MUSLIM HATE IN BANGLADESH
Bangladesh for Beginners
Why Americans
should care about the increasingly radical insurgency.
By Eliza Griswold
Posted Thursday, Dec. 29,
2005, at 7:18 AM ET
When Bangladesh's first two suicide bombers blew themselves up recently, the attacks marked a significant escalation in the growing militant insurgency that threatens an already wobbly state. Now, at long last, the world is beginning to pay attention to the spate of bombings, killings, and threats against judges, lawyers, journalists, teachers, professors, politicians, and religious minorities by the banned jihadist group Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh, among others, for the past five years.
Faced with increased pressure at home and abroad, the Bangladeshi National Party, the leader in the four-party coalition government, is finally rounding up the terrorists—more than 600 so far—and scrutinizing its alliance with two Islamist parties within the ruling coalition that are suspected of having links to the militants. But the government will have to end the long-standing tradition of using young men to foment violence for political ends if it wants to ensure that the nation of 152 million—the world's third-most-populous Muslim country—does not become another Afghanistan or, more aptly, another Darfur, where the rebels whose presence the government has long tolerated have seized virtual control.
One of the problems in routing Bangladesh's militants is that sectarian violence is so deeply entrenched in the nation's brief history, and religious division has been used to justify violence since the country gained its independence in 1971. Bangladesh's brand of Islam has always been overwhelmingly moderate, and the constitution enshrines religious tolerance, but as Tasleema Nasreen writes in her 1993 novel Shame (she had to flee the country after its publication), rural governments outside Dhaka have relied on the fury of young jobless men they call cadres to bully locals into supporting them and to drive religious and political minorities off valuable land. This bullying has often taken the form of the targeted use of rape, and since independence, many cadres have used violence between Hindus and Muslims to mask and legitimize their bid for political power. During the last nationwide election in 2001, in one northern village, at least five Hindu women were gang-raped in an explicit bid to control the town's votes, according to one of the victims. (The victim who told me this story had her eyes cut out by her attackers so that she could not identify them after the rape.)
Although Bangladesh's GDP is currently on an uptick, much of the country still lives on less than a dollar a day. This is one reason thousands of Bangladeshis left the country in the 1980s. Some traveled to the Middle East and returned as born-again Muslims. In the most remote villages, a stringent new strain of devotion became increasingly evident. Other young men traveled for schooling, primarily to Pakistan. Because religious scholarships were the easiest to come by, they ended up in many of the religious schools that encouraged their students to take jobs as jihadists in Afghanistan. There, a select handful created a militant group, Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami, known as Huji, reportedly at the behest of Osama Bin Laden himself.
Since their return in the early 1990s, those veterans of the Afghan war have been calling for the implementation of Islamic law in Bangladesh. Because the vast majority of Bangladeshis are devout Muslims who support their civil government and society, no one paid much attention to these fanatics for a decade or so. Nor to the fact that in 1998, when Bin Laden first issued his fatwa declaring war on the West, one of its five signatories was Fazlul Rehman, a still-shadowy figure linked to Huji and, according to Bin Laden's fatwa, the head of global jihad in Bangladesh.
Neither the current government nor the opposition parties paid adequate attention to the rise of religious militancy or to the social problems underlying it. This year, for the fifth time in a row, Bangladesh was named the most corrupt country on earth by Transparency International, a Berlin-based anti-corruption watchdog group. Almost once a week, hartals, or strikes, most often led by the two endlessly feuding main political parties, shut down the country. During a hartal, leaving one's house is forbidden, and anyone traveling on the roads runs the risk of being killed. It is impossible to go to work, to school, or even to the hospital.
As a result, the young thugs of the Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh and other militant groups virtually control several remote districts. In Rajshahi, where the insurgency is at its worst, a political thug who claimed to have fought in Afghanistan attempted to install a Taliban regime. He went into hiding last year after U.S. pressure finally forced the government to issue a warrant for his arrest.
In the run-up to the 2006 national elections, political violence masked by religious extremism and widespread corruption will flourish unless the international community pays greater attention. Bangladesh doesn't need a democratic revolution; they've already had one. The vast majority of Bangladeshis do not support the militants nor do they want Islamic law.
"It used to be when the mullahs came asking for money, we'd shoo them away. Now, I'd pay," one devout and moderate Muslim professional told me. "It won't be long before I get a letter telling me that my wife and daughter need to wear burkas," he said. "What will I do? I'll have no choice; they'll have to wear them."
What Bangladeshis want, he said, is continued international pressure on the BNP to distance itself from the militancy. What they want are monitors for next year's elections who don't just sit in the polling places but go to the villages to make sure that the patterns of political intimidation—including the widespread use of rape—are broken. What they want is a newfound international interest that takes nongovernmental organizations into the rural areas where 90 percent of the country lives. All these steps are possible and much more cost-effective for the United States than simply quadrupling the size of the CIA station in Dhaka.
To most of us, Bangladesh seems like a remote mess—poor and devoid of natural resources. The country has been plagued by sectarian violence since its independence, but the nature of that violence is changing, and we ignore the rise of militant Islam there at our own peril. The jihadists will continue to do their best to make our civil intervention look dangerous and impractical. Our disinterest is their most effective weapon.
Eliza Griswold reported from Bangladesh earlier this year
US condemns Bangladesh violence
Saturday's bomb attack left 22 people dead
By South Asia analyst Kamal Ahmed
The United States has condemned the recent bomb attacks and politically motivated violence in Bangladesh.
The State Department spokesman, Richard Boucher, in a statement said that the people of Bangladesh deserved the opportunity to express political opinions without the threat of violence from any quarter.
His statement follows Saturday's bomb attack at a ruling party office near Dhaka that left 22 people dead.
It is one of the strongest condemnations of the worsening political situation in Bangladesh by a western government.
The statement said that political violence has plagued Bangladesh for too long.
Eye on polls
Mr Boucher mentioned attacks on political rallies, cultural celebrations and religious gatherings.
He urged the government to thoroughly investigate all the attacks and prosecute the perpetrators so that people can enjoy their civil and political rights, particularly voting in upcoming elections.
He said that the people of Bangladesh deserve the opportunity to vote freely in elections this autumn.
Most western countries including the United States have for some time been calling for the renouncing of violence and the resumption of dialogue to ensure free and fair elections.
All these countries have also promised help to ensure that elections are run smoothly and expressed their willingness to monitor the campaigning and voting.
Some of them have expressed fears about likely violence as they think that the next election would be one of the most fiercely fought contests in Bangladesh's history.
These concerns have increased as a result of the recent bombings with three such attacks in less than two months killing about 40 people.
Bangladesh government backs religious violence against minorities
Written by Staff Writer
Friday, 17 June 2005
The Bangladesh government has aligned itself with extremist groups that foment violence against the minority Ahmadiyya community, according a human rights group.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) today released a 45-page report, Breach of Faith: Persecution of the Ahmadiyya Community in Bangladesh, which documents the campaign of violence, harassment and intimidation unleashed by the Khatme Nabuwat (KN)--an umbrella group of Sunni Muslim extremists--against the Ahmadiyya community.
The rights group clamed that the KN and other extremist groups have attacked Ahmadiyya mosques, beaten and killed some Ahmadis, and prevented access to schools and sources of livelihood for others.
They have demanded an official declaration that Ahmadis are not Muslims and a ban on all Ahmadi writings and missionary activities.
Founded in 1889 by Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, the Ahmadiyya community is a religious group that identifies itself as Muslim and differs with other Muslims over the exact definition of Prophet Mohammad being the "final" monotheist prophet.
Under the Bangladesh National Party-led government, discrimination and violence against the Ahmadis has intensified, HRW claimed.
The report documents the government's failure to prosecute those responsible for anti-Ahmadi violence.
It condemns the January ban on all Ammadiyya publications imposed by the government.
HRW charged that the Jamaat-e-Islami and the Islamic Okye Jyote, junior coalition partners in the government, do not recognize the Ahmadis as Muslims and have been involved in fomenting religious violence against them and other religious minorities.
"It's a dangerous
moment in Bangladesh when the government becomes complicit in religious
violence," Brad Adams, executive director of Human Rights Watch's Asia Division
said. "The authorities have emboldened extremists by failing to prosecute those
engaged in anti-Ahmadi violence and by banning Ahmadiyya publications."
“Early in the morning, after the Fajr (dawn) prayers, a mob from the village
surrounded my house, dragged me out, and tied me to a tree,” Ahmadi faithful
Mohammad Mominul Islam alias Raqee said. “Then they started beating me with
sticks and rods. Then they carried me to the local market and beat me more, this
time even more badly.”
“Just when I thought I was going to die, local policemen came to the spot and took me to another house and then the policemen asked me to leave the Ahmadiyya faith,” he recounted. “When I refused, the policemen started beating me. Then they took me to the police station and put me in the lock-up where they handcuffed me and beat me again. The next morning, at about 11 o'clock, the policemen took me to the district headquarters of the police and beat me again.”
Human Rights Watch said that the ongoing official persecution of Ahmadis in Pakistan provides a chilling precedent.
Since 2000, an estimated 325 Ahmadis have been formally charged in criminal cases, including blasphemy, for professing their religion in Pakistan. As a result, thousands of Ahmadis have fled Pakistan to seek asylum abroad.
"Unless the Bangladesh government acts to allow Ahmadis to practice their faith in peace, the situation could spiral out of control," Adams said. "Continued failure to act will confirm the growing impression that Bangladesh's ruling coalition is more religiously intolerant than any government since the country's founding."
WASHINGTON: The daughter of
the slain Bangladeshi politician AMS Kibria has charged in an article published
here that political violence has “skyrocketed” in her country and the government
is resisting the popular demands for an international investigation into the 27
January murder.
Nazli Kibria, a Boston professor, writes in the Los Angeles Times on Tuesday
that her father’s assassination has plunged Bangladesh into a political crisis
reminiscent of what happened in Lebanon in the wake of the assassination of the
former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. People from all walks of life have taken to
the streets to express their outrage at the killing. They are also convinced
that the government is implicated in it. However, the Bangladesh government - an
alliance of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party and the Jamaat-i-Islami - has shown
no interest in ordering an independent, internationally supervised
investigation.
Ms Nazli writes, “What prevails today in Bangladesh is a climate of impunity for
terrorists, fostered by the apathy of the government and its repeated claims
that there is no terrorism problem. And so those who wish to hurl grenades at
members of the opposition or to bomb secular cultural events or to club to death
progressive writers and intellectuals may do so without fear of prosecution.
Music festivals, movie theaters and even a Valentine’s Day reception have all
been the scenes of recent attacks. Political violence has skyrocketed.
Government security forces are engaged in politically motivated and
extrajudicial killings … In its efforts to suppress dissent, the BNP/Jamaat-i-Islami
government has engaged in mass arrests of opposition party members prior to
their planned public rallies. Harassment of religious minorities has sadly
become an expected matter.”
She views the growth of what she calls “Bangladeshi Taliban” as an alarming
development, since they are reported to have links to international terrorist
organisations. One of the Islamist parties, she states, is Jagrata Muslim Janata
Bangladesh, which has imposed its own Taliban-like rule in parts of northwestern
Bangladesh. It was only last month, after considerable international pressure,
that the government declared its intent to arrest its leader, known as “Bangla
Bhai.”
According to Ms Kibria, “Even as the US has expanded its war on terrorism across
more and more of the world, Bangladesh has escaped attention. In many ways this
is not surprising. Bangladesh has never, since its bloody and triumphant birth
in 1971, been seen by the US to be a country of much strategic importance. In
the calculations of those who make foreign policy, Bangladesh is greatly
overshadowed in significance by its feuding nuclear-power neighbours, Pakistan
and India. But in the long term, the price of inaction could be high. Is it
prudent to ignore a political crisis in a country of 141 million people, home to
the fourth-largest concentration of Muslims in the world?”
She warns that Bangladesh, if neglected, could turn into a “rogue state” which
would lend aid and comfort to Islamist extremists. The situation in Bangladesh
is not irreversible, she points out, as there is the country has a strong and
well-rooted tradition of democracy and secular government. She concludes,
“Nothing will bring back my father or end for me the painful knowledge of the
brutal and senseless way in which he was killed.
But I hope his assassination will mark a new beginning for Bangladesh, one in
which the country moves away from terror and toward the vision of democracy,
justice and tolerance that my father held so dear.” khalid hasan
By Shaikh Azizur Rahman
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
October 22, 2005
DHAKA, Bangladesh -- A chill ran down the
spine of journalist Mizanur Rahman when a neatly folded white cloth symbolizing
an Islamic burial shroud tumbled out of a package he received by mail last
month.
An accompanying letter addressed to Mr. Rahman, a reporter for the Dhaka
daily Janakantha (People's Voice), said that because of his "anti-Islamic"
reporting, his days were numbered and he would soon be in a white burial shroud.
White shrouds and death threats also reached eight other journalists the
same day in Satkhira, a district in southwestern Bangladesh.
The letters were signed by leaders of the outlawed militant group Jagrata
Muslim Janata Bangladesh (Awakened Muslim Citizens of Bangladesh, often referred
to by its initials, JMJB), the orthodox Islamist movement Ahl-e-Hadith
(followers of the Sayings of the Prophet) and Jamat-e-Islami Bangladesh, an
Islamist political party in the ruling coalition in Bangladesh. The letters
threatened that the journalists would be "slaughtered" because their writings
attacked clerics who want to transform the country into a pure Islamic state.
"We are determined to bring total Islamic rule in Bangladesh through an
armed revolution," the letters said. "You are some of the obstacles on our way
to achieve these goals. You are the country's enemies, so you face removal from
this Earth."
Of the nine reporters who received these death threats, five are Hindus, and
the letters warned them that as non-Muslims, they had no right to report on
Islamic matters.
Kalyan Banerjee, a Hindu reporter for the popular Dhaka daily Pratham Alo
(First Light), said: "In the letter accompanying the kafan (burial shroud) they
said to me, Hindu religious functions would not be allowed in Pak Bangla (Holy
Bangladesh) and no Hindu will be allowed to vote in the next parliamentary
elections in Bangladesh. They will be slaughtered if they try to vote."
Mr. Banerjee, who reported on growing Islamist extremist activities in the
area in a recent series of reports, said that he is also getting threatening
calls from unknown people on his cell phone.
JMJB and Ahl-e-Hadith, among other Islamist groups, were accused of
masterminding the Aug. 17 violence in which more than 400 bombs exploded
simultaneously across Bangladesh, killing two persons and injuring more than
200.
This month, the authorities announced a reward of $15,200 for information
leading to the arrest of underground JMJB chief Siddiqur Islam, alias Bangla
Bhai.
Also this month, JMJB claimed responsibility for a series of Oct. 3
courtroom bombings in three towns that killed two persons and injured more than
50. The radical group has been campaigning to establish strict Islamic rule in
Bangladesh, a Muslim-majority country governed by secular laws.
Statistics suggest that journalism is a dangerous profession in Bangladesh.
In the past10 years, at least 19 journalists have been murdered and more than
800 have been injured in attacks by Islamist fundamentalists, political parties,
criminals and various government agencies including the police.
Dipankar Chakrabarty, editor of a regional daily Durjoy Bangla (Invincible
Bangla) was hacked to death with a machete in the central town of Sherpur last
October.
Before his death, he told Reporters Without Borders that anonymous callers
were threatening him by phone with death if he did not stop reporting on the
ties between some powerful politicians and a criminal organization in the area.
In January 2004, a bomb in the southwestern district of Khulna killed Manik
Saha, a reporter for the Dhaka daily New Age and stringer for the British
Broadcasting Corp.
Some of his colleagues think Mr. Saha was killed because of his book
investigating shrimp mafias who were converting paddy fields into shrimp farms,
damaging the environment. The veteran journalist received many death threats by
phone before he was slain.
A banned extremist Maoist group called Purba Bangla Communist Party (PBCP)
claimed responsibility for the Saha murder. A week after the killing, PBCP
threatened nine other reporters with death if they did not stop writing about
the dead reporter.
In another bomb attack at Khulna in February, the PBCP injured three
journalists and killed Belal Ahmed, a reporter with the national daily Dainik
Sangram (Daily Struggle). The Maoist group -- which claimed to have killed four
journalists, all "enemies of the poor" -- says it has 30 other journalists on
its hit list.
Golam Mortoza, executive editor of Weekly 2000, an investigative weekly,
recently received a death threat from unknown groups. He said in Dhaka that many
politically frustrated ex-Maoist cadres had formed criminal gangs who are
targeting journalists reporting on extortion and racketeering.
Sumi Khan, a Weekly 2000 crime reporter who was stabbed by unidentified
assailants last year, agrees. "I was targeted because I reported how religious
extremists, criminal mafias and illegal gunrunners were thriving in my area,"
she said. "Such attacks on the media throughout the country try to block the
free flow of information."
Mrs. Khan, who narrowly escaped death, was awarded the Guardian newspaper's
Hugo Young Award for courageous journalism in London this year.
Although most of the journalists threatened in Bangladesh exposed
corruption, crime and growing religious extremism, some have been targeted for
revealing the covert activities of politicians.
"At election time, the major political parties accept help from shady
political elements to win votes," said Naim Islam Khan, president of the
Bangladesh Center for Development, Journalism and Communication.
"Some take donations from criminal gangs, providing protection in exchange,"
so reporters exposing such politician-criminal connections face threats to their
lives.
Although police have registered more than a thousand cases of violence
against journalists in the past10 years, nearly all cases remain unsolved.
Journalists in Bangladesh have even been targeted by the government.
Nurul Kabir, executive editor of the Dhaka daily New Age, thinks reporters
in Bangladesh are targeted by parts of the government because they expose
activities or plans that many citizens oppose.
"Journalists who are critical about corruption and malfeasance in ruling
circles are being targeted -- especially outside the capital -- by activists
supporting the ruling coalition. They are also attacked by supporters of the
main opposition Awami League when they reveal its indifference toward people's
suffering," Mr. Kabir said.
In 2002, Saleem Samad, a stringer for Time magazine, was detained by the
army for helping a British Channel 4 team film a documentary on Islamist
extremism and persecution of minority Hindus in Bangladesh.
Mr. Samad was released after 55 days of detention, following protests from
human- and media-rights groups outside the country.
"[The army] told me to sign a statement admitting that I engaged in
activities detrimental to the national interest. When I refused to sign the
false statement, they started torturing me in a dark, tiny cell. They did not
give me enough food and water. I was released only after the High Court ruled
that my detention was illegal," said Mr. Samad.
Last year, when Mr. Samad was in Canada to attend an international seminar,
the army, apparently at the behest of the government, raided his home in Dhaka
looking for him. Friends and relatives advised him not to return to Bangladesh,
and the 52-year-old journalist has applied for political asylum in Canada.
"Although I don't like to live in a foreign land, I cannot return to my
country. I know this time they would kill me. They are angry because of my last
Time write-up which described Bangladesh as a country in utter 'dysfunction,' "
said Mr. Samad, who is now living in Ottawa as a refugee as the Canadian
government considers his application for asylum.
"Death threats are becoming a pervasive and insidious part of daily life for
journalists in Bangladesh," said Christopher Warren, president of the
International Federation of Journalists. "The intimidation [of journalists] is a
direct violation of civil rights and liberties, which are the basic tools for a
successful democracy."
The bitter rivalry between Begum Khaleda Zia, the prime minister of
Bangladesh, and opposition leader Sheikh Hasina Wajed has polarized the whole
country. Even journalists are now politicized to a point where individual
editors, reporters and newspapers are better known for their political leanings
than for the contents of their work.
A senior editor at a popular daily in Dhaka said: "Until a few years ago,
you would find most of us with independent views, but now we are either Khaleda
Zia supporters or belong to Sheikh Hasina's camp. Unless the two groups are
reunited, journalists will continue to be attacked in Bangladesh. But this will
never happen unless the two top political leaders come to good terms."
2 Suicide Bombers Attack Courthouses in Bangladesh
At least seven people are killed and more than 50 hurt in the coordinated assaults blamed on a Muslim militant group seeking an Islamic state.
By
Nurul Alam and Paul Watson, Special to The Times
CHITTAGONG,
Bangladesh — Two suicide bombers targeting courthouses killed at least seven
people Tuesday in an escalating terrorism campaign blamed on Muslim extremists
demanding an Islamic state.
Two police officers were among those who died in the blasts in this southeastern
port city and Gazipur, 20 miles north of the capital, Dhaka. More than 50 people
were injured, 20 of them critically.
The coordinated
suicide bombings were the first in Bangladesh, where security forces have been
struggling to stop increasingly sophisticated militant attacks and bring the
masterminds to justice.
The first explosion Tuesday occurred around 9 a.m., when a bomber blew himself
up at a checkpoint outside a court building in Chittagong as police scanned him
with a metal detector. The two police officers were killed in the blast, and
several others were seriously burned.
The bomber struck before most lawyers and judges had arrived for Tuesday's
sessions, said lawyer Shakwat Hossain. "If the bombers could have carried the
things inside the court, it would have caused more havoc," Hossain said.
Forty minutes later, a suicide bomber walked into the Gazipur district court's
law library, disguised in a lawyer's black gown and tie, and detonated his
explosives, killing himself and at least five others, said police sub-inspector
Abdul Malek.
The bombers were suspected of being with the militant group Jamaat-ul-Mujahedin,
which authorities recently warned was plotting suicide attacks to press its
demands for an Islamic state governed by strict Sharia law.
"We don't know how to control the situation if such highly powerful bombs are
blasted by suspected suicide bombers," said Chittagong district police Supt.
Aftab Ahmed.
Most of Bangladesh's 141 million people are Muslim, and most of them are
moderates. But extremists have grown increasingly violent in recent months.
When Britain granted independence to the Indian subcontinent in 1947, what is
now Bangladesh was part of the newly created Pakistan. Bangladesh, officially a
secular state, broke away, with the help of neighboring India's military, during
a 1971 war.
The opposition Awami League, which led Bangladesh to independence, accuses the
government of Prime Minister Khaleda Zia of supporting Islamic militants. Her
Bangladesh Nationalist Party's main partner in the coalition government is the
Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh, which was banned until a prohibition against
religious-based parties was lifted in 1979.
The Jamaat-e-Islami wants Bangladesh to be governed by Islamic principles
established in the Koran. The group's leaders insist they want to achieve their
goals peacefully, but opponents accuse them of fomenting violence.
Bangladesh has banned three extremist groups that are believed responsible for
militant attacks: the Jamaat-ul-Mujahedin, Jagrata Muslim Janata Bangladesh and
Harkat-ul-Jihad-al Islami.
But the groups have threatened to assassinate politicians, judges and other
leaders. In addition, Bangladesh has been rocked by a series of bloody attacks
in recent months.
On Aug. 17, between 200 and 500 bombs exploded across the country over a few
hours. The blasts, which killed two people and injured more than 100, were small
and seen as a warning from the militants that they were capable of doing much
worse damage.
A militant killed two judges Nov. 14, tossing a bomb in their minivan seconds
after trying to hand them leaflets demanding Bangladesh be ruled by Sharia.
"Law framed by humans cannot continue and only the laws of God will prevail,"
the leaflets said.
Three days later, a conference of the U.S. and other international donors warned
in Dhaka that Zia's government must move quickly to stop rampant corruption and
growing militancy.
"We are concerned because such incidents happen only in a very unstable
environment," World Bank Vice President Praful Patel told reporters during the
donors meeting. "And if you don't do something about it very quickly, Bangladesh
will become known more and more as a place of terrorism and violence."
Culture shock of a Peace Corps woman
ABBEY BROWN
After living a month in Bangladesh, I thought I'd seen everything. I was certain nothing could shock me anymore. Then she knocked on my window.
I was on the train, and she'd come to my window, begging for money. Her face was horribly scarred. Unlike so many other beggars I've forgotten, her face will be burned into my memory, along with pain, horror and a marked feeling of gratitude for all I have.
Her skin was melted, her features displaced. She had a look in her eyes that communicated the terror she had lived and the hopelessness she felt.
Two months later, I sat across from another woman, Gazi Nasrin Akter - beautiful, educated, sophisticated and wealthy. She and the beggar woman were completely different, yet both shared an elemental similarity that determines everything in their lives: they are women in a country and culture that significantly marginalizes their gender.
I can't tell you the name of the beggar woman, nor do I know the precise reason behind what happened to her. I do know that she was the victim of an acid attack.
Such attacks occur here for one of two reasons: because a woman refuses a proposal from a man and he wants to ensure that she never marries, or her family does not give her husband a large enough dowry. Such treatment was among the many topics discussed during the gender issues training portion of my Peace Corps orientation in Dhaka, Bangladesh.
Akter said she knows such attacks frequently occur. I spoke with her about her feelings on gender issues when I met her, two months after I saw the beggar woman. The 28-year-old Akter said she considered herself lucky.
"Well, lucky means I am mostly happy and haven't been hurt like this," she said hesitantly when asked what she meant by "lucky." She also talked at length of how frustrating her role as a Bangladeshi woman can be - always considered a second-class citizen, constant harassment and having to get permission from not only her husband, but her father- and mother-in-law to do anything, be it cooking a meal, going to the market or walking down the street to visit a friend.
"But usually they let me do these things," Akter said. "I am lucky. For many (women), they can't do anything."
Akter said the fact that she was able to marry a man she knew and loved made her lucky. "The Muslim faith and Bangladeshi culture mandates that marriages be arranged," Akter said. "But I got around it." She met her husband when she was 23, while attending Dhaka University. When she realized that she loved him, Akter went to an aunt she was close to and told her of the man.
"I trusted her," Akter said. "I knew she wanted me to be happy. So she approached my father and said she had found this boy. And made it seem as if it was her idea. It worked."
Akter, mother of a 1-year-old, worked as an English teacher for five years. She quit after she became pregnant. Twenty-six-year-old Tanik Munir used words such as challenging, difficult and unbearable when describing life as a Bangladeshi woman.
"It isn't anything you would imagine it as being," she said. "Nothing like America."
Munir, who is single, works as the safety and security officer for Peace Corps Bangladesh. She admitted that living in Dhaka, Bangladesh's capital, made her life a lot easier because the cultural norms aren't as strictly enforced. But she stressed that even with that, her life still is extremely restricted because of her gender.
"In Bangladesh, a woman is dependent on a man her whole life - from birth to death," Munir said. "First, it is her father. Oftentimes, she will be dependent on a brother, too. Then it is her husband and father-in-law until she dies. She can never do anything without permission from these men."
Akter said this lifelong dependence is why women are second- class citizens in society. "They are always taught it is this way," she said. "They know no other way. Even if they were allowed to do something on their own, they wouldn't be able to. They have never been taught how to live on their own." The cultural dress of Bangladesh also oppresses women, Munir said. The traditional dress of unmarried women is a shalwar kameez - baggy pants, a baggy, calf-length tunic, long scarf draped around her shoulders to cover her chest and all but the moon of her face covered. Married women wear a sari, yards of fabric wrapped around to form a dress often with their head or face covered.
Many women, especially in cities outside Dhaka, never leave their homes without wearing a burka and a piece of cloth on their head covering everything but their eyes.
"Women are put behind a curtain by their dress," Munir said. "... It is a way to keep women hidden."
The oppression isn't just cultural, Akter said. There are Bangladeshi laws that also marginalize woman - and ostracize some.
"If a woman has a child and she is not married, she and the child are nothing here," she said. "And I don't mean only that people will hate them. The child is not eligible for school or anything."
When a child registers for school, he or she must give a father's name. In the case of most unwed mothers, Akter said, the name of the father generally is not divulged for fear of retribution for "tarnishing" the man's name. "That is where all the street children come from," she said. "They are illegitimate boys and girls. They will never have a life."
Munir described the role of Bangladeshi women as maintaining a household at any cost. From a young age, girls are taught that their role is to sacrifice all; to be patient, shy, silent and to bear all pain, she said.
For example, if a family needs a child to quit school to help out at home or to work, it is a daughter, Munir said. Rarely is a son's education sacrificed.
Bangladeshis define the role of a man as powerful - it is, after all, a male-dominated society, Akter said. Men have sole responsibility for all decision-making; a woman is never consulted. Her opinion holds no importance, she added.
Akter speaks from personal experience. "There are many things I would do differently," she said. "But I don't have those options. I never get to say how I feel or what I want to do. It is solely up to my husband and his family."
Dr. Ayub Abu Hamid of Comilla, Bangladesh, has been married 27 years. He acknowledged that women are mistreated, but said he thinks things are changing for the better.
"Every day I think people are seeing the light," he said. "I've seen the difference from the way things were with my parents' generation and the way things are now. Yes, we have a very long way to come." Akter and Munir agreed there have been improvements.
"The literacy rate is increasing - for women, too," Munir said. "And the government is giving an education incentive stipend for the education of girls. And some jobs in the government have a 10 percent quota for women."
And crimes against women - murder, torture, rape, all once common occurrences, Akter said - are decreasing.
Hamid stressed that blaming the Koran and the Muslim faith for oppressing women is a mistake.
"People all the time attribute these things to the Koran," he said. "Show me in the Koran where it says a woman can't make her own decisions. "Like anything, it takes time. I hope that my daughter feels respected and loved by her husband. And I hope she feels happy in the marriage," he said.
"I think her mother and I raised her and her brother in a way where they were treated equally. We tried." Hamid's daughter, Tanjina, 25, is married and lives with her husband and his parents in Dhaka.
Her marriage was arranged; the couple wed three weeks after they met. They saw each other three times before they married.
Twin suicide attacks kill
eight in Bangladesh
Dhaka November 29, 2005 8:15:06 PM IST
At least eight people were killed Tuesday in
two suicide bomb attacks near court houses in Bangladesh which has seen a spate
of violence by Islamist militants in recent months.
The near simultaneous attacks triggered widespread protest among lawyers who announced a daylong nationwide general strike Thursday. The opposition allies led by the Awami League have declared their support for the strike.
The attacks left at least 50 people wounded with many of them said to be in critical condition.
"This seems to be the first ever case of suicide attacks in the country... as security has been beefed up everywhere, the attackers have been changing their strategy," Inspector General of Bangladesh Police Abdul Quayyum told IANS.
In the southeast port city of Chittagong, about 250 km south of here, the bomber detonated explosives strapped to his body as police stopped him at the check-post near the court building Tuesday morning.
A constable and two other people, including the bomber, were killed, police said.
In Gazipur, the suicide bomber, clad in a lawyer's gown, blew himself up in the bar library, killing six people. Police suspect the bomber was among the dead.
The victims in Gazipur, on the outskirts of Dhaka, included a lawyer and a former local government body representative.
As news of the bombings spread in the city, alarmed parents rushed to school to take their children home, fearing further violence.
A wave of bombings has rattled Bangladesh in recent months after fundamentalist groups led by Afghan war veterans launched a campaign for Islamic rule based on the Shariat.
The militants have often targeted lawyers. On Nov 14, two judges were killed when bombs were thrown at their car. In October, militants attacked courts in three districts.
On Aug 17, there were nearly 400 simultaneous bombings across the country. An outlawed Islamist group, Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh, led by Afghan war veteran Shaikh Abdur Rahman has been held responsible for the attacks.
Rahman, who is absconding, is believed to have slipped through the police dragnet minutes before they raided a house here Nov 18. Police had recently said the militants had formed suicide squads.
Security has been beefed up as the militants have threatened more attacks in Bangladesh, the world's third largest Muslim country after Indonesia and Pakistan.
Bangladesh hard-line Muslims demand government declare sect non-Muslim
2006/6/25
DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP)
Hundreds of hard-line Muslims rallied in Bangladesh's capital on Sunday to demand the government declare a minority Islamic sect non-Muslim, police said.
About 300 activists from the Islamic International Khatme Nubuwat Movement marched through Dhaka's streets, chanting slogans against the Ahmadiyya Islamic sect, said police official Ali Ahmed Masud.
Police intercepted the march, but no violence was reported, Masud said.
He said more than 100 police were guarding an Ahmadiyya mosque that the hard-liners had said they planned to seize.
"The situation is under control," Masud said.
The International Khatme Nubuwat Movement has demanded that the government introduce a bill in Parliament to declare the Ahmadiyyas non-Muslims.
The group also wants a ban on the Ahmadiyyas' writings and missionary activities.
Bangladesh has about 100,000 Ahmadiyyas, who differ from other Muslims over whether Islam's founder, Muhammad, was the religion's final prophet.
The group on Friday announced plans to put up signs in front of the 120 Ahmadiyya mosques across Bangladesh, declaring them places "places of worship," not mosques.
The International Khatme Nubuwat Movement had earlier warned the government there would be "bloodshed," if necessary, to protect Islam from heretics.
Ahmadiyya spokesman S.M. Tauhidul Islam said the group fears violent attacks by the hard-liners.
"We want protection," he said Saturday.
He said the group has alerted Ahmadiyyas across Bangladesh, a Sunni Muslim-majority nation of 144 million people.
Dhaka Metropolitan Police Commissioner S.M. Mizanur Rahman said they would provide the minority with adequate protection.
The Ahmadiyya sect was founded in 1889 by Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, an Indian religious leader who claimed to be a prophet seeking Islam's renewal.
Its followers have been persecuted in various countries, and is banned from calling itself Muslim in Pakistan.
New York-based Human Rights Watch criticized Bangladesh's government last year for failing to prosecute those behind an alleged campaign of violence, harassment and intimidation against Ahmadiyyas.