A rally is held in the capital by three generations of people who have suffered human rights abuses in Bangladesh at the hands of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and Jamaat-e-Islami men.
They termed the alliance of BNP and Jamaat the biggest perpetrators of human rights violations in the history of Bangladesh.
They came up with these remarks out of anger at the rally on Monday at Dhaka’s Shahbag under the banner “What about my human rights”.
"BNP-Jamaat and its international supporters make much of the few examples of human rights violation during the present government," said Tarana Halim, head of Bangabandhu Sangskritik Jote and a member of the Awami League Central Working Committee.
They conveniently attempted to ignore the long history of serious human rights violations under the BNP-Jaamat dictatorship. They refused to even hear the other side of the tale; for example, what about the 1971 Liberation War, which resulted in the deaths of three million Bengalis and the dishonoring of 100,000 women, she continued adding that, "UN has not yet designated the events of 1971 as a genocide.”
“In 1975 Ziaur Rahman enacted indemnity law and given indemnity to the killers of our architect of independence, Bangabandhu,” which Tarana mentioned as a clear violation of human rights.
Rajshahi Mayor also a presidium member of Awami League, AHM Khairuzzaman Liton said, “My father and three other top Awami League leaders were cruelly shot to death inside the prison on November 3—less than a month after the attack that killed Mujib and his family members. At the behest of Gen Zia, these killers broke into the prison and killed my father, showing violation of human rights.”
"These extrajudicial killings were executed from a political viewpoint - the ideology that opposed the country's independence and in free land, the force made all-out efforts to wipe out the ideals our relatives fought for," said Kamruzzaman Lenin, who also lost his father.
Among the three generations the first generation belong to the 1970s when millions of Bengalis became victims of Pakistai repression, second generation are those who suffered unspeakable atrocities at the hands of BNP-Jamaat cadres during the 2001-2006 timeframe government and third generation are victims of BNP-Jamaat violence carried out to oust elected Awami League government.
