international covenantal safeguards toprevent torture are also being violated in the police custody, according tolegal experts.Experts blamed the high ups of the state for consideringthemselves above law and such disregard for law is slowly leading the countryto a failed state.


Under Section 167 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC),police take accused persons under its custody to extract information. Due toabuse of the law, the detained persons fall victim to physical and mentaltorture in custody. Many died failing to bear the torture.


Ain O Shalish Kendra (ASK), a human rights body, recordedthe death of 68 persons in jail custody in 2008, 58 in 2009 and 20 in 2010.


According to Odhikar, another human rights body, 852 personsdied at the hand of law enforcers from January, 2004 to May, 2010. Of them, 420persons died under police custody and 364 under RAB custody. They died incrossfire, encounter and police custody, said Odhikar report.


It also recorded 84 deaths in custody in the first sixmonths of this year. Of them, 61 persons died in jail. A sick 18- month oldchild was also kept with her mother in prison, where she died within 12 daysdue to lack of treatment. Nine persons were allegedly tortured to death bypolice during the period, Odhikar report said.


To stop any torture or degrading treatment in policecustody, the HC in a landmark verdict on April 7, 2003 gave 15-pointdirections, ordering to interrogate detainees in glass-partitioned room inpresence of their lawyers and relatives so that they can see what is happeninginside, said concerned lawyers.Until such rooms are constructed, they (detainees) wouldhave to be interrogated in a room of jail, the judgment said.


A HC bench comprising Justice Md Hamidul Haque and JusticeSalma Masud Chowdhury delivered the judgment upon a Public Interest Litigation(PIL) filed by Bangladesh Legal Aid and Services Trust (BLAST) and others inNovember 1998.

The judgment found two sections of CrPC regarding arrest andinterrogation inconsistent with the constitution. It directed to bring somerecommended changes to the law within six months and implement the 15-pointdirectives immediately.


Later, the government appealed against the judgment andsecured stay on operation of the recommendation, not the 15-point directions.As a result, the directions remain in force, Advocate Md Idrisur Rahman, one ofthe lawyers for the petitioners in the case, said.


The Appellate Division of the Supreme Court (SC) ordered thegovernment to carry out the 15-point directions literally, Advocate Rahmanadded.Unfortunately, the directions have remained ignored for thelast eight years depriving the people of justice ensured by the higher courtand giving a chance for police to torture people in custody, said IdrisurRahman.


When contacted last week, Home Secretary Abdus SobhanSikder, one of the respondents directed to comply with the directions, saiddetainees are not interrogated inside the jail, rather outside places includingpolice stations. Some of them are quizzed at the gate of jail only when courtsordered to do so, he added.


However, the home secretary could not confirm whether anyglass-walled house was built in the country.

According to the directives, remanded persons must bechecked before and after interrogation to know their physical condition. If anyevidence of torture was found, magistrates will take legal action againstconcerned police members under section 330 of Penal Code.


A study by BLAST in 2007 revealed that all the 17magistrates interviewed said police normally never submit such medicalcertificates.Torture in police custody is violation of not only the HCdirections but also the human rights protected in Article 35 of the country'sconstitution and some international covenants, which the government ratifiedand obliged to follow.


The international HR safeguards include Article 5 of UnitedNations Declaration of Human Rights (UNDHR), Article 7 of InternationalCovenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and UN Convention againstTorture and other Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment (UNCAT).


Advocate Dr Shahdeen Malik said the accused including thelawyers were regularly being tortured and also killed in police custody intotal disregard of the 2003 judgment, the constitution and laws.Mentioning recommendation of a minister to issue drivinglicense without examination, Dr Shahdeen Malik said, "When the stateconsiders itself above law, the society becomes lawless." The lawenforcers are left with nothing to do when the society and the policy makersdon't abide by law, he added.


"With continuous disobeying of law, the country isclearly and may be slowly moving to a failed one," Dr Malik added.

Advocate Idrisur Rahman said police were abusing the section167 of CrPC at will. Firstly the magistrates violated the HC directions indelivering remand-related orders, he said, stressing on a joint effort of thegovernment, law enforcers and judges for implementing the directions properlyin the interest of the people.


Chairman of National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) Prof DrMizanur Rahman appearing before a HC bench on July 28 said the incident oftorture on DU student Abdul Kadar was an example of the nature and behaviour oflaw enforcing agencies and their treatment in custody.


During hearing on Kadar's bail petition at a Dhaka judge court recently, former Law Minister Advocate AbdulMatin Khasru MP said police dress didn't suit to the miscreants (torturerpolice members).

http://thenewnationbd.com/newsdetails.aspx?newsid=15151



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[ALOCHONA] Memory lane: TFI statements



Memory lane: Sheikh Selim and Obaidul Kader in TFI statements



http://www.dailynayadiganta.com/2007/06/01/fullnews.asp?News_ID=25065&sec=1
www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOnOgnO-NAI
www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlbN1b5POww
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSDSZNIO2GI
http://www.sonarbangladesh.com/blog/hassan/57857
http://www.thedailystar.net/2007/06/03/d7060301033.htm
http://bangladesh-web.com/view.php?hidRecord=252204


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[ALOCHONA] Re: Successful ministers.....



Samakal report:

http://www.samakal.com.bd/details.php?news=13&action=main&option=single&news_id=184662&pub_no=789

Bangladesh Protidin report:

http://www.bd-pratidin.com/?view=details&type=gold&data=Emirates&pub_no=475&cat_id=1&menu_id=1&news_type_id=1&index=6




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Re: [mukto-mona] An article for your review



  • USSR (although a union of soviet "socialist" republics) was a communist country. China, Vietnam, North Korea, Cuba, etc. are communist countries. At least they love to be known by this term. European socialist economies are not socialist countries in Marxian sense.
  • Amartya Sen has recently opined that Marx and Mao have not lost irrelevance yet. Prof. Sugata Basu (a professor of a great university) has expressed similar opinion.
  • We need both theoreticians and theorists. We must not be critical of them. They have the ability to see the big picture if they have not been sold out sectarian politics. They use theoretical frameworks to understand the complex economies (both national and world). That's why some are Keynesians, some are neo-Keynesians, some are monetarists, and so on. Even politicians belong to one of these groups.
  • Neither communism/socialism nor capitalism/free econmies have done perfectly well. Things are still evolving. Imperialism, social imperialism, globalization---all are now great subjects of debate.
  • Being the CEO of a corporation and the CEO of a country are two different things. CEO of a corporation needs a narrow mission, narrow vision, and narrow goals.  All have to be profit oriented. The great leader of a great country must have broad outlook.     

From: Jiten Roy <jnrsr53@yahoo.com>
To: mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Saturday, August 20, 2011 6:44 PM
Subject: Re: [mukto-mona] An article for your review
 
Correct me if I am wrong, Karl Marx devised the theory of Communism. This theory is too abstract to implement, like asking someone to draw a perfect straight line without a ruler. So, Lenin introduced a derivative of Communism, which is known as Socialism. I am correct? 
 
Jiten Roy
--- On Sat, 8/20/11, Sankar Kumar Ray <sankarray62@rediffmail.com> wrote:

From: Sankar Kumar Ray <sankarray62@rediffmail.com>
Subject: Re: [mukto-mona] An article for your review
To: "mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com" <mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com>
Date: Saturday, August 20, 2011, 10:21 AM

 
It's a very well-written piece and should be widely circulated.
However, I disagree with the point that socialism has failed. Socialism which Marx enunciated is very different from what was tried out. Among the rarely-erudite scholars on Marx and Marxism who stated ingenuously that the drift began with Lenin is Prof Paresh Chattopadhyay of the University of Quebec. Therefore, it's not ethical to blame socialism. 
Sankar Ray From: Jiten Roy <jnrsr53@yahoo.com>Sent: Fri, 12 Aug 2011 06:54:57 To: guhasb@gmail.com, pradipkar@msn.com, karmakarsachin@yahoo.com, ashokkarmaker@gmail.com, kumarbh@hotmail.com, Devabrata.Mondal@liu.edu, mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com, chitipatra2001@yahoo.com, provatdas@yahoo.com, bithi16@yahoo.com, tapashroyk@yahoo.com, samir_sarkar@hotmail.com, sarkerhp@comcast.net, samirnirmala@aol.com, Sathi.Roy91@yahoo.com, sdas1357@hotmail.com, subain@aol.com, swapanperis@yahoo.com, lalhgehi@yahoo.com, unitedminorities@yahoogroups.comSubject: [mukto-mona] An article for your review 
Please click on the link below to review the article I posted on the web:
 
 
Your comments will be highly appreciated.
 
Thanks.
 
Jiten Roy
 
Treat yourself at a restaurant, spa, resort and much more with Rediff Deal ho jaye!


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Mukto Mona plans for a Grand Darwin Day Celebration: 
Call For Articles:

http://mukto-mona.com/wordpress/?p=68

http://mukto-mona.com/banga_blog/?p=585

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               -Beatrice Hall [pseudonym: S.G. Tallentyre], 190




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Re: [mukto-mona] An article for your review



Correct me if I am wrong, Karl Marx devised the theory of Communism. This theory is too abstract to implement, like asking someone to draw a perfect straight line without a ruler. So, Lenin introduced a derivative of Communism, which is known as Socialism. I am correct? 

 
Jiten Roy

--- On Sat, 8/20/11, Sankar Kumar Ray <sankarray62@rediffmail.com> wrote:

From: Sankar Kumar Ray <sankarray62@rediffmail.com>
Subject: Re: [mukto-mona] An article for your review
To: "mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com" <mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com>
Date: Saturday, August 20, 2011, 10:21 AM

 
It's a very well-written piece and should be widely circulated.
However, I disagree with the point that socialism has failed. Socialism which Marx enunciated is very different from what was tried out. Among the rarely-erudite scholars on Marx and Marxism who stated ingenuously that the drift began with Lenin is Prof Paresh Chattopadhyay of the University of Quebec. Therefore, it's not ethical to blame socialism. 
Sankar Ray 

From: Jiten Roy <jnrsr53@yahoo.com>
Sent: Fri, 12 Aug 2011 06:54:57
To: guhasb@gmail.com, pradipkar@msn.com, karmakarsachin@yahoo.com, ashokkarmaker@gmail.com, kumarbh@hotmail.com, Devabrata.Mondal@liu.edu, mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com, chitipatra2001@yahoo.com, provatdas@yahoo.com, bithi16@yahoo.com, tapashroyk@yahoo.com, samir_sarkar@hotmail.com, sarkerhp@comcast.net, samirnirmala@aol.com, Sathi.Roy91@yahoo.com, sdas1357@hotmail.com, subain@aol.com, swapanperis@yahoo.com, lalhgehi@yahoo.com, unitedminorities@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [mukto-mona] An article for your review
 
Please click on the link below to review the article I posted on the web:
 
 
Your comments will be highly appreciated.
 
Thanks.
 
Jiten Roy
 


Treat yourself at a restaurant, spa, resort and much more with Rediff Deal ho jaye!


__._,_.___


****************************************************
Mukto Mona plans for a Grand Darwin Day Celebration: 
Call For Articles:

http://mukto-mona.com/wordpress/?p=68

http://mukto-mona.com/banga_blog/?p=585

****************************************************

VISIT MUKTO-MONA WEB-SITE : http://www.mukto-mona.com/

****************************************************

"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it".
               -Beatrice Hall [pseudonym: S.G. Tallentyre], 190




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[ALOCHONA] CNN Report on Bangladesh

Terrorism and politics in the name of Islam and role of media: Bangladesh Perspective



CNN producer note

iReport —

Bangladesh is a moderate Muslim country and notwithstanding majority Muslim populations, they are not communal instead, citizens have shown a fierce dedication to their democratic government despite several attempts to install an autocratic one. Religion based politics had been banned by the founder of Bangladesh Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. Mass peoples from all corners congratulated it whole-heartedly.
Religion based politics

After the assassination of Bangabandhu, Zia, the martial law administrator permitted religion based politics to ease his political path to attain power. Golam Azam, Ameer of Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami returned from Pakistan in 1978. It is to be noted that, Jamaat-e-Islami leaders' involvement in war crimes and crimes against humanity has been recorded in many books, journals and periodicals since the liberation of Bangladesh. They are the hatred group for common people. The military rulers have used Islam to promote their reign.
Jamaat-e-Islami and Chhatra Shibir

The Islami Chhatra Shibir is the student wing of the Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh, in fact it's a militant group also directly funded by Jamaat-e-Islami. It has also been linked to several larger terrorist organizations. Many officials and news sources allege that the group is nothing more than a recruiting ground for Bangladeshi terrorist groups such as Harakat ul-Jihad-i-Islami and Jamatul Mujahedin, As a front for Jamaat-e-Islami terrorist operations they have shown no hesitation to use violence to further its aims. This increasingly religious tenor of public and political communication has been widely recognized the rise of Jamaat as influential Islamist party in Bangladesh.
Nationalist BNP with Islamist Jaamat

BNP one of the mainstream political party formed 4-party alliance, led by Mrs Khaleda, only to win the election and attain power, and was succeeded. Though it has been criticized from many corners but probably no one could have thought that JI would be the monster child of terrorism. Moreover the small group of JI influenced BNP to run the govt.
Terrorist activities of Jaamat, BNP is also liable:

Acts like the 17th August 2005 serial bombings, consisting of nearly 400 instantaneous bombs in all but one district in Bangladesh is not one example. Actual fact is since 2002 four assassination attempts have been made on Sheikh Hasina's life. At first at Naogaon on 4 March 2002, second on 29 August 2003 at Satkhira, third on 26 February 2004 at Barisal Ferryghat and the next on 2 April at Gournadi. On every occasion proper attention of the government was drawn and protection sought. Almost invariably armed cadres of BNP-Jamaat were involved in these attacks. On 5 July 2004 when she was on tour at Istanbul in Turkey she was threatened on telephone both at Istanbul and at Dhaka. 21st August Grenade attack on the then opposion party was The most violent attack and the culmination of all these incidents and it happened in broad daylight in the presence of hundreds of security personnel and in a crowded public rally. Though attacks to date have focused on transforming domestic politics, reports abound of connections between Bangladeshi Islamist militants and foreign terrorist groups and criminal syndicates, such as Harakatul Jihad al-Islami in Pakistan, or gang lord Dawood Ibrahim's infamous "D-Company," believed responsible for the 1993 bombings in Mumbai.
Global Impact

The emergence of groups like Harakatul Jihad al-Islami Bangladesh, Jamatul Mujahedeen Bangladesh, Jagrata Muslim Janata Bangladesh, Ahl-e-Hadith Andolon Bangladesh—which occurred after the return of Bangladeshi mujahedeen from the Afghan wars—infused political violence in Bangladesh with the language of jihad and tactics borrowed from terrorist groups abroad.

New York based Bangladesh Human Rights Watch has urged Dr. Condoleeza Rice, US Department of State, UN Secretary Kofi Anan and former Prime Minister Mrs Khaleda to ban & enlist Jamaat-e-Islami as a terror network outfit in a letter on 23 December 2005.

News reports of the capture of active militants with arms caches hidden in schools and connections to regional and international criminal and terrorist organizations suggest that the threat is clear, present and cannot be neglected. No action was taken. But

The secular opposition Awami League (AL) was/is the primary target of Islamic extremists. In August 2004, Islamic militants tried to assassinate AL opposition leader Sheikh Hasina at a political rally. AL politician Ivy Rehman was killed in a grenade attack along with twenty others, and hundreds of people were injured. In January 2005, a grenade attack on an AL rally killed a former finance minister, his nephew, and three AL activists."Date: 1/10/2007, Bluma Zuckerbrot-Finkelstein is a consultant and freelance writer on international terrorism. She is a lecturer at the University of Memphis. She is the editor of Counterterrorism Watch.]

http://www.ajc.org/site/apps/nlnet/content3.aspx?c=ijITI2PHKoG&b=3133321&ct=3420321
Major Terrorist Attacks in Bangladesh: 2005-06

1. January 27, 2005: A grenade attack in Hobijong killed Awami League member of Parliament and former finance minister Shah AMS Kibria.
2. August 17, 2005: JMB militants set off nearly 500 small bombs across Bangladesh that killed two people and injured 100 others.
3. October 3, 2005: Suspected JMB militants killed two people and wounded fifteen when they hurled five bombs at court buildings in three districts outside Dhaka.
4. November 14, 2005: A JMB/JMJB bomb attack on a minibus taking judges to work killed two judges.
5. November 29, 2005: JMB attacks on two Bangladeshi courthouses in Chittagong and Gazipur, killing nine people.
6. December 1, 2005: A suspected JMB suicide bomber killed one person and injured ten others in Gazipur.
7. December 8, 2005: In the central Bangladeshi town of Netrokona, a JMB suicide bomber killed eight people and wounded 50.

Role of Awami League Govt:

Present Awami League Govt. has elected with immense mandate from the people and punishment of war crime criminal and support to combat against terrorism etc were their electoral promise. This situates the threat in the midst of complex political and social challenges, the relationship among which should be reflected in strategies to counter such violence by the government of Bangladesh and its international partners. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina expressed her deep concern to ensure a terrorism-free arena and to provide all necessary supports to stop terrorism. However, they can't deny that we have been unable in three decades of activity to develop a substantial mainstream constituency against Jamaat, or more militant groups outside the political system, can pose a significant challenge to secular governments branded as corrupt, self-serving and unable to provide for citizens' basic needs in Bangladesh.

Bangladesh is shaped by a number of positive trends but threats like terrorism and violent religious radicalization, a strong sense from mass people and supports from different international platform is a must.
Being Global

The counterterrorism discourse and policies developed by international partners often focus on "hard security" aspects. However, as the UN's Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy, passed by the General Assembly in 2006, points out, a number of development-related issues contribute to "conditions conducive to the spread of terrorism." Support for improved governance and the rule of law or justice-sector reform, such as looking at prison conditions and interrogation techniques, is usually classed as development assistance, even though these are vital foundations for building state capacity to address security threats like terrorism.

Probably it won't sound wrong if I say Bangladesh Govt will provide all supports to it. But the relevant component can't be ignored.
Pakistan ISI and Role of Media

We find two different types of role of media. One is biased, double standard, another is transparent.

It is known to all that Jamaat-E-Islami is just simply a wing of Pakistan Intelligence ISI. Pakistan Defense treated JMB as terrorist groups.

Pakistan about JMB

* "When Islamic terrorist groups, some linked to major political parties, were running riot. Then, the Bangla Bhai-led Jagrata Muslim Janata Bangladesh (JMJB), a breakaway faction of the Jamat ul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), set off 50 simultaneous bomb blasts in each of the outlying districts in 2005, assassinated judges and threatened to impose Shariah law. Bangladesh became not only a sanctuary for northeast Indian groups like ULFA, but also a base for Pakistani terrorist organizations like the Lashkar-e-Taiba." http://www.defence.pk/forums/bangladesh-defence/93494-bangladeshs-war-terror.html

Jamate Islami as Extremist by Pakistan Defense

* The new political scenario seriously threatens the nation's secular polity and opens the vast political space to Islamist forces. This is because most Islamist politicians, particularly those of the Jamaat-e-Islami -, are free after 13 weeks of a nationwide drive by the Ahmed regime against crime, corruption and religious extremism. There seems a clear lack of will to touch political activists wedded to religion. http://www.defence.pk/forums/world-affairs/4747-behind-facade-bangladesh-treading-pakistans-path.html

View on Election 2008:

* Khaleda repeatedly invoked Islam, requesting that the voters vote BNP into power to "save Islam" and "save the country". It is believed that this kind of negativity and cynicism is what has been punished by the voters. The near wipe-out of the Jamaat-e-Islami in the party's worst election showing since independence also lends credence to the notion that the voters, although religiously observant themselves, have totally rejected the misuse of religion for political purposes. http://www.defence.pk/forums/bangladesh-defence/18824-news-bangladesh.html

Pakistan Defense's Present Stand:

* Defence of Pakistan treats all terrorist groups as nationalist force. http://www.defence.pk/forums/bangladesh-defence/30992-awami-league-leads-bangladesh-towards-chaos-failure-violence.html

What happened that they changed their stand!

* Civil War: Can Bangladesh survive another Awami League dictatorship. http://www.daily.pk/civil-war-can-bangladesh-survive-another-awami-league-dictatorship-18718/
* Briefing on Bangladesh Jamaat e Islami's Current Situation: http://muslimmedianetwork.com/mmn/?p=6915
* Ultra-Secularist Government's All-Out Systematic Attack in a Bid to Ban Jamaat & Execute its Top Leaders: http://www.defence.pk/forums/bangladesh-defence/121366-war-crime-charges-against-bangladesh-jamaat-e-islami-leader.html
* Pakistan is very upset about War crime charges against Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami leader : http://tribune.com.pk/story/208019/war-crime-charges-against-bangladesh-jamaat-e-islami-leader/

Propaganda Against Awami League : Certainly Jamat will be benefited

* Digital Terrorism: http://www.defence.pk/forums/bangladesh-defence/52281-awami-league-digital-terrorism-2.html

False Reports

* Violent Secularization: `Minority Islam' in Muslim Majority Bangladesh: http://www.defence.pk/forums/bangladesh-defence/66909-awami-league-imposing-hindu-dominance-over-muslim-majority-population.html
* Bangladesh Ban On Religion-Based Politics: Reviving The Secular Character Of The Constitution. http://www.irs.org.pk/PublSpotLight.htm

Interestingly the Pakistan media got afraid in 2007 and published a false report

* Awami League scraps deal with Islamic grouphttp://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2007%5C02%5C14%5Cstory_14-2-2007_pg4_19

The ECONOMIST: How come their reports are same as Pakistani media!

London based weekly has created a sign for them of yellow journalism. Daily Pakistan, Pakistan Defense and Extremist Islamist groups all of them are inter-connected. They are worried about Jaamat-E-Islami, writing against father of the nation of Bangladesh, publishing baseless, false and biased reports. Pakistan Defense is also republishing the same articles! Amazing! One may doubt to mark the reports as misinformation or disinformation!
Whats Global's View

USA

Prime Minister Hasina has sought to increase Bangladesh's presence on the world stage. As leader of one of the countries most vulnerable to climate change, Hasina has been a vocal advocate for mitigation and adaptation by both developed and developing countries, aligning with the Copenhagen Accord in January 2010. In a sharp change from previous administrations, her government has actively confronted violent extremist groups to deny space to terrorist networks and activities within its borders. The simultaneous elections of the Awami League and the Congress Party in India set the stage for renewed bilateral talks between the countries, an atmosphere which has been improved by counterterrorism cooperation. http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/3452.htm

http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/3452.htm

UK

One example of the BNP's political allies is the JI. The JI openly supports the Pakistani military and is alleged to have been involved in massacres and targeted killings of various intellectuals in Dhaka, as well as other acts of terrorism. http://www.global-politics.co.uk/issue%203/Bangladesh.htm

http://www.global-politics.co.uk/issue%203/Bangladesh.htm

USA about Khaleda Zia

The center-right BNP won a plurality of seats and formed a government with support from the Islamic fundamentalist party Jamaat-I-Islami, with Khaleda Zia, widow of Ziaur Rahman, obtaining the post of prime minister.

http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/3452.htm

TERRORISM IN BANGLADESH – Monster Child of BNP – JAMAAT:

http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/%5Cpapers36%5Cpaper3509.html
FBI Arrested Pakistani in connection to attack US Embassy, Dhaka

"Immediately following the arrests of David Coleman Headley, born as Dawood Gilani, and Tawahur Hossain Rana, a Pakistan born Canadian citizen, by the FBI in early November in the USA, the Bangladeshi security and counter-terrorism agencies moved to arrest three Lashkar-e-Taiba (LET) activists who were planning to attack the Indian High Commission and the US Embassy in Dhaka." http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/%5Cpapers36%5Cpaper3509.html
Credentials of Bangladesh

Rise of Islamic terrorism in Bangladesh is nothing new. A steady growth in the strength of extremists was mostly due to the patronage by successive governments, after 1975. The fundamentalists grasp over the government became so strong that they became dominant role-player of Khaleda government.

Bangladesh has become the ultimate goal for terrorists from Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Chechnya. Death of Bangla Bhai (JMB) had concealed many information about involved key-figures. Political and economic backwardness has provided ample space for the rise of Islamic extremism but its also true that Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is trying her best to build a developed and non-communal country. Now Sheikh Hasina is the only alternative of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. We hope international media would be more transparent regarding these issues.

* Tags:
* bnp,
* isi,
* fundamentalist,
* bangladesh,
* sheikh-hasina,
* khaleda-zia,
* pakistan,
* jaamat-e-islami,
* islamist-terrorism

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* CNN iReport University

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Click to view ahJewel's profile ahJewel
5 hours ago

Probably he wrote ab8 Faruq/Rashid.

When a state patronizes a criminal 4 vested interest what others can do.

Whatever u inspired me to write a report on terrorist activities of Jaamat-Shibir.

Stay tuned...

Coming soooon.
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Click to view ThirdEye71's profile ThirdEye71
12 hours ago

James F Moriaty was not killer of Bangabandhu but he met Jamat leaders hundreds time during his time in bangladesh.So not sure what you tried to mean by saying ""One example is enough.

Killers of Bangabandhu was appointed as diplomat.

So they were regarded as diplomat."
Read more …

James F Moriaty was not killer of Bangabandhu but he met Jamat leaders hundreds time during his time in bangladesh.So not sure what you tried to mean by saying ""One example is enough.

Killers of Bangabandhu was appointed as diplomat.

So they were regarded as diplomat."


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Click to view ThirdEye71's profile ThirdEye71
12 hours ago

CNNDhaka

"One example is enough.

Killers of Bangabandhu was appointed as diplomat.

So they were regarded as diplomat."

Killers of Bangabandhu.

"The report also mentioned about Pakistan...
Read more …

CNNDhaka

"One example is enough.

Killers of Bangabandhu was appointed as diplomat.

So they were regarded as diplomat."

Killers of Bangabandhu.

"The report also mentioned about Pakistan and Afghanistan. So the photo issue is relevant." - This is an school kid logic who puts pieces from everywhere to make some bullstory.You bring pictures from mars and venus and say ot's your backyard and you want me to eat this crap?


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Click to view CNNDhaka's profile CNNDhaka
12 hours ago

One example is enough.

Killers of Bangabandhu was appointed as diplomat.

So they were regarded as diplomat.

But whats the fact, all knew it.

The report also mentioned about Pakistan and Afghanistan. So the photo issue is relevant.
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Click to view ThirdEye71's profile ThirdEye71
12 hours ago

ahJewel,

Your above 2 pictures (#1 and #3) are not taken from bangaldesh,they are afgan/pakistani pictures and you are running them as bangladeshi pictures,what a damn lie on the ireport presented by you.Shame on you man.
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Click to view ThirdEye71's profile ThirdEye71
13 hours ago

AWAMI LEAGUE VOLTE FACE

The Presidential candidate of the Awami League (in 1991), Justice Badrul Haider Chowhdury met the-then Ameer of Jamaat Professor Ghulam Azam at the latter's residence to seek Jamaat's votes and his blessings.

In the 1996 general elections, Professor Ghulam Azam campaigned on behalf of Jamaat all over the...
Read more …

AWAMI LEAGUE VOLTE FACE

The Presidential candidate of the Awami League (in 1991), Justice Badrul Haider Chowhdury met the-then Ameer of Jamaat Professor Ghulam Azam at the latter's residence to seek Jamaat's votes and his blessings.

In the 1996 general elections, Professor Ghulam Azam campaigned on behalf of Jamaat all over the country. No allegations were made against Jamaat during that hustings. Awami League obtained parliamentary majority in 1996 June election largely on account of fielding of separate Jamaat candidates in all constituencies. In 1991, an influential member of the Awami League Presidium representing Sheikh Hasina sought the support of Jamaat to form a coalition government in exchange for three ministries and seven reserved women's seats for Jamaat. Since Jamaat did not respond to that proposal, Awami League was alienated. Thereafter, Jamaat formed the 4-party alliance with BNP to move against the misdeeds and undemocratic measures of the Awami League Government elected in 1996. The Awami League is under the impression that it would not have been possible for the 4-party alliance to build a movement and public opinion against the Awami League without the participation of Jamaat. In 2001, BNP and Jamaat formed an electoral alliance in filing candidates, and the alliance obtained more than two-thirds majority. Therefore, as a stratagem to break that alliance, the war crimes issue has been projected and a virulent campaign started against Jamaat-e-Islami.


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Click to view ThirdEye71's profile ThirdEye71
13 hours ago

ISLAMIC POLITICS TARGETED

The truth is, a certain group of people have brought up the issue of war crimes to discredit Jamaat and Jamaat leaders and to suppress Islamic politics. Not only Jamaat-e-Islami, but also other Islamic parties, organisations and personalities are being targeted by this group of people. So far they have failed in their ill motives to defame Jamaat by falsely implicating the...
Read more …

ISLAMIC POLITICS TARGETED

The truth is, a certain group of people have brought up the issue of war crimes to discredit Jamaat and Jamaat leaders and to suppress Islamic politics. Not only Jamaat-e-Islami, but also other Islamic parties, organisations and personalities are being targeted by this group of people. So far they have failed in their ill motives to defame Jamaat by falsely implicating the latter in corruption, terrorism and politics of violence. Indeed, Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami is a party devoted to democracy and Islam. By the grace of Allah, and by consensus of the people of Bangladesh, (peace-loving) Islamic orientation of politics is now a decisive factor in Bangladesh.

People of this country are aware that in the case of citizenship of Professor Ghulam Azam, former Ameer of Jamaat-e-Islami, the then Attorney General as the leading counsel on behalf of the Government placed before the High Court a pile of documents purporting to implicate the-then Jamaat chief with Pakistan Army actions in 1971. The onus of killing, burning and looting by the Pakistan Army was brought to bear on the case.


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Click to view ThirdEye71's profile ThirdEye71
13 hours ago

Jamaat's statement on war crimes

On 14th February 2009 an extended meeting of the Central Executive Committee of Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami was held in its central office at Dhaka. The Ameer of Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami, former Minister Maulana Motiur Rahman Nizami was in the chair. The meeting strongly condemned the smear campaign that...
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Jamaat's statement on war crimes

On 14th February 2009 an extended meeting of the Central Executive Committee of Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami was held in its central office at Dhaka. The Ameer of Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami, former Minister Maulana Motiur Rahman Nizami was in the chair. The meeting strongly condemned the smear campaign that is going on to falsely depict Jamaat leaders as war criminals. The following statement was issued at the meeting:

"Of late the issue of war crimes (of 1971) is being fomented countrywide. A particular quarter is engaged in ceaseless propaganda maligning the leaders of Jamaat-e-Islami as war criminals.

CHARACTER ASSASSINATION CAMPAIGN

No one can have the license to carry on such a misinformation campaign of character assassination. Such foul practice is utter violation of law and objectivity. An emotive issue like war crime is being used as a weapon for political offensive. The purpose is to tarnish the image of Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami and give it a bad name. After 38 years of independence, all sorts of lies are being aired to unjustly implicate Jamaat in war crimes, without any shred of evidence. Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami is a democratic party committed to constitutionalism and constructive politics. In view of the fact that the architect of national independence and head of government of post-liberation Bangladesh, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman himself disposed of the war crimes issue, and the Collaborators Act 1972 has also been repealed, the attempt to revive the issue is malafide and politically motivated. The war criminals (as defined under international law) were identified and sought to be tried in courts immediately after the war. The scope of trial for any identified and listed war criminal may also arise whenever he is caught if he was absconding. Identified war criminals of World War II evaded justice as fugitives for many years but were brought to book when exposed. In other words, runagates accused of war crimes faced delayed trial.


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Click to view ThirdEye71's profile ThirdEye71
13 hours ago

Jamaat was not alone to support Pakistan

Jamaat is not the only political party which supported the cause of united Pakistan. There were other parties namely, the Muslim League, Nezam-e-Islam Party, Jamiyat Ulema Islam, the Pro China Communist Party all of which supported the cause of united Pakistan. Besides, there was a sizeable member...
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Jamaat was not alone to support Pakistan

Jamaat is not the only political party which supported the cause of united Pakistan. There were other parties namely, the Muslim League, Nezam-e-Islam Party, Jamiyat Ulema Islam, the Pro China Communist Party all of which supported the cause of united Pakistan. Besides, there was a sizeable member of prominent personalities which include university professors, doctors, engineers, journalists and religious leaders who supported the cause of united Pakistan. Although Jamaat accepted Bangladesh since 16th December 1971 and it has been working for the welfare of Bangladesh and is committed to preserve its sovereignty, it has been singled out and a smear campaign has been going on against it only for the narrow political gains of certain political parties. When the sub-continent was divided into two states; India and Pakistan in 1947, the Muslim League was in favour of the division of India and the Congress was for the unity of India. After partition the Muslim League has been functioning in India and the National Congress worked as a political party until 1970 without any stigma. However, it is unfortunate that after 36 years of independence Jamaat is dubbed as an anti liberation force although it has been sufficiently represented in Parliament and had two ministers in the past coalition government.


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Click to view ThirdEye71's profile ThirdEye71
13 hours ago

The Awami League was in power for two terms: from 1972-1975 and 1996-2001. During these two terms they took no step whatsoever for the trial of the leaders of Jamaat-e-Islami on the allegation of the so-called war crime. During the mass movement for restoration of democracy in the 1980s and during the movement for Caretaker Government in the 1990s, the Awami League had no difficulty in working side by side...
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The Awami League was in power for two terms: from 1972-1975 and 1996-2001. During these two terms they took no step whatsoever for the trial of the leaders of Jamaat-e-Islami on the allegation of the so-called war crime. During the mass movement for restoration of democracy in the 1980s and during the movement for Caretaker Government in the 1990s, the Awami League had no difficulty in working side by side with Jamaat leaders who are now accused of war crimes. In the 7 years of struggle for restoration of democracy, numerous meetings were held between the leaders of Jamaat, BNP and Awami League in which Jamaat leaders namely Matiur Rahman Nizami, Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujahid, Mohammad Qamaruzzaman, Abdul Qader Molla, ATM Azharul Islam and others participated. On behalf of Awami League Messers late Abdus Samad Azad, Abdul Jalil, Tofail Ahmed, Suranjit Sen Gupta, Amir Hossain Amu Mohammad Nasim and others also participated. The evidence of those meetings can be found in the press reports of the years from the 1984-1990. After the general elections of 1991, on behalf of Awami League, Mr. Amir Hossain Amu made an offer to Jamaat through Mr Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujahid, the present Secretary General of Jamaat to form government with the help of 18 MPs of Jamaat and in return Jamaat was offered 2-3 ministries with a number of seats reserved for women MPs. Jamaat straightway refused the offer of Awami League. During the movement for caretaker government the leaders of Jamaat and Awami League addressed press conferences jointly. In one press conference, addressed from the precinct of Parliament House in 1996, the then leader of the Opposition Sheikh Hasina, the leader of the Jamaat Parliamentary party Matiur Rahman Nizami and that of Jatiya Party Moudud Ahmed, attended. This Press conference was also attended, among others, by Mrs. Sajeda Chaudhury, Mr. Suranjit Sen Gupta. The national dailies published photographs of that event.


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Click to view ThirdEye71's profile ThirdEye71
13 hours ago

As mentioned earlier, Jamaat believes in democracy, human rights and rule of law. In the later part of 2005, a series of bomb blasts took place in Bangladesh. The terrorists in the name of Islam also killed two judges of the Subordinate court. The Opponents of Jamaat made frantic efforts to implicate Jamaat in the terrorist attacks. Jamaat took a firm stand against those terrorists, issued press statements,...
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As mentioned earlier, Jamaat believes in democracy, human rights and rule of law. In the later part of 2005, a series of bomb blasts took place in Bangladesh. The terrorists in the name of Islam also killed two judges of the Subordinate court. The Opponents of Jamaat made frantic efforts to implicate Jamaat in the terrorist attacks. Jamaat took a firm stand against those terrorists, issued press statements, organised meetings and rallies across the country. It is largely due to Jamaat's sincere efforts that the religious leaders of the country throughout Bangladesh – from the villages to the capital city- in one voice condemned those acts of terrorism. With public support the then coalition government was able to arrest the terrorists and try them in open court and finally they have been sentenced to death.

Allegations of war crimes against Jamaat leaders On 16th December 1971, the Pakistani Army surrendered in Dhaka and ninety three thousand of them were taken as prisoners of war (POWs). Out of them, there were allegations of war crimes against 195, and they were identified as such by the Government of Bangladesh. On 19th July 1973, Parliament passed the International Crimes (Tribunal) Act 1973 to try the alleged war criminals. Earlier on 15th July 1973, the Constitution was amended denying the protection of fundamental rights to the alleged war criminals.

Following the Simla Agreement signed on 2nd July 1972 between Indira Gandhi, Prime Minister of India and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, President of Pakistan a number of agreements were signed between India and Pakistan regarding repatriation of the POWs. On 9th April 1974, an Agreement was signed between Bangladesh, India and Pakistan in New Delhi in which, among other issues, the question of trial of the 195 POWs was raised and finally it was decided that they would be repatriated to Pakistan along with the other prisoners without trial. For better understanding, paragraph 15 of the 1974 Agreement is quoted below:

`In the light of the foregoing and, in particular, having regard to the appeal of the Prime Minister of Pakistan to the people of Bangladesh to forgive and forget the mistakes of the past, the Foreign Minister of Bangladesh stated that the Government of Bangladesh had decided not to proceed with the trials as an act of clemency. It was agreed that the 195 prisoners of war may be repatriated to Pakistan along with the other prisoners of war now in process of repatriation under the Delhi Agreement'.

Thus 195 POWs were repatriated to Pakistan, and the question of their trial as war criminals was finally abandoned.

It should be mentioned that under the International Crimes (Tribunal) Act, 1973 the Tribunal has jurisdiction to try and punish the persons who were members of any armed, defense or auxiliary forces and has committed war crimes or crimes against humanity. No one from Jamaat has ever been a member of armed, defense or auxiliary forces, therefore, the question of trying them by the Tribunal does not arise. As a matter of fact a Tribunal formed under the War Crimes Act will have no jurisdiction to try any member of Jamaat. Allegations are frequently made against Jamaat that it organised paramilitary forces like Al-Badr, Al-Shamas and Razakar and committed atrocities in the war of independence in 1971. Jamaat strongly denies any link with such atrocities. In those days the paramilitary forces were organised locally by the then Government under a provincial legislation, namely the Razakar Act 1971 and it had no central command. Jammat also denies any involvement whatsoever with the abduction and murder of journalists and academics. One member of Jamaat, Abdul Khalique Mojumder, was prosecuted and convicted by a subordinate court in the seventies for his alleged involvement in the killing of an intellectual namely Shahidullah Kaiser, but his conviction had been set aside by the High Court. The government did not file any appeal in the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court against the judgment of the High Court Division.

It is true that the then Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh supported the cause of united Pakistan. It was Jamaat's political decision. No member of Jamaat was ever involved with any crime of murder, arson, loot let alone any crime against humanity. The Bangladesh Collaborators (Special Tribunals) Order, 1972 was promulgated to set up tribunals for trial of the individuals or members of organisations who directly or indirectly acted as collaborators or abettors of the Pakistan Armed forces. This Presidential Order was later repealed by the Bangladesh Collaborators (Special Tribunal) (Repeal) Ordinance, 1975. On 19th July 1973 Parliament passed the International Crimes (Tribunal) Act 1973 by which a legal framework was created to try the war criminals. No member or leader of Jamaat was tried or convicted under this Act. Previously Professor Golam Azam, the ex Ameer (Chief) of Jamaat was accused of committing atrocities durin
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Click to view ThirdEye71's profile ThirdEye71
13 hours ago

ahJewel,

There is nothing to be proved as we can't prove something when jamat affilaition to any terror groups doesn't exist and when US/UK/European high officailas visits Jamat office and attends their programmes which prove it's a legal organization and doesn't promote terrorrism.If Jamat was a terror org,no high offices would have met jamat and would have banned jamat.Luckily US diplomats do not use...
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ahJewel,

There is nothing to be proved as we can't prove something when jamat affilaition to any terror groups doesn't exist and when US/UK/European high officailas visits Jamat office and attends their programmes which prove it's a legal organization and doesn't promote terrorrism.If Jamat was a terror org,no high offices would have met jamat and would have banned jamat.Luckily US diplomats do not use your brain to rule the world else this worlds would have been Hasina's hell and it's rapist and killing forces (it's student's org) hell where no women on the earth would have been saved or spared from raping and then killing.It's not Jamat or Shibir,it's your political party awamileague which is orchestrating violance,killig,raping since 71.Sheikh Hasina want to fulfill her father's desire. . . . Her father wanted to turn Bangladesh into India. . . . . But before his death he kill DEMOCRASY and wanted to ruling by one party. He close many news media, just kept open four newspape which always write in favour of Mujib. . . .one of Mujib son was bank robber, great rappeist. Now Hasian keep own support to new rappeist who rapped a school girl. Mujib always acted as servant of india now Hasina doing it. If we write anything against anything in news media Hasina throw us to jail and ordered police to torture us. There have many stupid people in every locality who torture people who say anything against BAL ( Bangladesh Awami League ) . The present govt. is shameless and so much stupid. They has no any humanity . Everytime they want to hold power as like as Mujib. . . . . As a Bangladeshi I hate there rulers. th he kill DEMOCRASY and wanted to ruling by one party. He close many news media, just kept open four newspape which always write in favour of Mujib. . . .one of Mujib son was bank robber, great rappeist. Now Hasian keep own support to new rappeist who rapped a school girl. Mujib always acted as servant of india now Hasina doing it. If we write anything against anything in news media Hasina throw us to jail and ordered police to torture us. There have many stupid people in every locality who torture people who say anything against BAL ( Bangladesh Awami League which is current govt ) . The present govt. is shameless and so much stupid. They has no any humanity . Everytime they want to hold power as like as Mujib. . . . . As a Bangladeshi I hate there rulers.

Jamat's role in 71 was clear,they didn't want to break pakistan.US also supported Pakistan back then and didn't want to see a divided pakistan.That was a history and people make political decision based on circumstances.and now we can't say if that was a wrong political decision adopted by US and Jamat back then.If you say Jamat was involved in 71 war rapes,tortures ,that is not proven thing on the earth.Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh is a moderate Islamic political party that believes in democracy and human rights. From the early 1960s Jamaat was active against all the autocratic governments. The Awami League was in power for two terms: from 1972-1975 and 1996-2001. During these two terms they took no step whatsoever for the trial of the leaders of Jamaat-e-Islami on the allegation of the so-called war crime. During the mass movement for restoration of democracy in the 1980s and during the movement for Caretaker Government in the 1990s, the Awami League had no difficulty in working side by side with Jamaat leaders. A person is presumed innocent until he is proven guilty. It is really surprising that when the leadership of Jamaat was not listed among the 195 who were to be tried for war crimes, they have now been termed as war criminals. This is a violation the fundamental rights and human rights of the Jamaat leaders.Five Jamat leaders have beeb put behind bar for more than a year,yet Hasina govt and so called war crime investigators are yet to come with any proof of their wrongdoing in 71.If they were really involved it would not have taken more than a year to come up with a single proof.so I must say mr.ah jewel your writing is just a bogus writing and a political speech.
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Click to view ahJewel's profile ahJewel
15 hours ago

PROVE A SINGLE REF FALSE

@ Dear ThirdEye71,

1.

Don't u know the role of Jamat in 71?
2.

Do u disagree with the activities of Jamat Shibir?
3.

Shibir is a listed terrorist org & terrorist connection of Jaamat-e-Islami is well-known.
4.

Who used RAB for killing people? What...

Read more …

PROVE A SINGLE REF FALSE

@ Dear ThirdEye71,

1.

Don't u know the role of Jamat in 71?
2.

Do u disagree with the activities of Jamat Shibir?
3.

Shibir is a listed terrorist org & terrorist connection of Jaamat-e-Islami is well-known.
4.

Who used RAB for killing people? What is the statistics?
5.

Here Ref has been given than opinion.
6.

U could not point out a single ref.
7.

Its Pakistan Defense's contradicting reports for vested interest.
8.

My focus is not present govt, important is terrorist activities.
9.

Can you say that attached photos are fake?
10.

Prove a single ref false.


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Click to view ThirdEye71's profile ThirdEye71
18 hours ago

This report is fully political biased and an ill motivated propaganda by ruling awami government and it's supporters to mask it's failure to control law and order by it's student organization who is killing,looting,raping all over the country.They are using armed forces to kill democracy,even people can't protest,can't attend peaceful human chain as the current Hasina givernment has been using...
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This report is fully political biased and an ill motivated propaganda by ruling awami government and it's supporters to mask it's failure to control law and order by it's student organization who is killing,looting,raping all over the country.They are using armed forces to kill democracy,even people can't protest,can't attend peaceful human chain as the current Hasina givernment has been using judiciary,armed forces for vested interests.German based Transparency International Bangladesh was not spared for uncovering Hasina govt's mass looting,failure improve law and order,unlawfull killing by it's armed wing RAB.Recently the ministers are blaiming each other for their continuing failure to perform their regualr management task effectively.War crime trial is simply an eye wash for the country as it's tarhetting one of it's old political ally Jamat as they are now merged with opposition.This is to haunt its opposition to prevent them staging any anti-govt progarmmes.The concerns were raised by major world's faces like British Lord,US war crime expert Stephen J Rapp ,human rights organization about the war crime law. They advised Hasina govt to ammend war crime law as it's nowhere near to International Standadard,only by name it's International tribunal but actually it's domestic standard.Recently the govt did not allow Toby to enter the country to assist so called war crime accused.Toby was a prosecution lawyer in the Bosnia Tribunal for war crimes.The govt is infulencing the war crime tribunal body by dictaiting when to start the trial and how to start and who to be charged.Surprisingly,the current PM Hasina's daughter's father-in-law is a well known war criminal but the govt rewarded him by making him an energy minister.
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