When intolerance marches to religious extremism

 

Muslims protest against a possible move to change status of State Religion Islam in the Constitution at Dhaka, the capital city of Bangladesh. (Photo: AFP)

On July 1 Bangladesh marked the 4th anniversary of a black day, but it passed silently as the nation continues to shiver under the spell of the Covid-19 pandemic.

On the fateful evening of 2016, five local extremists, linked with global terror outfit Islamic State (IS), barged into a café in capital Dhaka and opened fire, killing 20 guests, mostly foreigners.

The worst terror attack in Bangladesh's history was the culmination of a deadly campaign by homegrown Islamic extremists since 2013. The campaign left some 50 people dead, including atheist bloggers, liberal writers, publishers and academics, LGBT activists, religious minorities, and foreigners. Dozens of atheist bloggers and writers fled to Europe and America following death threats.

It was a lethal blow to Bangladesh's long-held image as a liberal Muslim country, and its economic and political fallout threatened the political future of ruling Awami League.

The government response was heavy-handed. Some 50 leaders and operatives of extremist outfits were eliminated in a series of police raids, and dozens were arrested and put on trial in the following months. Amid this massive crackdown, extremist outfits almost broke down.

On the other hand, political and non-political Islamists were fought on two fronts.

First, the leadership of Jamaat-e-Islami, the country's largest Islamist party and long-time opponent of Awami League, were put on trial, leading to executions and jailing by War Crimes Tribunals, for their crimes against during 1971 war of independence from Pakistan. The party is gasping for survival because of its weak organization, infighting, and lack of influential leaders.

Awami League was also successful in neutralizing some top radical Islamic groups like Hefazat-e-Islam (Protectors of Islam) allegedly by buying out their leaders.

In 2013, Hefazat organized a rally of half of million Muslims in Dhaka to demand a strict blasphemy law and execution of atheist bloggers for defaming Islam. The rally turned violent as protesters attacked vehicles, shops and clashed with police, leaving dozens dead and scores injured.

Four years since the café attack, has Bangladesh overcome religious extremism? Not really.

Three recent incidents show that extremism is alive and active in the naiton's social psyche, and the efforts to uproot it by brute force and political tact have failed.

The dreadful influence of religious fundamentalism

More than 100,000 followers defy a ban on public gatherings to attend the funeral of Islamic preacher Maulana Zubayer Ahmad Ansari in his home village in Bangladesh on April 18. (Photo Supplied)

"Speak no ill of the dead" is an old saying, so it is inappropriate to ask Maulana Zubayer Ahmad Ansari, a prominent Islamic preacher and politician in Bangladesh, why he had to die in the time of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Ansari, 56, was a firebrand preacher and leader of Khelafat Majlish, an Islamic political party, who had a large in his home district of Brahmanbaria and in other parts of the country.

More than 100,000 of his diehard followers defied a ban on public gatherings amid an ongoing nationwide shutdown to attend his funeral at his home village on April 18. It made national and international headlines and triggered fear about speedy community transmission of the coronavirus.

Social media sites were flooded with criticism and memes, and many grabbed the chance to hit out at the people of Brahmanbaria, a district known for religious fundamentalism and whose villagers are infamous for deadly violence over trivial matters such as quarreling about food quality at wedding ceremonies, cutting branches and so on.

The government was upset and vented anger by transferring some local officials, although they said they didn't permit the gathering but were helpless to stop it.

In fact, no local administration can stop such large crowds from honoring Islamic leaders, whether dead or alive.

Why do people take such risks to honor Islamic preachers and leaders? And why does the government remain toothless in stopping such gatherings?

A local journalist asked an Ansari follower what made him defy restrictions on movement. The man said he knew about the risks but he was "carried away by emotions."

Muslims gather for peace, tolerance and solidarity in Bangladesh

Tens of thousands of Muslims throng the grounds of Bishwa Ijtema at Tongi, Gazipur district, near Dhaka, to join Friday prayers on Jan. 17. (Photo: Stephan Uttom/UCA News)

Muhammad Alimuddin and his friends took a 12-hour bus journey and traveled more than 400 kilometers from Tetulia in Panchagarh district to Tongi in Gazipur district.

They braved the chilly winter weather with one purpose — to join tens of thousands of fellow devotees at Bishwa Ijtema (World Gathering) on the banks of the River Turag, about 22km from Dhaka.

This annual congregation is the second largest Islamic gathering in the world after the hajj in Mecca.

Bangladesh fails to control hidden radicalism

Islamist activists protest in Dhaka on Oct. 21, a day after deadly clashes following a Facebook post that allegedly defamed the Prophet Muhammad. The failure to punish extremists threatens religious harmony. (Photo by Munir Uz Zaman/AFP)

An unusual but most welcome calm prevailed at Borhanuddin in Bhola district of southern Bangladesh on Oct. 20.

Tensions had run high in the area over two days, involving the Muslim majority but also a handful of Hindus, over a Facebook messenger post that defamed Islam and the Prophet Muhammad.

A radical Islamic group, Touhidi Janata (Movement for Islamic Uprising), vowed to avenge the "hurtful religious sentiments" and declared a mass protest gathering on Oct. 20.

Biplob Chandra Shuvo, a Hindu man, was in the eye of the storm for allegedly spreading the messages. He told police on Oct. 19 that his account had been hacked and two Muslims were quickly arrested for the crime, allegedly carried out for the purpose of extortion.

Police engaged with Muslim clerics to assure them that action was being taken and asked them to cancel the impending gathering to avoid likely violence.

The clerics agreed but failed to stop Muslims from joining the protesters, who soon became a violent mob chanting Islamic slogans and demanding the death penalty for the Hindu man.

They vandalized Hindu temples and Hindu people's homes before attacking police with bamboo and bricks. Officers fired back — four rioters were killed and more than 100 people, including police, were injured.

News of the deaths infuriated Islamic hardliners. In Chittagong, clerics and students from the Hathazari Mosque and madrasa organized another march and attacked the local police station.

The escalating tension was only defused after Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina warned of "stern action" against anyone attempting to create "anarchy" over the situation.

Three men, including the Hindu, remained in police custody a week later, while police arrested hundreds of unnamed rioters in connection with the violence.

Islamic revival threatens Bangladesh's identity

Protesters in Dhaka, Bangladesh demanding the death penalty for war criminals in this file photo. (Photo by Mehdi Hasan Khan)

Four decades is enough for an independent nation to determine its true identity. 

However, recent political manoeuvrings, gradually influenced by a small but strong group of Islamist hardliners and a lethal rise of radicalism in recent years, show the struggle for a true national identity for Bangladesh is intensifying. 

Major political parties vie for power by appeasing hardliners and their supporters, while an increasingly authoritarian government tries to solidify power with unfair policies and laws disregarding democracy and greater public interests.

Militancy has weakened amid a crackdown by the government, but it has not withered as a recent event proves. 

Bullying Bangladesh govt clamping down on free speech

Bangladeshi activists shout slogans as they march in the street protesting the deaths of secular publishers and bloggers, in Dhaka, in this file photo. (Photo by Munir uz Zaman/AFP)

The Arab crisis surrounding Qatar and the demands by the Saudi Arabia-led campaign to shut down its influential Al-Jazeera news agency shines a light on the growing threats against freedom of speech in the region.

David Kaye, the United Nations special rapporteur on freedom of opinion and expression, described the demand as a "blow to media pluralism" in a recent statement.

As media freedom continues to plummet in the wake of populist, authoritarian leaders in Europe and America, such as Donald Trump, Digital Content Next, an influential media alliance that includes the BBC, The Guardian, The New York Times and Washington Post, has unequivocally leaped to the defense of Al-Jazeera.

Meanwhile, in Bangladesh, a war is raging, both covertly and publicly, against free speech despite the constitution ensuring its people freedom of expression.

Attacks on media and freethinking

Increasingly arbitrary restrictions have been placed on media and written works in Bangladesh by each regime since it gained independence from Pakistan in 1971. The current austere regulations imposed by the ruling Awami League, the party that led the struggles for independence and has been in power since 2008, has surpassed those of its predecessors.

The government, led by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina came to power after a controversial election on Jan. 5, 2014 boycotted by the major opposition parties. The absence of an effective political opposition has allowed the increasingly authoritarian rulers to adopt a policy of muzzling dissent.

The state apparatus has forced several newspapers and online sites to shut down or curtail their operations, pulled the plug on two television stations, while half a dozen prominent journalists are being hounded with criminal charges.

According to Ain-O-Salish Kendra, a Dhaka-based rights organization, 117 journalists experienced abuse and harassment in 2016, including nine at the hands of government forces and 20 who faced police charges.

The Committee to Protect Journalists, meanwhile, says 21 journalists have been killed since 1992, including 16 with impunity. Horrific murders of seven secular bloggers by Islamic militants since 2013 add to the tally of egregious acts.

The combined onslaught of restrictions and attacks on freedom of speech mean Bangladesh has scored very poorly in a 2017 report by Freedom House, a U.S.-based democracy and media freedom monitor, with the status "not free" attributed to the South Asian state.

Aside from infrequent and ineffective public protests by rights groups such as Amnesty International and the Committee to Protect Journalists and Reporters Without Borders, journalists and freethinkers in Bangladesh have no good friends to defend or protect them.

Muzzling dissent and intimidation

Last year, Mahfuz Anam, editor of leading Bangladeshi English newspaper the Daily Star, came under fire from the government after he conceded in a TV interview he had published unsubstantiated reports of corruption fed by the military intelligence agency during an army-backed state of emergency, 2007-2008.

Prime Minister Hasina called for Anam's resignation, while her son called for his prosecution for treason. This encouraged Awami League activists to file 62 criminal defamation and 17 sedition cases against Anam in 53 courts across the country. The lawsuits altogether totaled over US$8 billion.

Anam was forced to move across the country to secure bail orders before the High Court ruled against the court cases.

Matiur Rahman, editor of Prothom Alo (First Light), Bangladesh's highest-selling Bengali daily, and journalists associated with the paper are currently facing court charges for criminal defamation and "hurting religious sentiments."

Many believe the ire against the country's top two newspapers is payback for criticizing the government for failing to hold free and fair elections in 2014. The two papers have experienced significant financial setbacks thanks to the government wrath.

In August 2015, the military intelligence agency reportedly ordered some 20 large companies not to advertise in the Daily Star or Prothom Alo. The ban was allegedly triggered by their respective reports on the killings of five men in the restive Chittagong Hill Tracts. They labeled the slain as "indigenous peoples" rather than "terrorists," as the army officials would have preferred.

Overnight, the papers lost 30 percent of their advertising income, putting their very existence at stake. The government and military have denied allegations of the ban order, but it continues today.

The government's actions have clearly sent a chill down the spines of the media establishment. None of their peers have dared to report on the unwritten and unlawful ban. A senior correspondent at the Daily Star recently claimed in a private meeting that the paper's reporters are "unofficially banned" from attending events with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.

Abuse of restrictive, ambiguous laws

Bangladesh has a British colonial-era 1898 code of criminal procedure in which articles 295-298 rule that anyone who offends the religious sentiment of its citizens be punished.

This law doesn't provide any clear-cut definition of religious sentiment, nor how religious sentiment can be hurt. Clearly however, it is widely abused by the state and non-state actors, including Islamic radicals, against journalists and so-called atheist bloggers to intimidate them and to force them from writing on radicalism and any cohesion between politics and religion.

Section 57 of the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Act 2013 has made it the most draconian law against freedom of speech in Bangladesh's modern history. The law makes it illegal to publish any material over the internet that would "deteriorate law and order," prejudice the image of the state or an individual or defame religion. It gives police the powers to make an arrest without a warrant, with a maximum sentencing of 14 years' jail time and a fine of 1 million taka (US$12,288).

This law has been used to harass journalists, bloggers, writers and publishers in recent years. In 2015, a disabled journalist was arrested for reporting on Hindu property-grabbing by a Muslim government minister, while four bloggers were arrested for "hurting religious sentiment."

Amid the criticism at home and abroad, the government recently decided to drop Section 57 of the ICT law. Now, activists and critics have been alarmed with the forthcoming Digital Security Act, where this repressive law is poised to make comeback in a reworded format.

Last year, the Foreign Donations (Voluntary Activities) Regulation Act 2016 was passed equivocally. It allows the NGO Bureau — a state body under the Prime Minister's Office — to suspend registration or to close an organization down if it makes any "derogatory" remarks about the constitution or "constitutional bodies," which includes the parliament, the election commission, the comptroller and auditor general, the attorney general's office, the public service commission and the judiciary.

Critics say the law is aimed at silencing outspoken non-government agencies that press government to check on corruption, to ensure good governance and human rights.

While Islamic militants targeted secular bloggers and writers for their criticisms of religious malpractices, especially of Islam, the government didn't stand beside them. Instead, the prime minister and police chief publicly admonished the writers for crossing a line.

Amidst a dark atmosphere and death threats, more than a dozen bloggers and freethinkers have fled the country and settled in Europe and America. Those who couldn't leave have employed self-censorship in their writings and continue to maintain a low profile.

A blow to democracy and development

Bangladesh had endured 15 years of military rule before 1990. Yet, the country made significant strides in socio-economic development over recent decades, including almost self-sufficient food production, poverty reduction, lowering maternal and infant mortality, and almost 100 percent primary school enrollment.

A big credit for these advancements goes to a vibrant media, the tireless activities of development groups and critical appraisal by civil society groups. Despite the dirty-rotten, blood-feuding politics between the two major political parties, the fledgling democracy has thrived thanks to public support for free speech and media freedom.

Thus, the growing threat to free speech, from both the state and non-state actors, undermines Bangladesh's democratization and development progress. Bangladesh needs to wake up and the international community must act on restoring free speech before it's too late.

END

Original story here 

A bad example doesn’t make a bad religion

Recently, I picked a war of words with one of my close friends over his derogatory remarks on Islam. “Not all Muslims are bad people, but Islam is a religion with wrong principles,” he said to my utter disgust.

We were talking about widespread corruption and other social vices in Bangladesh and trying to find out their socio-historic roots. One of the discussion topics was the recent attack on a Buddhist community here, by an angry Muslim mob.

Hundreds of years ago lower caste Hindus converted to Islam en masse, largely to escape injustice and torture by the upper class in a society heavily based on social caste system. My friend says the decision to embrace Islam was wrong.

“No religion is inherently bad, because every religion teaches people to be good,” I said, but he didn’t change his stance. He countered by saying he had read Qu’ran and found its teaching ‘unacceptable’.

I tried to find some practical reasons behind his prejudice and misconceptions.

My friend has been a non-practicing Catholic for a long time, since even before we met four years ago; he was born in a Catholic parish to a Catholic father and Protestant mother. The family moved to a predominantly Muslim area due to his father’s job and he grew up in that area.

There was no Catholic church nearby, only a small evangelical Protestant church with about a hundred believers. Most of the children he knew were Muslims and some of them treated him like a crow among peacocks. So, he grew into adulthood hating Muslim, but also with ignorance about his own religious faith.

Then, a few months ago, his world came crashing down when a bad road accident left his right leg smashed. Most people didn’t think he would walk again, and he didn’t think so either, but he made it within six months. It was around then that he started believing ‘God does exist’!

But the more he turned to the Church, the more critical he became about Islam and Muslims.
While my friend’s case has unique aspects, most Christians in the country share the same views on Islam.

Taking sporadic cases of injustice and torture by opportunist Muslims, most Christians vilify the whole Muslim world. Is that fair?

Original Post: A bad example doesn’t make a bad religion