South Asia Citizens Web

Posted below are editorials and reports from Bangladesh newspapers in wake of huge wave of Islamist violence against the state and ordinary citizens and most notably violence against minorities.

The Hindu families having survived the onslaught from anti-liberation elements now wonder what protection they have in this country. As the religious minorities in some remote pockets of Chittagong and Noakhali try to come to terms with Thursday’s barbaric attacks on their homesteads and temples, there is no let-up in the assaults at other places including Barisal, Bagerhat and Gazipur.Bangladesh Hindu-Buddha-Christian Oikya Parishad has demanded the government act immediately to resist (…)

I condemn the violence carried out by West Pakistanis over Bengalis who were fighting to establish their right to speak their language. . . .I know that if I shout ‘fashi chai’ today it dehumanizes me. If today I ask my son to shout ‘fashi chai’, 10 years from now if he does anything violent, I will be responsible for it. I will be responsible for planting the seed of violence into his mind.

We are deeply shocked and disturbed by the unacademic and anti student structure of the proposed 4 year Undergraduate Programme that the University seeks to introduce from July 2013. It is not in consonance with the National Policy of 10+2+3 on education. Further, there is no democratic representation of College teachers in syllabus making.

The author is former Indian ambassador to Nepal and Bangladesh Bangladesh is presently witnessing widespread upsurge of student power focused on the war-crimes trial of some of those accused of crimes against their fellow citizens in 1971. The faultlines in the history of Bangladesh lie exposed after 41 years. Verdicts on the trial of the first two of those charged with heinous crimes against the people in 1971 evoked widespread protests and strikes by the Jamaat-e-Islami, whose leading (…)