The Ekattorer Ghatak Dalal Nirmul Committee is a pressure group founded to demand the trial of war criminals from Bangladesh Liberation War. It advocates for secularism in Bangladesh. [1]
Ekattorer Ghatak Dalal Nirmul Committee was founded on 19 January 1992 by 101 Bangladeshi activists to seek justice for the genocide carried out during the Bangladesh liberation war led by Jahanara Imam. [2] [3] [4] Operating in Bangladesh and Britain they claim the policies of the Jamaat-e-Islami are similar to those of the British National Party. [5] The London branch protested against the arrival of Delwar Hossain Sayeedi at a Mosque in East London and demanded his British visa be revoked. [6]
In 2000, the committee's leaders established the secular heritage group Swadhinata Trust to raise youth awareness of, and pride in, Bengali history and culture. [6]
In 2015, leaders of the committee, Justice Mohammad Gholam Rabbani, Shahriar Kabir, and Muntasir Mamun criticised Bangladesh Nationalist Party chairperson Khaleda Zia for questioning the number of dead in the Bangladesh Liberation war. [7] Ekattorer Ghatak Dalal Nirmul Committee in 2016 asked the government to make denial of Bangladesh genocide a crime. [8] It established a European chapter with Tarun Kanti Chowdhury as its president. [9]
Shariar Kabir was elected president and Kazi Mukul was elected general secretary of the committee in 2017. [10] Justice Mohammad Golam Rabbani was elected president of the 31 member advisory board. [10] The general executive board had 61 members. [10]
In 2020, the President of the committee, Shahriar Kabir, asked UN Human Rights Commission to resettle the Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh to a third country. [11] Describing them as victims of genocide it collected the testimonies of 10 thousand Rohingya refugees. [12] It criticized Muslim extremists who dug out the body of a Ahmadiyya baby from a Muslim graveyard in Brahmanbaria District. [13]
In April 2022, the committee called for the release of a Hindu college teacher detained for "insulting" Islam describing the charges as a conspiracy by religious extremists. [14] It called for a judicial committee to investigate the incident. [15] The committee created People's Inquiry Commission on Fundamentalist and Communal Violence (Gono Commission) with the Parliamentary Caucus on Indigenous and Minorities to investigate religious violence and published a white paper which identified 116 Islamic scholars as money launderers and financiers of terrorism. [16] In response, the Islamic Cultural Forum Bangladesh asked the government to investigate the wealth of Ekattorer Ghatak Dalal Nirmul Committee members. [16] The Minister of Home Affairs, Asaduzzaman Khan, initially supported the report but later changed his position. [16] In June it organized an event criticizing the Digital Security Act and highlighting victims of its use. [17]
Jahanara Imam was a Bangladeshi writer and political activist. She is known for her efforts to bring those accused of committing war crimes in the Bangladesh Liberation War to trial. She has been called "Shaheed Janani".
The Rohingya people are a stateless Indo-Aryan ethnic group who predominantly follow Islam and reside in Rakhine State, Myanmar. Before the Rohingya genocide in 2017, when over 740,000 fled to Bangladesh, an estimated 1.4 million Rohingya lived in Myanmar. Described by journalists and news outlets as one of the most persecuted minorities in the world, the Rohingya are denied citizenship under the 1982 Myanmar nationality law. There are also restrictions on their freedom of movement, access to state education and civil service jobs. The legal conditions faced by the Rohingya in Myanmar have been compared to apartheid by some academics, analysts and political figures, including Nobel laureate Bishop Desmond Tutu, a South African anti-apartheid activist. The most recent mass displacement of Rohingya in 2017 led the International Criminal Court investigating crimes against humanity, and led to the International Court of Justice investigating genocide.
Abu Naser Muhammad Gaziul Haque was a language activist and an activist leader during the Bengali Language Movement.
Muhammad Kamaruzzaman was a Bangladeshi politician and journalist who served as the senior assistant secretary general of Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami and was convicted of war crimes during the 1971 Liberation war of Bangladesh. He was executed by hanging at Dhaka Central Jail at 22:01 on 11 April 2015.
Ekattorer Dingulee ) is an autobiography by martyr-mother Jahanara Imam based on her experiences of the liberation war of Bangladesh in 1971.
Muntasir Mamoon his full name is Muntasir Uddin Khan Mamun, he is a Bangladeshi writer, historian, scholar, secularist, translator, and professor at University of Dhaka. He was awarded Bangla Academy Literary Award and Ekushey Padak by the Government of Bangladesh.
Shahriyar Kabir " is a Bangladeshi journalist, filmmaker, human rights activist, and author of more than 70 books focusing on human rights, communism, fundamentalism, history, and the Bangladesh war of independence. He was awarded Bangla Academy Literary Award in 1995.
There is a history of persecution of Muslims in Myanmar that continues to the present day. Myanmar is a Buddhist majority country, with significant Christian and Muslim minorities. While Muslims served in the government of Prime Minister U Nu (1948–63), the situation changed with the 1962 Burmese coup d'état. While a few continued to serve, most Christians and Muslims were excluded from positions in the government and army. In 1982, the government introduced regulations that denied citizenship to anyone who could not prove Burmese ancestry from before 1823. This disenfranchised many Muslims in Myanmar, even though they had lived in Myanmar for several generations.
There has been numerous works of art that depicted the Bangladesh Liberation War during and since the War both at Bangladesh and abroad. The concert for Bangladesh organized by members of the Beatles was a major happening in 1971 for protest music. The songs recorded for and broadcast on Swadhin Bangla Betar Kendra are still considered to be the best of Bangladeshi protest songs.
1993 (MCMXCIII) was a common year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar, the 1993rd year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 993rd year of the 2nd millennium, the 93rd year of the 20th century, and the 4th year of the 1990s decade.
1992 (MCMXCII) was a leap year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar, the 1992nd year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 992nd year of the 2nd millennium, the 92nd year of the 20th century, and the 3rd year of the 1990s decade.
Kabir Chowdhury was a Bangladeshi academic, essayist, materialist, translator, cultural worker and civil society activist.
The movement demanding trial of war criminals is a protest movement in Bangladesh, from 1972 to present demanding trial of the perpetrators of 1971 Bangladesh genocide during the Bangladesh Liberation War from Pakistan.
The Bangla College killing field is located in the Mirpur area of Dhaka, Bangladesh. In 1971, during the Bangladesh Liberation War, the Pakistani army killed 3 million Bangladeshis with the help of some local collaborators. It has been claimed to be the largest genocide after World War II. Bangladesh officially became independent on 16 December 1971, but the neighborhood of Mirpur was liberated from Pakistan Army and local Bihari people on 31 January 1972, 45 days after the declaration of independence was signed. Mirpur was largely inhabited by Biharis who were against the secession movement, so genocide took place on a large scale. Mirpur was the last battlefield of the war. Bangla College is one of the largest killing fields in Bangladesh.
Gono Adalat was a mock trial held to Bangladesh of those responsible for the 1971 Bangladesh Genocide. It was not an official trial and did not have any legal basis but was widely popular. The Bangladesh Nationalist Party led government filed cases against the organizers of the Gono Adalat which were withdrawn by the next caretaker government. The trial was led by Jahanara Imam.
Shahadat Chowdhury was a Bangladeshi journalist and editor of several news magazines. He served as the editor of Weekly Bichitra from 1972 until its publication was ceased in 1997. He then served as the editor of Shaptahik 2000 and Anandadhara.
Md. Iqbal Kabir, also known as Md Iqbal Kabir Lytton, is a judge on the High Court Division of the Bangladesh Supreme Court.
Doctors Association of Bangladesh is a trade association of doctors in Bangladesh. It is politically aligned with the right-wing Bangladesh Nationalist Party. It is a rival of the Awami League backed doctors association, Swadhinata Chikitshak Parishad.
Bangladesh Jatiyatabadi Krishak Dal is the farmers wing of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party.