Bangladesh tense ahead of verdict, Islamic World News, NewAgeIslam.com

Islamic World News

Bangladesh tense ahead of verdict

Islamic World News

At least 12,000 extra policemen have been deployed in Bangladesh ahead of a verdict in the trial of army officers accused of killing the first president.

Authorities say they are concerned that supporters of the five army men on trial may try to disrupt proceedings.

The trial began 10 years ago and the last stage has seen the final appeal of the alleged killers.

Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was killed in 1975, just four years after leading Bangladesh to freedom from Pakistan.

Five of the accused are in prison in the capital, Dhaka. Six others are on the run abroad.

The killers were a group of young army officers, who went on to murder not just the charismatic president, but also his wife, three sons, two daughters-in-law and about 20 other relatives and aides.

Mr Rahman's daughter Sheikh Hasina, who was re-elected prime minister in December, escaped the massacre only because she was out of the country at the time.

Warning

The thousands of extra policemen are guarding strategic buildings ahead of Thursday's final verdict in the trial, one of the country's longest-running and most controversial.

Extra men have been posted outside the Supreme Court building in the capital, Dhaka, where the verdict will be announced, as well as outside foreign embassies, at the state television and radio stations and other key buildings across Bangladesh.

http://newageislam.com/bangladesh-tense-ahead-of-verdict/islamic-world-news/d/2111

PAKISTANI WRITERS - A new East West symphony, Islam and the Media, NewAgeIslam.com

Islam and the Media

PAKISTANI WRITERS - A new East West symphony

By Salil Tripathi

The Islamic nation’s newer writers raise questions about the country’s relationship with modernity and the West

After the 1971 war, which ended with Bangladesh separating from Pakistan, author Tariq Ali posed a question, which became the title of his book: Can Pakistan Survive? Last year, Ahmed Rashid, the veteran reporter who has been warning about the Taliban's dangers for more than a decade, wrote Descent into Chaos, accurately predicting the trajectory Pakistani politics would take along the Durand Line.

Since then, Pakistan's elected government has effectively ceded control over the large territory of Swat to the Taliban. In recent weeks, it has regained some control over the territory, but, as the cricket aphorism goes, the last ball hasn't been bowled yet.

Ali calls such leaders "bearded lunatics" in his latest book, The Duel (2009), which examines US-Pakistan relations.

We can admire the prescience of these writers; we can also despair over what lies ahead for Pakistan, and what shape the country might take.

This tragic phase has coincided with an incredible flowering of literary talent. With the state withdrawing from exercising even a semblance of authority, several authors of Pakistani origin or heritage have seized the space, writing seminal works that provide clarity in our absurd times. Maybe exceptional strife spurs imagination--think of Samizdat writers during the Cold War--although responding to the crisis is not the overt intention of any of Pakistan's fine novelists.

It is not fair to any of these fine novels to pretend that they speak with one voice--it would be just as absurd to claim that Arundhati Roy, Amitav Ghosh, Salman Rushdie, Vikram Seth and Kiran Desai speak with the same voice--but there is one discernible pattern. And that is Pakistan's relationship with the West and, in particular, the US.

http://newageislam.com/pakistani-writers---a-new-east-west-symphony/islam-and-the-media/d/1808

Why liberal Muslims feel betrayed?, Islamic World News, NewAgeIslam.com

Islamic World News

Why liberal Muslims feel betrayed?

No political movement can hope to win arguments if it turns the best and bravest into its foes. For the most courageous British Muslims, the Labour government and wider liberal society already seem slippery and hypocritical. Soon, they will be irredeemably tainted.

Take Ansar Ullah, a Bengali leftist from the old school. Like many secularists of his generation, his life has been dominated by the struggle against Jamaat-e-Islami. The party's name is rarely mentioned in our public life, although its supporters in the Muslim Council of Britain and the Islamic Foundation are on the radio almost daily. The Bengali equivalents of British Observer readers know it all too well. They regard Jamaat as we regard the BNP: the sworn and potentially deadly enemy of all their best principles.

To stop the breakaway of its effective colony during the 1971 Bangladesh war of independence, the Pakistani army began by massacring the male students at University of Dhaka and forcing the women to be soldiers' sex slaves. It targeted intellectuals and political opponents and, inevitably, the Hindu minority. Jamaat was on Pakistan's side. Journalists at the time, and the researchers from the Bangladeshi War Crimes Fact Finding Committee since, claimed that a militia staffed by Jamaat members murdered 150 academics and journalists, including the BBC's man in Dhaka, Nizamuddin Ahmed.

http://newageislam.com/why-liberal-muslims-feel-betrayed?/islamic-world-news/d/1248

The Hizbut Tahrir issue: Bangladesh must deal with it firmly

The Hizbut Tahrir issue: Bangladesh must deal with it firmly

An editorial in The Daily Star, Dhaka

The teachers arrested in Rajshahi the other day were carted off to prison because they happened to be distributing leaflets propagating the overthrow of the government. As if that were not enough, some other leading members of the outfit in the capital have now threatened to wage a movement and not allow anyone in Bangladesh to live in peace if the arrested teachers are not released in forty-eight hours.

http://www.newageislam.com/the-hizbut-tahrir-issue--bangladesh-must-deal-with-it-firmly-/islam,terrorism-and-jihad/d/783

The story of a small skirmish: Sufi poetry sets young Muslims’ minds in motion

The story of a small skirmish: Sufi poetry sets young Muslims’ minds in motion

By Farrukh Dhondy

The Muslim population of Britain, immigrants in the main from Bangladesh, Pakistan, India, Somalia and a smattering from Arab states, have today established themselves as a small but significant fraction of the country and the city. Their affairs and opinions are debated in the national press. Their public protests are taken seriously. They are, presumably, though one can't have evidence of this, under the surveillance of the British security services, because from their ranks come the namak haram who live off the British taxpayer and in the name of Islam hatch plots to bomb, kill and maim people going about their business on the streets, in the buses, trains and planes.

http://www.newageislam.com/the-story-of-a-small-skirmish--sufi-poetry-sets-young-muslims%E2%80%99-minds-in-motion-/war-on-terror/d/772

The story of a small skirmish: Sufi poetry sets young Muslims’ minds in motion

The story of a small skirmish: Sufi poetry sets young Muslims’ minds in motion

By Farrukh Dhondy

The Muslim population of Britain, immigrants in the main from Bangladesh, Pakistan, India, Somalia and a smattering from Arab states, have today established themselves as a small but significant fraction of the country and the city. Their affairs and opinions are debated in the national press. Their public protests are taken seriously. They are, presumably, though one can't have evidence of this, under the surveillance of the British security services, because from their ranks come the namak haram who live off the British taxpayer and in the name of Islam hatch plots to bomb, kill and maim people going about their business on the streets, in the buses, trains and planes.

http://newageislam.com/the-story-of-a-small-skirmish--sufi-poetry-sets-young-muslims%E2%80%99-minds-in-motion-/war-on-terror/d/772

WRITERS' WORLD: TAHMIMA ANAM

WRITERS' WORLD: TAHMIMA ANAM

WRITERS' WORLD: INTERVIEW/TAHMIMA ANAM

A golden age

By Tahmima Anam

Published by Hachette

Price Rs 295

Pages 275

By Aparna Nair

In a newspaper article, you said certain developments in the country are threatening its existence as a moderate 'Muslim' country. And towards the end of it you talk of equal rights. Do the intelligentsia in Bangladesh, too, feel the need to retain its religious identity while making it more secular?

Most people in Bangladesh are devout, and we should celebrate our identity, whether religious or cultural. However, I personally feel that religion and politics should be divided to ensure that we live in a tolerant, egalitarian, and democratic society.

http://www.newageislam.com/writers--world--tahmima-anam/interview/d/485

Bangladesh: The nation that mortgaged its future

Bangladesh: The nation that mortgaged its future

By Ibn-e-Rehmat

The practice of staging out and then inviting the politicians to form the government adds a layer of grudge against the army regimes. New Delhi always dictated her terms to Bangladesh, rather than helping the impoverished Bengalis and playing their role in ensuring good governance. In fact, tacit approval granted to its like-minded military rulers to take over the reign of power every now and then, deprived the people of Bangladesh from the fruits of democracy. Concurrently there is no dearth of lame excuses to castigate the Bangladesh by the New Delhi but one of the most favourite themes is complaints about providing sanctuaries to the militant or freedom fighters’ organisations like ULFA, having their dens or hideout in the Bangladesh. It is always alleged the Pakistan’s ISI has its covert and overt links with these separatist organizations. But the BD government consistently denied these accusations.

http://www.newageislam.com/bangladesh--the-nation-that-mortgaged-its-future/islam-and-politics/d/393

Pakistan's much-dreaded ISI: A Hydra-headed Monster

Pakistan's much-dreaded ISI: A Hydra-headed Monster

By Sumit Ganguly

31 July 2008

The ISI has been accused of carrying out all manner of devious acts in India, Bangladesh, Afghanistan and even within Pakistan itself. It has certainly played a critical role in organising, training and assisting the various insurgent and separatist groups in Indian-administered Kashmir. It has also been accused of instigating various extremist Islamist groups within Bangladesh to carry out acts of espionage and terror against India. During the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, it played a vital role in supporting some mujahideen groups during the Afghan war while keeping others at bay. Subsequently, it is believed that they played a vital role in spawning and promoting the Taliban.

http://www.newageislam.com/pakistan-s-much-dreaded-isi--a-hydra-headed-monster/islam,terrorism-and-jihad/d/370