Shuchinta

[Photo/Banglar Chokh: Selim Reza Newton, Moloy Bhoumik, Dulal Chandra Biswas, Abdullah Al Mamun.]

by Tasneem Khalil [Reposted from E-Bangladesh.org]

In Bangladesh, mouths are not moving these days, it seems. Well, there are exceptions: tongues busy licking military boots stained with blood, tongues moving fast singing hymns for monsters in khaki. For the rest, 160 million men and women, putting a plaster over the lips is the fashion statement of the day, silence has become the best policy. Smartest policy, some say.

In post-1/11 Bangladesh: a human rights advocate is a criminal, an university student is a criminal, a professor is a criminal, a politician is a criminal, a democrat is a criminal, a jute-mill worker is a criminal, a journalist is a criminal, a tea-stall-wallah is a criminal, a cartoonist is a criminal, a garments worker is a criminal, a hungry survivor of cyclone demanding relief is a criminal… Read the rest of this entry »

Job well done, freinds all over the world and Bangladesh. Mahfuz Anam’s statement.

Amader Shomoy coverage.

So you can now get picked up by joint forces for what you write in personal blogs? If the CTG believes so much in freedom of speech, then why arrest him in the first place?

So let’s agree, we are in a military rule here.

Read The Prince of Bogra HERE. This is the piece that Daily Star’s Mahfuz Anam refused to promote through their monthly publication Forum.[Courtesy: Drishtipat]

Less than 24 hours ago, fellow blogger and human rights activist Tasneem Khalil had been arrested by the Bangladesh army. Read posts from Salam Dhaka about that HERE and HERE. Also Bangla bloggers have a detailed post HERE with multiple links included there.

What can you do to help Tasneem?

Please write to the chairman of the Bangladesh Caucus in the US Congress -  Congressman Joseph Crowley of New York. Besides that, most of the representatives from Massachusetts, New York and New Jersey are responsive as we have significant numbers of expatriates there. These are Senators John Kerry, Edward Kennedy, Charles Schumer and Hillary Clinton. You may also contact Congressmen Antony Weiner, Gregory Meekes, Yvette Clarke, Gary Ackerman and Peter King. These people are involved with Bangladesh to varying degrees and will be responsive. Please arrange for letters to be sent to these representatives by as many of their constituents as possible, along with follow up phone calls and emails.

Also, have as many people as possible write and call the State Department’s Bangladesh Desk and Bureau of Human Rights and Labor.

Thousands of our activists and leaders arrested, just like Tasneem. And just like Tasneem, many of them are innocent. That is why due process exists, so the innocent are not victimized. That is why an elected government, however flawed it may be, is preferable to an unelected one that never has to face the people in polls and so has no accountability.

Fakhruddin must answer.