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The World News Headlines newspaper, in association with Bangla PostTRANSCRIPT
The economic down-turn is affecting almost every part of society
to a greater or lesser degree, but as always, it is the poor-est groups that are having to cope with the worst pressures.
The Bangladeshi community in the UK – long believed to be one of the most economically deprived – is facing particular difficulties and there seems no end to the downturn.
And the recent labour figures have shown no signs of any im-provement in the employment market.
Responding to the latest la-bour market figures, Rushanara
Ali, MP for Bethnal Green and Bow, which has a high Bangla-deshi population, condemned the failure of the Conservative-led Government’s Work Pro-gramme to tackle long term unemployment in Bethnal Green and Bow.
She said: “Here in my con-stituency, long term unemploy-ment has gone up by 26% over the past year, and long term youth unemployment has in-creased by 55% over the same period. But the government’s Work Programme is comprehen-sively failing to help my con-stituents.
“Last month we found out
that the Work Programme is get-ting fewer people into jobs than if the Government did nothing at all. Only 2% of people referred onto to the Work Programme
have been placed into jobs in Bethnal Green and Bow.
“While I welcome the overall recent fall in unemployment, this Government is failing to create jobs and growth, and is failing on the deficit. The coalition must wake up to this crisis, take action now and they should start with Labour’s Real Jobs Guarantee to get our young people back to work.”
At Prime Minister’s Ques-tions last week, Rushanara Ali exposed the Govern-ment’s economic failure by highlighting that the Autumn statement revealed that bor-rowing is now £212 bil-
lion more than previously planned.
Tower Hamlets is one of the most multicultural boroughs in UK, with more than 50% of resi-dents considered to be non-white British. A recent report by Lon-don Centre for Social Impact in-dicated that the Bangladesh com-munity has the highest number of unemployed adults not in paid work by ethnic origin in London.
“As we know that Bangla-deshi community is the biggest local ethic group, these two facts lead us to conclude that the Bangladeshi community con-tribute largely to the local unem-ployment rate,” the report said.
20 December 2012
The World News Headlines
Japan has agreed to provide the majority of the funding requirements of a new metro rail service in Bangladesh
The Bangladesh gov-ernment on Tuesday approved the over-
land metro rail service pro-ject – Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) Line-6 – involving Tk 219.85 billion to ease
the city’s cluttered traffic. The approval was given
at the meeting of the Execu-tive Committee of the National Economic Council (ECNEC) with the Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in the chair. She is the ECNEC’s Chairperson.
Briefing reporters after the meeting, Member of the Plan-ning Commission Abdul Man-nan Hawlader said that the much-talked-about Dhaka Met-ro project would be implement-ed with the financial assistance from the Japanese government.
Of the total cost, the Ja-pan International Coopera-tion Agency will provide Tk
165.95 billion while the Bang-ladesh Government will take care of the remaining funds.
The Japanese had fund-ed the Kolkata Metro Rail project in the 1990s.
The 20-kilometer MRT Line-6 will begin from Uttara Third Phase and pass through Pallabi, the west side of Rok-eya Square and Farmgate, Hotel Sonargaon, Ruposhi Bangla, TSC of Dhaka Univer-sity, Doel Intersection, Topkhana Road and Bangladesh Bank.
Later, the route will be
extended up to Saidabad from Bangladesh Bank point through Atish Dipankar Road.
Hawlader said that the pre-sent design of the metro rail would not cause affect the parliament complex when the project is implemented.
“The Roads and Highways Division has its own land be-side the Parliament Complex. The metro rail service will pass through its area. But this will not affect the main de-sign of the Parliament that was done by Louis Kahn,” he said.
Japanese commuters, particularly those living in Tokyo, know what it’s like being packed like sardines on trains, but congestion on the Bangladesh transport system is somewhat worse
Rushanara Ali MP
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina
Unemployment disproportionately affecting local Bangladeshis
Japan to finance metro system in Bangladesh
This WeekIraq president suffers stroke Jalal Talabani, the Iraqi presi-dent, is in “stable condition” having suffered a stroke and a hardening of his arteries this morning, Iraqi state television says. Talabani is being treated in the intensive care unit of a Baghdad hospital after being rushed there on Tuesday morn-ing, a statement from his office said. “Tests show that his bodily functions are normal and his ex-cellency’s condition is stable,” the statement said. “He is under intensive medical supervision.”
Aid workers shot dead Gunmen in Pakistan have shot dead six health workers associ-ated with an anti-polio campaign in a string of attacks, officials say. It was not clear who was be-hind the shootings in the south-ern city of Karachi and northern city of Peshawar on Tuesday, but Taliban fighters have repeat-edly denounced the anti-polio campaign as a “Western plot”. The government’s immunisation campaign against the crippling disease was suspended in Kara-chi following the attacks.
Syrians surround refugeesSyrian troops have surrounded a Palestinian refugee camp in Da-mascus a day after air raids killed at least eight people sheltering in a mosque there. Many residents on Monday fled the area amid clashes between Palestinian factions loyal to and opposed to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Rasim Abu Thawra, an activist who lives close to Yarmouk, said the neighbour-hood has been bombarded again on Monday.
Egypt opposition rallies Egypt’s opposition has called for mass protests in Cairo and else-where on Tuesday over alleged polling violations during the first round of a referendum on the country’s draft constitution. The National Salvation Front (NSF), the opposition coalition, urged Egyptians to “take to the streets on Tuesday to defend their free-doms, prevent fraud and reject the draft constitution”.
Messi to stay at Barcelona Lionel Messi has agreed a new con-tract with Bar-celona, keeping him at the Spanish club until 2018. The Argentina international, 25, has enjoyed a record-breaking year for club and country, scoring 90 goals so far in 2012.
News36 20 December 2012
Residents on the Isle of Dogs can sleep easier in their
beds thanks to crackdown on anti-social behaviour.
Two successful ar-rests were made on the Samuda Estate as a result of the council’s Commu-nity Safety Walkabouts.
The walkabouts launched in October were aimed at raising awareness of commu-nity safety issues and tackling problems in the borough.
Residents, professionals, police officers and councillors took part in a walkabout in Blackwall and Cubitt Town on November 23, where is-sues around drug dealing and anti-social behaviour on the Samuda Estate in Manches-ter Road were highlighted.
The Tower Hamlets En-forcement Officers, who were then patrolling Reef House on November 28 spot-ted a group of youths drink-ing, smoking drugs, littering and spitting in the stairwell.
The THEOs approached the youths and detained them whilst waiting for the police who arrested one for being in possession of can-
nabis and another for being in possession of an offensive weapon. Both have been bailed to appear at court.
Mayor of Tower Ham-lets, Lutfur Rahman said: “I am pleased the walka-bouts are having a real im-pact on the community by making our streets safer. This is an excellent example of the council and its part-ners working together to make residents lives better.”
Cllr Ohid Ahmed, dep-uty mayor added: “The feedback and information we have gained from the walkabouts has been invalu-able. Due to the intelligence we have received we have been able to target trouble-makers in the borough.”
Also, joint working with the council, police and hous-ing association has resulted in four ASB injunctions being granted against four males who were involved with drug and alcohol related anti-so-cial behaviour on the Cleve-land and Bancroft Estates. These injunctions help to re-spond to issues raised at the walkabout in Bethnal Green.
The four males were well known on the estates for intimidating residents whilst under the influ-ence of alcohol and drugs.
The court granted two year ASB injunctions, which prevents them from entering both estates and will help the police in taking further action against these individuals if they breach their injunction.
The walkabouts take place every fortnight with the last one on May 24.
Three Brick Lane restau-rants have been prose-cuted and fined for prem-
ises license breaches over the use of touts to generate custom.
Mr Elias Miah, the prem-ises licence holder, and Mr Abdal Ahad, the manager, of the City Spice restaurant, 138 Brick Lane, E1 pleaded guilty to breaches of Sec-tion 136(1)(a) of the Licens-ing Act 2003 for touting.
Mr Miah was fined £110 and ordered to pay £465 costs and Mr Ahad was fined £50 and ordered to pay £315 costs. The defendants were sen-tenced at Thames Magistrates Court on 22 November 2012.
Mr Aktar Miah, the prem-ises licence holder of the Sheba
Restaurant at 136 Brick Lane, E1 was fined £1,000 and or-dered to pay £822 costs for two offences under the Licens-ing Act 2003 for breaches of his licence. Mr Aktar Miah did not attend the hearing and was convicted in his absence.
Mr Muhib Miah, premises
licence holder of the Cinna-mon Restaurant at 134 Brick Lane, E1 was fined £666 and ordered to pay £515 costs for licensing offences under the Licensing Act 2003. Mr Muhib Miah pleaded guilty via a letter from his solicitor.
Mr Aktar Miah and Mr
Muhib Miah were sentenced at Thames Magistrates’ Court on 6 December 2012.
Deputy Mayor of Tower Hamlets, Cllr Ohid Ahmed, said: “Brick Lane is an exciting and vibrant area that is enjoyed by thousands of visitors every week. But curry touts’ persis-tent and aggressive behaviour causes an obstruction to both visitors and local residents, and can create an unpleas-ant environment for everyone.
“These further prosecutions demonstrate that we are pre-pared to take swift and decisive action against individuals and restaurants that are found to be flouting the rules and con-tinuing to tout for business.”
The council is continu-
ing to encourage restaurants in the Brick Lane area to sign up to its ‘Anti-touting Code of Practice’ which was launched in September 2011. Under the code restaurant own-ers sign a pledge agreeing:> not to use touts to ap-proach anybody to persuade them to eat at their business> not to make false or misleading claims about free or discounted offers> to have the ‘500 me-tre’ condition added to their licence (if relevant)> to display the ‘Anti-touting Code of Practice’ window stick-er in a prominent place so it can be seen from the street to work in partnership with the council to identify businesses using touts.
On December 16, 1971, the Pakistani Army surrendered
to the Bangladeshi High Command in Dhaka, end-ing the 1971 Bangladesh atrocities in which mil-lions of Bangladeshis were massacred at the hands of the Pakistani Army.
Bangladesh gained inde-
pendence after nine months of a long and bloody strug-gle and became the newest country in the world. To mark this occasion the first Bangladeshi Mayor of Is-lington, Cllr Jilani Chowd-hury planned to raise the Bangladeshi flag above the Town Hall at 11.00am on Sunday 16 December.
Council cracks down on louts
Three Brick Lane restaurants fined for using ‘touts’
Mayor helps raise flag in Islington to mark Bangladesh Victory Day
Brick Lane restaurants have been using touts to attract customers
Mayor Lutfur Rahman
‘Due to intelligence we have received, we have been able to target troublemakers in the borough’
NASA crashes into moon A pair of NASA robotic twins that have been diligently map-ping the moon this year went out with a bang Monday.As scheduled, the Gravity Re-covery and Interior Laboratory probes Ebb and Flow crashed into a mountain on the moon, ending a fruitful mission to study the surface and composi-tion of the celestial body.“The two probes were sent purposely into the moon because they no longer had enough altitude or fuel to continue science operations,” NASA said.
Oldest person in world diesThe American woman named the world’s oldest living person this month has died, according to her family. Dina Manfredini
died overnight at the retirement center where she lived after suffering a fever,
her granddaughter Lori Logli said Monday. She was 115 and apparently died in her sleep, Logli said. Guin-ness World Records identified Manfredini as the world’s oldest person on December 5, a day after the death of 116-year-old Besse Cooper of Georgia. Man-fredini was born in Pievepelago, Italy, on April 4, 1897, and moved to Des Moines in 1920 with her husband, according to her Guinness biography.
China rounds up cult group Members of a fringe Christian group in China have been rounded up for spreading rumors of an impending apoca-lypse, pegged to the Mayan cal-endar. Known as the “Almighty God” cult, the group latched on to the Mayan doomsday sce-nario to predict the sun will not shine and electricity will not work for three days beginning on December 21, an official with the Department of Public Security in the northwest province of Qinghai told CNN. Group members would spread doomsday rumors door-to-door or at public venues and claimed only they could save people’s lives, according to authorities.
Gun sales in US ‘astronomical’ Gun sales in the US are reported to be increasing at a phenomenal rate in the wake of the mass school shooting in Sandy Hook in which 20 children were shot dead along with six teachers. Retailers are reporting “astronomical” sales.
This Week
News37
Muslim leaders have called for the same legal exemptions
as the Church of England in gay marriage legislation.
The Muslim Council of Britain said it was “appalled” by the government’s “utterly discriminatory” proposals.
These would allow faith groups to conduct gay mar-riages but ban the Church of England and the Church in Wales from doing so. Plans to allow same-sex marriage are
due to be introduced before the next election, due in 2015.
MCB secretary-general Fa-rooq Murad said his organisation had strongly opposed gay mar-riage alongside other religions.
He said he was seeking an ur-gent meeting with Culture Sec-retary Maria Miller to express the concerns of the Muslim community over the proposals.
“No-one in their right mind should accept such a discriminatory law,” he said. “It should be amended to
give exactly the same ex-emption to all the religions.”
Last week, Mrs Miller told the House of Commons she would impose a “quadruple lock” of measures to guarantee religious organisations would not have to marry same-sex couples against their wishes.
Under the plans, no religious organisation or individual min-ister could be compelled to mar-ry same-sex couples or to permit this to happen on their premises.
It would be unlawful for reli-gious organisations or their min-isters to marry same-sex couples unless their organisation’s gov-erning body had expressly opt-ed in to provisions for doing so.
The Equality Act would be
amended to ensure no discrimi-nation claim could be brought against religious organisations or individual ministers for refus-ing to marry a same-sex couple.
And the legislation will also explicitly state that it will be il-legal for the Church of England and the Church in Wales to mar-ry same-sex couples, she said.
As the established Church, Church of England vicars must marry any eligible cou-ples regardless of their faith.
The Church of England and Roman Catholics, among other denominations, have voiced op-position to same-sex marriage and are expected to oppose the bill, even with its caveats.
This Week
20 December 2012
A Labour Party appeals panel has upheld the decision to expel 5
councillors from the Labour Party following their support for opposition candidates at a by-election earlier this year.
The five councillors, Kabir Ahmed, Rofique Ahmed, Shahed Ali, Abdul Asad and Shafiqul Haque all appealed their expulsions but failed to turn up to the appeals panel meetings last week.
After reviewing the evidence the panel this week announced that the expulsions should stand stating that there was “no reason to challenge the convincing evidence that had led to the original decision.”
All five were found to have violated numerous Labour Party rules by actively cam-paigning against the Labour Party candidate during the Spi-talfields by-election earlier this year. They will now be expelled from the party for a period of five years. A sixth man, Motiur Rahman was also expelled for campaigning against the Labour Party candidate.
Responding to news of the expulsions, Leader of the
Labour group, Cllr Joshua Peck, said: “The case against the five was always very clear: they consistently voted and campaigned against the Labour Party and they are now paying the price.
“I hope that today’s ruling will send a crystal clear mes-sage that the Labour Party rules cannot just be ignored. You cannot campaign against the Party and expect to remain a member.”
Chris Weavers, Chair of the Tower Hamlets Labour Party, said: “Tower Hamlets Labour Party has learnt from the mis-takes of the past and is 100% committed to playing our part in cleaning up local politics in the borough.
“Residents need to know that when they vote for a La-bour councillor that’s what they will have for the whole four years of a council - not some-
one who will switch loyalties and views as it suits them.
“Earlier this year residents had the opportunity to elect a Labour team - people who would really help the people of our borough. Instead of work-ing with us to secure this, these councillors chose to support Labour’s political opponents. Local people deserve better and Labour is committed to doing the right thing.”
Muslims demand same protection on gay marriage
Labour councillors lose appeal against expulsion
‘The case against the five was always very clear: they consistently voted and campaigned against the Labour Party’
‘No-one in their right mind should accept such a discriminatory law. It should be amended to give the same exemption to all the religions’
Winter bug cases up 83% Latest figures show there has been an increase in cases of norovirus – often known as the winter vomiting bug. The Health Protection Agency es-timates there have been about 880,000 cases in England and Wales since the summer, 83% more than in the same period last year. There have been just over 3,000 lab-confirmed cases. But the HPA says these reported cases are the tip of the iceberg and for each one, there will be around 288 that go unreported.
Judge may rule on surgery A judge may have to decide whether a boy with cancer should under-go more surgery, against his mother’s wishes. Neon Roberts had a brain tumour removed last year and his mother, Sally, has taken legal action to prevent him having to undergo more radiotherapy. Ms Roberts, 37, is at the High Court trying to prevent her son from getting more of this cancer treat-ment.
Met warning on ‘plebgate’The Met police chief has warned against assuming initial accounts of the “plebgate” incident were wrong after a police officer was ar-rested on suspicion of leaking details. “There is more to this than meets the eye. When peo-ple hear the full story they will support what we’ve done,” Mr Bernard Hogan-Howe said. The Met Police Federation has suggested the arrest may be disproportionate. The incident led to Andrew Mitchell losing his cabinet job as chief whip.
Comet stores to close downComet stores are to close their doors for the last time on Tues-day, bringing the failed electri-cal retailer’s 79-year history to an end. Of the 236 stores the firm presided over when it went into administration last month, only 49 are still open. On Monday, administrators De-loitte said unsecured creditors would get back less than 1% of the money owed to them. The chain’s collapse will also cost the government £49.4m in redundancy payments and foregone tax revenues.
The Church of England is exempt from the new law, but Muslims are not
Mayor Lutfur Rahman congratulates some young people after they achieved technical qualifications
[email protected] 20 December 2012
Features
A few months back Nancy Wimmer told us about Bang-ladesh’s solar success. In one of the poorest countries on earth a renewable energy company, Grameen Shakti,
is busy installing nearly 1,000 solar home systems each day. It turns out all that small solar has achieved something quite big. In November Grameen Shakti hit 1 Million Solar Home Systems (SHS) installed. The company’s milestone reinforces a lesson that is increasingly clear. Whether it’s Germany, the US, or even China distributed solar installations are driving the solar revolution.
The Bangladesh story however, is particularly exciting because Grameen has singlehandedly shattered the energy ‘axi-oms’ on which the international policy community has relied for decades: Renewable energy is too expensive: Wrong. Even if solar makes sense the poor can’t afford it or they won’t pay: Wrong. The grid will come regardless so off grid, decentralized energy is a waste of time, money, and effort: Wrong, wrong, wrong. What Bangladesh does prove is that Carl Pope is right: deploying solar makes the most sense for off-grid areas where
the economics are compelling and the need is great.That’s what makes the next phase of the solar revolution
even more exciting. That’s because today we are talking about 1 million solar home systems in Bihar, but tomorrow we could easily be talking about tens of millions in either Bihar or Uttar Pradesh, Indian states that have off-grid populations larger than most European nations.
But why would either of these states be able to replicate such an awe inspiring feat? Because they have the exact same ingredients for success: a robust rural banking sector (Micro Finance through Grameen Shakti for Bangladesh, State Banks for India), a demonstrated need (large numbers of un-electrified people), and policy support (World Bank finance for Bangla-desh, Chief Ministers whose political futures are increasingly reliant on clean energy access in India). The last ingredient being reliant on policymakers understanding that energy’s pres-ence, not price, changes lives.
In fact the next phase is already here; A distributed clean energy revolution is brewing in Bihar and the next distributed solar hotbed is developing in UP. While billions are squan-dered on a failed grid extension approach that is destroying the climate, and displacing local communities, the political leaders of these states, responsible for hundreds of millions of un-elec-trified people, are getting very serious about off grid, decentral-ized clean energy solutions.
So here’s our policy lesson in a nutshell: Bangladesh is the world’s demonstration case for an off-grid clean energy access plan that delivers. Bihar and UP are the next phase that will take this approach to scale. Maybe, just maybe, 1.3 Billion peo-ple later, the message, small solar is big, will finally sink in.
Bangladesh have agreed in principle to tour Pa-kistan and become the
first team to play international cricket there since an attack on Sri Lanka’s team bus nearly four years ago, officials said on Monday.
Pakistan have had to play their ‘home’ matches in venues ranging from Dubai to London ever since gunmen shot dead eight people and wounded seven Sri Lankan players in an audacious attack near the stadium in Lahore in March 2009.
But their exile status now looks set to end as early as January 12 after the Bang-ladeshi board (BCB) said it would take up an invitation to play two games in Lahore, as long as there were no last-minute objections on security grounds.
“We have in principle agreed to tour Pakistan. It’s a commitment made by former BCB president Mustafa Kamal. We are keeping his word,” Enayet Husain Siraj, the board’s head of cricket operations, told AFP.
“The tour is subject to security clearance,” he added. Bangladesh had also accepted an invitation to tour Pakistan last April for a short limited-over series but the Dhaka High Court blocked the tour on security grounds. Officials have said they see no judicial bar this time.
Jalal Yunus, a spokesman for the BCB, said the board on Sunday night received a security plan from their coun-terparts in Pakistan, which would be discussed before signing off on the tour. “We’ll sit with our stakeholders, in-cluding players and concerned government officials, very soon,” he told AFP.
Yunus said Pakistan had proposed two matches to take place in Lahore from January 12-13, one of which would be a 50-over interna-tional game and the other a Twenty20 contest. Pakistani cricketers are hugely popular in Bangladesh and 20 of them - including stars such as big-hitting Shahid Afridi and the spinner Saeed Ajmal - played in the inaugural edition of the Bangladesh Premier League (BPL) last year.
Bangladesh solar power reaches 1 million homes
Bangladesh cricket team agree to tour Pakistan
Bangladesh is blessed with almost year-round sunshine, which would enable the overwhelming majority of households, even those in remote rural areas, to be self-sufficient in energy
« The Bangladesh story … is particularly exciting because Grameen has singlehandedly shattered the energy ‘axioms’ on which the international policy community has relied for decades: renewable energy is too expensive – wrong »
The sun always shines on Bangladesh, and an increasing number of Bangladeshis are taking advantage of that fact. Report by Justin Guay, Washington Representative of the Sierra Club
[email protected] 3920 December 2012
Features
A general strike to demand that Muslim-majority Bang-ladesh ban Islamic political parties has disrupted traffic in Dhaka, the capital. A coalition of five left-
ist parties was enforcing Tuesday’s dawn-to-dusk nationwide strike, a common tactic in Bangladesh to highlight demands.
Authorities deployed about 10,000 police and security forces in Dhaka as hundreds of protesters took to the streets, blocking roads and halting traffic. But there were no immediate reports of violence. More than two dozen Islamic parties in Bangladesh want the country to be governed by Sharia, or Islamic law.
The leftists say the Islamic parties should be banned because they oppose the constitutional provision that Bangladesh be gov-erned by secular law.
The government has apparently responded by cracking down on – in some reported cases – Muslim women’s study circles.
Pro-Muslim media outlets such as IslamOnline are claiming that the massive government crackdown on activists and sup-porters of the opposition Islamic parties is fueling unrest in Bangladesh, which is a Muslim-majority South Asian country.
“This type of action by a democratically elected government is unwarranted and a major blow to the fundamentals of demo-cratic principles,” Abdul-Latif Masum, a professor of political science, told IslamOnline.
“It appears that the ongoing oppression of the opposition, especially Islamic forces, is quite ill-conceived by the present government and mainly targets to eliminate the Islamic forces from Bangladesh.”
Thousands of opposition activists have been arrested in a massive security crackdown over the past three weeks.
The unrest is the first since Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, the Awami leader, returned to power after a December 2008 parliamentary election that ended a two-year period of rule by an army-backed interim government.
Professor Masum warned that the government crackdown would trigger chaos in the country.
“This should not be the character of any democratic govern-ment and it shows intolerance of Awami League government,” he said.
“Therefore, government should open all window of democ-racy for the sake of democracy itself.”
But the government defended its crackdown against the opposition, saying it was part of efforts to prevent chaos in the country.
“Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and Bangladesh Jamaat-E-Islami (BJI) are trying to destabilize the country to halt the trial of war criminal indictment process which is elec-tion agenda of present government,” Mahabub-Ul-Alam Hanif, Joint General Secretary of the ruling Awami League, told IslamOnline.
Opposition groups say the latest crackdown is a standard policy of the Awami League. “As a political party whenever Bangladesh Awami League (BAL) got hold of the power it never tolerated any opposition party,” Abdul-Kader Mollah, As-sistant Secretary-General of Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami, told IslamOnline.
“The present oppression and torture of the opposition by the Awami League government is their normal practice as evident from its past historic records of activities.”
Mollah cited the government ban of all political parties in the country in 1973.
“BAL got the brute majority in 1975 and banned all political parties not only the Islamic political parties and established the ill-fated one party state with the formation of Bangladesh Krishak Sramik League (BAKSAL) and started the era of one party regime in Bangladesh.”
He urged the government to stop treating the opposition as the enemy.
“Opposition is a part of government in a democratic country. So, the government should refrain from undemocratic and dic-tatorship attitude against opposition,” said Mollah.
“Our apprehension is that such type of attitude toward the opposition as rooted in the mind of present government is not good sign for the country. Its consequence will be very bad.”
Mohammd Jafrullah Khan, Secretary-General of the Khela-fat Majlish Islamic party, warned that the crackdown could trigger a backlash. “BAL government is losing its good image through torture and suppression of the opposition and creating a terrible atmosphere,” he said.
“This will lead to a decline in the public support for the gov-ernment. So ultimately government will be destabilized within a short time.”
An investigation into the fire that killed more than 100 work-
ers at a Bangladesh garment factory has found that it was an act of sabotage and that managers at the plant prevented victims from escaping.
Main Uddin Khandaker, who conducted the inquiry, told the AFP news agency on Monday that the owner of the factory, Delwar Hossain should face murder charges for “gross negligence and unpardonable crime”.
“We have suggested legal action against him and nine of his mid-level managers who barred the workers from leaving the burning factory,” he said.
The Tazreen factory fire was the most fatal Bangla-desh has seen. The factory, located on the outskirts of Dhaka, was supplying clothes to a variety of inter-national brands including US giant Walmart, Dutch retailer C&A and ENYCE, a label owned by US rapper Sean “Diddy” Combs.
Khandaker said: “There was no possibility of the fire originating due to an electric short-circuit or any other reason,” without suggesting who might have triggered the fire or why.
He said the fire in the middle of the factory ware-house in the ground floor was initially small when it broke out on the night of November 24.
“But there was no attempt to douse it. We suggested that the government set up a taskforce to find out the people responsible for this heinous act.”
The owner told reporters after the blaze that he be-lieved it was started deliber-ately but gave no details.
Total ban on Islam in Bangladesh
Investigation into factory fire calls incident ‘sabotage’
A virtual ban is reportedly already in place against pro-Muslim students in Bangladesh
Despite being a Muslim country, Bangladesh Islamists are under fire
The government crackdown on opposition parties in Bangladesh – especially on Islamic parties – is continuing. And now leftists have called a general strike to try and pressure the government to ban the Islamists altogether
Factory supplied items to P Diddy