BLASPHEMY LAW IN BANGLADESH
Blasphemy in Islam has no reference in Qur'an and Hadith. This is a later creation of Jurists (Ulema). The Ulema are a power hungry lot. They exert authority on all aspects of Muslims' lives. Combination of politicians with Ulema in the issue of blasphemy law is deadly. Why a religion needs stringent blasphemy law to protect it and its Prophet? It surely does not. But, in the name of protecting Islam and Prophet, the Ulema-politician combination is actually protecting their authoritative and political position.
The Savar Tragedy – a Horrific Flare-up of a National Disease of Bangladesh
The latest news from Savar, Bangladesh, as found in the Daily Star at 6:00 AM US Eastern DST on May 15, 2013, is that 1115 dead bodies have been recovered from the debris of a collapsed eight-story building, and 12 people died in the hospitals after being rescued alive (1). While 2,438 people have been pulled alive, at the end of the rescue operation the number of victims unaccounted for remains uncertain. (While this blog was originally written on April 26, 2013, the casualty figures in this paragraph have been updated on May 15, 2013.)
Blasphemy and the right to offend
The right to express one's opinion freely is maybe the most important democratic right, and it is currently under assault in Bangladesh. Hifazat-e-Islam demands the introduction of strict blasphemy laws, and the government, instead of defending freedom, resorts to an ill-advised and imprudent appeasement strategy that hinders the press in its duty to inform the public, threatens the futures of young bloggers who were, and continue to be, arrested, and puts in peril the future of the democracy of the country.
Non-Muslims in Bangladesh – What Choices Do They Have?
In one of the more remarkable recent attacks on non-Muslims in Bangladesh, a 200 years old Hindu temple was burned down by Muslim criminals. According to a Daily Star report on April 20, 2013, the month of March, 2013, saw 94 attacks on Hindu temples in various districts of Bangladesh. https://www.thedailystar.net/beta2/news/march-saw-94-attacks/
AN IMAGINARY HIFAZAT-E ISLAM SPEECH SOMEWHERE IN BANGLADESH -
Why are there so many infidels in our country? Almighty Allah had asked us to do Jihad some fourteen hundred years ago. What we have been doing so long? Jihad is the main obligation of all Muslims. Kill the infidels. Jihad is a holy terror approved by Islam. We have pure Islamic blood, we are the best and we will establish Sariah in Bangladesh: Insallah. What is this "Amar Sonar Bangla…"? This is a Hindu song. Hindus are not the only infidels in Bangladesh. There are others like Christians, Buddhists, poets, intellectuals, rationalists and free thinkers who advocate Bengali culture in the form of Hindu "Poila Baishakh", "Robindra Sangeet" and "Nazrul Geeti" etc.. Many of their earlier generation were killed by our Islamic Pakistani brothers in 1971.
The Hatred of 'Protecting Islam' Must Stop
The government of Bangladesh has clearly demonstrated that the arrest of three bloggers, Subrata Adhikary Shuvo, Russell Parvez, and Mashiur Rahman Biplob, on April 1, 2013, was no April Fool joke. Bangladesh police also arrested another blogger, Asif Mohiuddin, two days later. What was the reason? The four arrested young men have been alleged to have hurt the religious sentiments of the Muslims of Bangladesh. There are no specifics in the news media as to what exactly they wrote in their blogs that hurt the religious sentiments of the Muslims.
The Religion of Politics in Indian Subcontinent
When we talk about weapons of mass destruction, we think of missiles, bombs, nuclear explosions. When we talk about greatest or most destructive innovation by human kind, we talk about atom bombs. But the fact remains; the most destructive force was invented by humans, in very early age of their evolution. Men made knives, turned them to daggers and then moved on to guns and then missiles. All of them were weapons and in different phase of human evolution, these weapons were perfected and used for good or evil purposes. Men also invented Gods, then rituals and then religion. In different stages of evolution, they endorsed different forms of religions and effectively used it for good and evil. At this cutting-edge phase of human history, religion has lost most of it's purposes, those who were once considered the sole meaning of life. Still religion remains an incomparable, invincible, transcending weapon for one group of people, those who want to rule with fear and those who want to rule the foresighted, with the support from the oblivious.
DEAR YOUTHS OF BANGLADESH
Dr Sukhamaya Bain and Dr Jaffor Ullah in their last two posts have expressed concern over the recent trend of radicalization of Islam in Bangladesh.
Appeasing the Islamists – a Distressing Sign for Bangladesh
In a poor country called Bangladesh, recently there has been a surge in heated talk and violent lawlessness. The principal driving forces behind these are the Islamist political parties, including Jamaat-e-Islami, Hifazat-e-Islami and Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP).