Delwar Hossain Sayeedi was a Bangladeshi Islamic leader, politician, public speaker, and convicted war criminal, who served as a Member of Parliament representing the Pirojpur-1 constituency from 1996 to 2006.
Kamal Hossain, better known as Dr. Kamal, is a founding leader, lawyer and politician of Bangladesh. He is known as the "Father of the Bangladeshi Constitution" and regarded as an icon of secular democracy in the Indian subcontinent. Hossain currently heads his own law firm in Dhaka. He retired from political activities and from the post of president of Gano Forum in October 2023.
The Bangladesh Institute of Law and International Affairs (BILIA) is the oldest think tank in Bangladesh. It is housed in the former residence of Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy on Road 7, Dhanmondi, Dhaka.
Salma Sobhan was a Bangladeshi lawyer, academic and human rights activist. She became the first woman barrister in Pakistan in 1959. A member of the law faculty of the University of Dhaka, she was a co-founder of Ain-O-Salish Kendra (ASK), a national human rights watchdog. She was also a key figure at the Bangladesh Institute of Law and International Affairs (BILIA).
Sultana Kamal is a Bangladeshi lawyer and human rights activist. She serves as the executive director of Ain o Salish Kendra, a civil rights organisation. In 2006, she served as adviser in the Caretaker government of Bangladesh led by President Iajuddin Ahmed during the 2006-2008 Bangladeshi political crisis. Kamal, along with three other advisers, resigned from the caretaker government Her mother Sufia Kamal was a participant of the Bangladesh Liberation War.
New Age is a Bangladeshi English-language daily newspaper published from Dhaka. It is printed in broadsheet. It is one of the country's most outspoken newspapers, regarded for its anti-establishment editorial policy. Nurul Kabir, a former leftwing activist, is the present editor of the newspaper.
International Crimes Tribunal of Bangladesh is a domestic judicial tribunal that deals with the issues of international crimes like war crimes and the crimes against humanity. Since its inception, the court has been playing remarkable roles in the formulation, application and thereby, promotion of international humanitarian law (IHL). Initially the tribunal was set up in 2009 to investigate and prosecute suspects for the genocide committed in 1971 by the Pakistan Army and their local collaborators Razakars, Al-Badr and Al-Shams during the Bangladesh Liberation War. During the 2008 general election, the Awami League (AL) pledged to try war criminals. The government set up the tribunal after the Awami League won the general election in December 2008 with a more than two-thirds majority in parliament.
David Bergman is a British investigative journalist. Bergman has worked for Bangladeshi and British newspapers. He was first known in Bangladesh for his reporting on war crimes committed during the Bangladesh Liberation War. An investigative documentary on the subject he worked as a reporter and researcher for British television in 1995 won an award. Twenty years later, he was convicted of contempt of court by Bangladesh's special war crimes tribunal in 2015 for contradicting the official death toll of the war. Bergman has also contributed to The New York Times and Foreign Policy.
Abdul Quader Mollah was a Bangladeshi Islamist leader, writer, and politician of the Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami, who was convicted of war crimes and sentenced to death by the International Crimes Tribunal, Bangladesh (ICT) set up by the government of Bangladesh and hanged. The United Nations raised objections to the trial's fairness, while the general public in Bangladesh widely supported the execution.
On 5 February 2013, protests ignited in Shahbagh, Bangladesh, fueled by the call for the execution of the convicted war criminal Abdul Quader Mollah. Previously sentenced to life imprisonment, Mollah was convicted on five of six counts of war crimes by the International Crimes Tribunal of Bangladesh. Mollah supported the West Pakistan during the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War and played a crucial role in the murder of numerous Bengali nationalists and intellectuals. The demonstrations also sought the government's ban on the radical right-wing and conservative-Islamist group, Jamaat-e-Islami from participating in politics, including elections, and a boycott of institutions supporting or affiliated with the group.
2013 Bangladesh violence refers to the political instability, increase in crime and widespread attacks of minorities and opposition activists.
The 2012 ICT Skype controversy was the leaking of Skype conversations and emails between Mohammed Nizamul Huq, head judge and chairman of Bangladesh's International Crimes Tribunal, and Ahmed Ziauddin, a Bangladeshi lawyer based in Brussels. These conversations took place during the prosecution of the accused for alleged war crimes during the Bangladesh Liberation War in 1971.
Shirin Sharmin Chaudhury is a Bangladeshi politician who served as the first female speaker of the Bangladesh Jatiya Sangsad since April 2013 until September 2024. At 46, she became the youngest person to assume that office. She was also the chairperson of the executive committee of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association between 2014 and 2017. She previously served as the state minister of the Ministry of Women and Children Affairs of Bangladesh.
Hameeda Hossain is a Bangladeshi human rights activist and academic. She has published many books and articles relating to human rights and women's issues in Bangladesh, in Islam, and worldwide. She is a founding member of Ain o Salish Kendra, a legal aid and human rights organization.
Gender inequality has been improving a lot in Bangladesh, inequalities in areas such as education and employment remain ongoing problems so women have little political freedom. In 2015, Bangladesh was ranked 139 out of 187 countries on the Human Development Index and 47 out 144 countries surveyed on the Gender Inequality Index in 2017. Many of the inequalities are result of extreme poverty and traditional gender norms centred on a patrilineal and patriarchal kinship system in rural areas.
Nadia Sharmeen is a Bangladeshi journalist. In 2015, she won the US State Department's International Women of Courage Award.
The SOAS School of Law is a law school of the University of London. It is based in the Paul Webley wing of the Senate House in Bloomsbury, London, United Kingdom. The SOAS School of Law has an emphasis on the legal systems of Asia, Africa and the Middle East.
Azza Soliman is an Egyptian lawyer and women's rights activist. She co-founded the Centre for Egyptian Women's Legal Assistance (CEWLA), an organization that campaigns for the equality of women, with an emphases on legal equity and the amendment of discriminatory laws. She has been arrested and prosecuted several times. in 2015, she testified about the death of a protester, Shaimaa al-Sabbagh. Soliman has been subject to retaliation, including financial measures.
Shahdeen Malik is a Bangladeshi lawyer, eminent jurist, constitutional expert, and legal activist.
Fawzia Karim Firoze is a Bangladeshi advocate at the Supreme Court of Bangladesh. She was recognised as an International Woman of Courage in 2024. She has supported changes to the law that garment workers, those effected by acid attacks and by sexual harassment.
