Bangladesh bans Jamaat-e-Islami party following protests that left over 200 dead

Bangladesh bans Jamaat-e-Islami party following protests that left over 200 dead
Protesters clash with Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) and the police outside the state-owned Bangladesh Television as violence erupts across the country after anti-quota protests by students, in Dhaka, Bangladesh, July 19, 2024. (REUTERS)
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Updated 01 August 2024
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Bangladesh bans Jamaat-e-Islami party following protests that left over 200 dead

Bangladesh bans Jamaat-e-Islami party following protests that left over 200 dead
  • Bangladesh PM, political partners blame party for inciting violence during recent protests 
  • Since July 15, at least 211 people have died and more than 10,000 people arrested across country

DHAKA: Bangladesh on Thursday banned the Jamaat-e-Islami party, its student wing and other associate bodies, terming the party as a “militant and terrorist” organization as part of a nationwide crackdown following weeks of violent protests that left more than 200 people dead and thousands injured.
Bangladesh’s Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and her political partners blamed Jamaat-e-Islami, its Islami Chhatra Shibir student wing and other associate bodies for inciting violence during recent student protests over a quota system for government jobs.
In an official circular seen by The Associated Press, Bangladesh’s Ministry of Home Affairs said Thursday the ban was imposed under an anti-terrorism law.
Since July 15, at least 211 people have died and more than 10,000 people were arrested across the country.
Bangladesh Jamaat-e Islami was banned from taking part in the three national elections since 2014 after the Election Commission canceled its registration.
In 2013, the High Court disqualified the party from elections, saying that its constitution violated the national constitution by opposing secularism. However, it was not barred from conducting political activities such as holding meetings, rallies and making statements.
Ten years later, the Supreme Court in 2023 upheld the High Court decision, sealing off the long legal battle and barring the party from participating in elections or using party symbols. But again, the Supreme Court did not ban it outright.
Jamaat-e Islami was founded during British colonial rule in 1941 by a controversial Islamist scholar and campaigned against the creation of Bangladesh as an independent state during the war of independence from Pakistan in 1971.
Most of the senior leaders of the party have been hanged or jailed since 2013 after courts convicted them of crimes against humanity including killings, abductions and rapes in 1971. The party had formed militia groups to help the Pakistani military during the nine-month war against Pakistan in 1971. Bangladesh won independence on Dec. 16 in 1971 with the help of neighboring India.
Bangladesh says 3 million people died, 200,000 women were raped and nearly 1 million people fled to neighboring India during the war.
The party was banned after Bangladesh’s independence in 1971 for its role in the mass killings and atrocities under the administration of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Bangladesh’s founding leader and Hasina’s father. The ban was lifted in 1976, a year after Rahman was assassinated along with most of his family members in a military coup. Only Hasina and her younger sister Sheikh Rehana survived as they were touring Germany in 1975.
Jamaat had also been banned earlier twice, in 1959 and 1964 in Pakistan, for its communal role.
There was no immediate response on Thursday from the party, but the party’s chief Shafiqur Rahman said in a statement on Tuesday night that such any decision must be condemned after Law Minister Anisul Huq, from Hasina’s Awami League party, said that a decision was imminent.
“We strongly condemn and protest the illegal, unauthorized, and unconstitutional decision … to ban Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami. The 14-party alliance led by the Awami League is a political platform. One political party or alliance cannot make decisions about another political party,” Rahman said.
“The laws and constitution of Bangladesh do not grant such authority. If a trend of banning one party by another party or alliance begins, it will lead to chaos and the collapse of state order,” he said.


Blast kills two Chinese workers in Pakistan’s biggest city

Blast kills two Chinese workers in Pakistan’s biggest city
Updated 21 sec ago
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Blast kills two Chinese workers in Pakistan’s biggest city

Blast kills two Chinese workers in Pakistan’s biggest city

KARACHI: A massive blast that targeted a convoy of Chinese workers in Pakistan’s largest city killed two nationals, Beijing’s embassy said Monday, in an attack claimed by a separatist group.
Beijing is a crucial ally for cash-strapped Pakistan but Chinese-funded infrastructure projects have sparked resentment and its nationals are routinely targeted by militant groups.
A “tanker” exploded on the airport motorway in the port city of Karachi around 11:00 p.m. (1800 GMT) Sunday, the regional government of southern Sindh province said on X.
Separatist militant group the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) said in a statement that it had “targeted a high-level convoy of Chinese engineers and investors” coming from Karachi’s international airport.
Karachi borders Balochistan province, the largest but poorest region of the country, where billions of dollars have been funnelled into transport, energy and infrastructure projects as part of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).
The BLA is waging a war of independence against the state, which it accuses of permitting unfair exploitation of resources by outsiders in the mineral-rich region.
In August, it carried out coordinated attacks across Balochistan that killed dozens of mostly Punjabis, the largest ethnic group in Pakistan, who were working in the region.
Beijing’s embassy to Pakistan said in a statement on Monday that two Chinese citizens had been killed in a “terror attack” on a convoy of personnel from the Chinese-funded Port Qasim power project.
The attack also left one Chinese and several Pakistani citizens wounded, the embassy said.
The embassy urged authorities to “conduct a thorough investigation of the attack and severely punish the killers, while at the same time taking practical measures to fully ensure the safety of Chinese citizens, institutions and projects.”
Beijing has repeatedly asked Islamabad to ensure the safety and security of Chinese nationals and its interests.
Pakistan’s foreign ministry said in a statement on Monday that it “reaffirms its unwavering commitment to the safety and security of Chinese nationals.”
Sunday night’s attack comes a week before Pakistan hosts several heads of governments for a Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit, a bloc established by Russia and China to deepen ties with Central Asian states.
Beijing is Islamabad’s closest regional ally, readily providing financial assistance to bail out its often struggling neighbor.
The CPEC has seen tens of billions of dollars funnelled into massive transport, energy and infrastructure projects — part of Beijing’s transnational “Belt and Road” scheme.
A suicide bomber killed five Chinese engineers working on the construction of a dam in northwestern Pakistan in March, temporarily pausing the project.
The attack was not claimed, but it came days after militants attempted to storm offices of the Gwadar deepwater port at the other end of the country, considered a cornerstone of Chinese investment in Pakistan.
In June 2020, Baloch insurgents targeted the Pakistan Stock Exchange, which is partly owned by Chinese companies, in the commercial capital of Karachi.
In 2019, gunmen stormed a luxury hotel in Balochistan province overlooking the flagship Chinese-backed deepwater seaport in Gwadar that gives strategic access to the Arabian Sea — killing at least eight people.


2 foreign climbers rescued after being stranded in India’s Himalayas for 3 days

2 foreign climbers rescued after being stranded in India’s Himalayas for 3 days
Updated 16 min 45 sec ago
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2 foreign climbers rescued after being stranded in India’s Himalayas for 3 days

2 foreign climbers rescued after being stranded in India’s Himalayas for 3 days
  • The climbers lost most of their communication equipment, but managed to send out an emergency message the same day
  • A rockfall severed their rope, sending their bags, along with crucial supplies like their food, tent, and climbing gear, into a gorge

LUCKNOW: Two foreign climbers have been rescued after being stranded for three days on a mountain in India’s Himalayan north.
Fay Jane Manners from the United Kingdom and Michelle Theresa Dvorak from the United States were ascending a rocky section of the Chaukhamba-3 peak in India’s Uttarakhand state when they got stranded there, said Sandeep Tiwari, a senior administrative officer of Uttarakhand’s Chamoli district. The climbers were rescued on Sunday, he said.
The climbers were first reported stranded on Thursday when a rockfall severed their rope, sending their bags — along with crucial supplies like food, tent and climbing gear — into a gorge. The climbers also lost most of their communication equipment, but managed to send out an emergency message the same day.
“We were pulling up my bag and she (Dvorak) had her bag on her. And the rockfall came, cut the rope with the other bag, and it just went down the entire mountain,” Manners told local reporters on Sunday.
The rescue operation took 80 hours to complete and involved the Indian air force and the Uttarakhand State Disaster Management Authority.
Rajkumar Negi, a spokesperson for India’s disaster management agency, said that two Indian Air Force helicopters dispatched on Friday to help with the search were unable to locate the climbers. But on Saturday, a French mountaineering team, which was also attempting to climb the Chaukhamba-3 peak, located the stranded climbers and relayed their coordinates to the rescue authorities.
The Indian air force said in a statement on social platform X that it airlifted the climbers on Sunday “from 17,400 feet, showcasing remarkable coordination in extreme conditions.”
Chaukhamba-3 is a mountain peak in the Garhwal Himalaya in northern India.


Maldives President Muizzu to meet India’s Modi to repair strained diplomatic ties

Maldives President Muizzu to meet India’s Modi to repair strained diplomatic ties
Updated 30 min 5 sec ago
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Maldives President Muizzu to meet India’s Modi to repair strained diplomatic ties

Maldives President Muizzu to meet India’s Modi to repair strained diplomatic ties
  • Tensions between India and Maldives have grown since pro-China Muizzu came to power last year
  • Muizzu had promised to expel Indian soldiers deployed in Maldives to help in humanitarian assistance

NEW DELHI: Maldives President Mohamed Muizzu is expected to talk Monday with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi as he aims to repair ties between the countries that have been strained since he came to power last year.

Muizzu and Modi are expected to discuss “bilateral, regional, and international issues of mutual interest,” according to India’s foreign ministry. Muizzu will also hold meetings with senior Indian officials during his five-day India visit.

Tensions between India and Maldives have grown since pro-China Muizzu came to power last year after defeating India-friendly incumbent Ibrahim Mohamed Solih.

Leading up to the 2023 elections, Muizzu had promised to expel Indian soldiers deployed in Maldives to help in humanitarian assistance. In May, New Delhi replaced dozens of these soldiers with civilian experts.

Ties were also strained in January when some Maldivian leaders lashed out at Modi for promoting India’s Lakshadweep archipelago for Indian travelers. Lakshadweep is off the southwestern coast of the Indian mainland.

Maldivian leaders saw the move as a way to lure Indian tourists away from their country and encourage them to visit Lakshadweep instead. It sparked angry protests from Indian celebrities who called for a tourism boycott to Maldives. Tourism is the mainstay of the Maldives’ economy.

The dispute deepened when Muizzu visited China ahead of India in January, a move which was seen as a snub to New Delhi. On his return, Muizzu spelled out plans to rid his tiny nation of dependence on India for health facilities, medicines, and import of staples.

A thaw ensued after Muizzu attended Modi’s June swearing-in ceremony in New Delhi for a third five-year term. Since then, Muizzu has toned down his anti-Indian rhetoric, and official-level contacts have intensified with New Delhi.

India’s foreign minister, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, on Sunday said he was confident Muizzu’s talks with Modi would give “a new impetus” to the “friendly ties” between the countries.

Regional powers India and China compete for influence in the archipelago nation, which is strategically located in the Indian Ocean.

For decades, India has been a critical provider of development assistance to the Maldives, including infrastructure projects, medical care, and health facilities. Meanwhile, Maldives is part of China’s “Belt and Road” initiative to build ports and highways and expand trade, as well as China’s influence across Asia, Africa, and Europe.

Muizzu’s visit to New Delhi is essential for Modi, who is facing a challenging time in neighborhood diplomacy with Marxist politician Anura Kumara Dissanayake taking over as Sri Lanka’s president and India-friendly Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina fleeing to India in August after being forced to resign by students-led protests. Nepal also now has pro-China K.P. Sharma Oli as its prime minister.

Experts say India needs to maintain close ties with Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, and the Maldives, which are its traditional spheres of influence.


Close ally of Myanmar’s Suu Kyi dies of leukaemia: source

Close ally of Myanmar’s Suu Kyi dies of leukaemia: source
Updated 41 min 3 sec ago
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Close ally of Myanmar’s Suu Kyi dies of leukaemia: source

Close ally of Myanmar’s Suu Kyi dies of leukaemia: source

YANGON: A close ally of detained Myanmar democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi died of leukaemia on Monday, a party source told AFP, days after being released from junta custody on health grounds.
Zaw Myint Maung, 72, who spent around two decades in prison for defying Myanmar’s military, was a close confidante of Suu Kyi and a lynchpin of the National League for Democracy (NLD).
He was arrested following the military’s latest coup in 2021 and jailed for corruption. He was recently released on health grounds.
“We got confirmation of his death. It’s a big loss for us as he was one of our NLD vice-chairmen,” a senior party source told AFP, requesting anonymity to speak to the media.
The source said Zaw Myint Maung had died of leukaemia.
“Although we were prepared we might lose him one day, we are sorry for losing him in this difficult situation. We have to move forward for democracy with the leaders we have.”
Zaw Myint Maung was detained along with other senior NLD figures following the 2021 coup that upended a 10-year experiment with democracy and returned the Southeast Asian nation to military rule.
In 1988 he led a doctors’ strike as part of huge pro-democracy uprisings that thrust Suu Kyi into the spotlight in Myanmar — then called Burma.
In 1989 he left his job in a university biochemistry department and joined the NLD.
The military later imprisoned him for around two decades for his activism.
After the generals enacted democratic reforms and the NLD won a landslide in the 2015 elections, he became the chief minister of the Mandalay region.
The year before the putsch Suu Kyi described him as a “real hardcore and a comrade who has been together with us since the very beginning [of our party].”
The 2021 coup sparked widespread armed opposition to military rule that the junta has failed to crush more than three years later.
Almost three million people have been forced from their homes by the conflict, according to the United Nations.
The junta’s crackdown on dissent has decimated the senior ranks of the NLD.
Months after the coup Nyan Win, a former NLD spokesman and Suu Kyi confidante died of Covid-19 while being held in military custody for sedition.
In 2022 another former lawmaker was executed by the junta in Myanmar’s first use of capital punishment in decades.
In March last year, the junta dissolved the NLD for failing to re-register under a tough new military-drafted electoral law, removing it from polls it has indicated it may hold in 2025.
Suu Kyi, 79, is serving a 27-year prison sentence on charges ranging from corruption to not respecting Covid-19 pandemic restrictions.
Rights groups say her closed-door trial was a sham designed to remove her from the political scene.
Last month Italian media reported that Pope Francis has offered refuge on Vatican territory to Suu Kyi, who led the government ousted by the military in 2021.


Green Party candidate Jill Stein sees ‘no lesser evil’ between Harris, Trump

Green Party candidate Jill Stein sees ‘no lesser evil’ between Harris, Trump
Updated 07 October 2024
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Green Party candidate Jill Stein sees ‘no lesser evil’ between Harris, Trump

Green Party candidate Jill Stein sees ‘no lesser evil’ between Harris, Trump
  • Stein says Democrats losing Arab-Muslim vote in battleground states
  • Stein warns support for Israel may cost Harris election

DEARBORN, Michigan: Widespread anger among Arab Americans and Muslims over US support for Israel’s wars in Gaza and Lebanon could cost Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, the election, Green Party candidate Jill Stein told Reuters on Sunday.
Polls show Stein garnering just 1 percent in the Nov. 5 election, while Harris and her Republican rival, former President Donald Trump, are almost tied with 49 percent and 48 percent.
But Stein has seen growing support among Arab Americans and Muslims in battleground states like Michigan, Arizona and Wisconsin where they have large populations that helped propel President Joe Biden to victory in the 2020 election.
“The Democrats have lost the Muslim American and the Arab American vote,” Stein told Reuters after a rally attended by about 100 people in the Detroit suburb of Dearborn.
“They’re going to be losing enough swing states that they will not win and they cannot win.”
A Cook Political Report poll conducted from Sept. 19-25 showed Harris leading or tied with Trump in nearly all seven states that could decide the election — Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Nevada, Georgia and North Carolina.
But Stein, who has been campaigning on a permanent ceasefire in Gaza and an immediate US arms embargo on Israel, won 40 percent of the Muslim vote in Michigan in an August poll by the Council on American Islamic Relations, that also put her ahead of Harris and Trump among Muslims in Arizona and Wisconsin.
Democrats could win back those voters if they demanded and work to enact an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and Lebanon, and also halted arms sales to Israel, but there was no sign of such action, she said.
The Biden administration, along with several US allies like France, has called for an immediate 21-day ceasefire across the Israel-Lebanon border and has long expressed support for a ceasefire in Gaza, but agreements have been elusive.
Asked about her potential function as a “spoiler,” Stein said another Trump presidency would be “terrible” but so would four more years of Democratic rule, given high rental costs, the wars in Gaza and Lebanon, and attacks on civil liberties.
“This is a very dire situation that will be continued under both Democrats and Republicans. So we say there is no lesser evil in this race,” she said.
Harris has increased her outreach in recent days, meeting with a small group of Arab American and Muslim leaders in Flint, Michigan, on Friday, and dispatching her running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, to take part in a Muslim Zoom call.
Farah Khan, co-chair of the Abandon Harris campaign in Michigan, said she would vote for a third-party candidate. “We are trying to ... punish Harris,” she said. “We may not be in a large (enough) number to put somebody in office, but we are definitely in the numbers to take somebody out of the office.”
Trump is also wooing Arab and Muslim voters and his campaign opened an office on Saturday in Hamtramck, a Detroit suburb whose Yemeni-American mayor Amer Ghalib has endorsed Trump.
Stein said Harris was also losing support among some union workers, Black men and Latinos, many of whom had drifted away from their traditional support for the Democratic party.
“Working people feel abandoned and betrayed by the Democratic Party,” she said. “It’s not like the Republicans are making things good for working people, but because the Democrats make promises and betray them, they seem to be punished by their traditional base,” she said. “That train has left the station.”