e_Paper 20-11-2016

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2 SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 2016 DT News ‘MP Azad took part in attack’ Justice for Santals of Gaibandha demanded • Ashif Islam Shaon Socheton Nagorik, a platform of civil society members, yesterday alleged that ruling party lawmaker Abul Kalam Azad had taken part in the November 6 attack on Gaibandha’s Santal community. “Local MP Abul Kalam Azad a year back assured the Santals of peaceful solution to their land dispute, but he finally took part in the attack on them directly,” writer and columnist Syed Abul Maksud said at the press conference at the Dhaka Reporters Unity in the capital. The same allegation came from the affected Santals. In a meeting with top AL leaders on November 16 at the party’s Dhanmondi office in Dhaka, Jatiya Adibasi Parishad President Rabindranath Soren told AL General Secretary Obaidul Quader how the lawmaker and UP Chairman Shakil Ahmed instigated the premeditated attack. In that meeting, Soren told Obaidul: “Police opened fire in the presence of local MP and the chairman. MP Azad ordered the police to open fire through a hand mike. We can submit the evidence, if needed. We have VDO footages and still photos as proofs. And when we went to police station to file a case, the police did not take our case. On the contrary, the police after shooting us filed a case against 200- 300 persons naming 42 including the dead.” Abul Maksud yesterday said: “This is not a way to evict anyone from his land. They could have talked to the Santals; police could have arrested some Santals, if needed; but they resorted to shooting indiscriminately to kill the poor Santals.” He said that the police, local administration and local public representatives acted like the Pakistani occupational forces of 1971 and a group of hired goons acted as their auxiliary force during the attack. Judicial probe, compensation demanded Speakers at the briefing also urged the government to form a judicial inquiry committee to probe into the bloody attack that left three Santals dead and over 30 injured. Some 2,000 Santals were evicted from 15 villages on that day, and the Bangalis who joined hands with the law enforcers looted valuables of the houses before burning them to ashes. They demanded that the government provide compensation and ensure security of the displaced Santal families so that they can return to their homes and start A fire whose cause has not yet been determined breaks out in a disputed sugarcane field in Shahebganj in Gobindaganj upazila, Gaibandha yesterday normal life. “The government must take responsibility for the treatment of the injured. Those who have violated human rights must be tried and, above all, the rights of the security of the indigenous people must be ensured,” Prof Abul Barkat, an economist, said at the press conference. Barkat said: “The false cases filed against the victim Santals must be withdrawn and the local administrative officials involved in the attacks, carried out in name of eviction drive, have to be removed too.” Police even handcuffed three Santals while undergoing treatment at hospitals, an act that created massive outrage. On November 17, after a case was filed by a Santal, following Obaidul Quader’s instructions to Gaibandha police to take Santals’ case, Jatiya Adivasi Parishad President Rabindranath Soren told the Dhaka Tribune that the case had not been filed on behalf of the affected Santals. Police tactfully made a Santal, living outside Madarpur and Joypurpara, file the case to save the real culprits. The plaintiff was not affected during the drive. The group of citizens visited Gobindaganj upazila’s Sahebganj-Bagda Farm area and Madarpur village on November 13, and talked to the displaced Santals, living under the open sky without proper access to food and water. After the incident, police filed five cases against the Santals for obstructing the law enforcers from carrying out their duties. A fresh case was filed against them yesterday over the arson attack on a sugarcane field in the area. Prof Barkat said: “Of the 5,500 acres of land there, some 4,500 acres belong to the Santals. The government proposal for establishing a special economic zone on this land is defective. As per the preconditions, an economic zone is not supposed to be built on a land that produces multi crops. Besides, there must be a national highway within 10 kilometers of the zone and navigable river.” Among others, Coordinator of Nijera Kori Khushi Kabir also spoke at the briefing while Sanjib Drong, general secretary of Bangladesh Adivasi Forum, presented the keynote paper. ‘I want Santals ousted, not solution’ Oikya NAP President Pangkaj Bhatyacharya said: “I talked to Industries Minister Amir Hossain Amu seeking a solution over the land issue. But, unfortunately, the minister said that he only wanted the Santals to be ousted, no solution.” Talking to media, Amu also alleged that a vested interest group wanted to grab the government land using the Santals. A similar comment came from PM’s Special Envoy and Jatiya Party Chairman HM Ershad, who said that evicting the Santals from the land had been nothing wrong. • Shahebganj sugarcane field up in flames • Md Tazul Islam, Gaibandha The controversial Shahebganj sugarcane farmland of Rangpur Sugar Mills Ltd in Gobindaganj upazila, Gaibandha went up in flames on Saturday afternoon, causing damage to around 33 bighas or 4.41 hectares of sugarcane. The fire started around 1:30pm at a field in 11-I block of the farm in the upazila’s Fakirganj area and spread quickly, said Alamgir Hossain, deputy general manager of the farm. Soon after the fire broke out, a team of fire fighters from Gobindaganj fire station rushed to the scene and was able to bring the blaze under control within 30 minutes, said Abdul Hannan, upazila nirbahi officer of DHAKA TRIBUNE Gobindaganj. Alamgir said it was not yet confirmed as to how the field caught fire. “We do not know how the fire was started. We are working to find out what happened.” Learning about the fire, the factory’s Managing Director Abdul Awal and Gobindaganj police station OC Subrata Kumar Sarker visited the site. The Shahebganj farm field was home to a community of indigenous Santals until the police, RAB and local Bangalis conducted an eviction together against the Santals on November 6. Santal leaders claim that at least 2000 families of 15 villages in the area were evicted from their ancestral lands. •
News 3 SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 2016 ‘No Hindus will be left after 30 years’ DT • Kamrul Hasan Eminent economist and researcher Dr Abul Barkat has observed that there will be no Hindus in the country after three decades. “The rate of exodus over the past 49 years points to that direction,” the Dhaka University teacher said in his book “Political economy of reforming agriculture-land-water bodies in Bangladesh” published yesterday. From 1964 to 2013, around 11.3 million Hindus left Bangladesh due to religious persecution and discrimination, he said. It means on an average 632 Hindus left the country each day and 230,612 annually. From his 30-year-long research, Barkat found that the exodus mostly took place during military governments after independence. Before the Liberation War, the daily rate of migration was 705 while it was 512 during 1971-1981 and 438 during 1981-1991. The number increased to 767 persons each day during 1991-2001 while around 774 persons left the country during 2001-2012, the book says. DU teacher Prof Ajoy Roy said the government grabbed the properties of the Hindus during the Pakistan regime describing them as enemy property and the same properties were taken by the government after independence as vested property. According to the book, these two measures made 60% of the Hindus landless. Retired Justice Kazi Ebadul Haque said the minorities and the poor were deprived of their land rights. For example, when a shoal rises in a river the local leaders register them in the name of poor people, but the same leaders file a case and take the land under the possessions showing the court’s stay order. The deprived people remain deprived, he said, adding that the land management system should be reformed. Dhaka University teacher Prof Farid Uddin Ahmed said that the government has to ensure that the indigenous people would not be affected or harmed. “The government must ensure that the people do not think about leaving the country for once.” No accurate estimation of indigenous peoples Discussing on a separate book of Prof Barkat “Political Economy of Unpeopling of Indigenous People: The case of Bangladesh” published yesterday, former NHRC chairman Prof Mizanur Rahman said that there was no accurate estimation of the indigenous peoples living in the country. He mentioned that at least 22 indigenous groups had disappeared from the country. Prof Mizanur also urged Jyotirindra Bodhipriya Larma alias Santu Larma to inform the indigenous peoples of the Chittagong Hill Tracts about the 1997 Peace Accord. In his speech, Bangladesh Adivasi Forum President Santu Larma agreed that the implementation of the Peace Accord was not the only solution to the crises in the CHT region. He added that the current stance of the ruling party would not solve the disputes through different reform programmes, rather they want to hinder the process. “We need a people-oriented government. But the reality of state mechanism does not allow this to happen.” Santu Larma, also chairman of the CHT Regional Council, claimed that over 50 indigenous groups were on the verge of extinction, but they want to live with dignity with the remaining indigenous groups. Prof Ajoy Roy observed that in his book Prof Barkat had used the word adivasi even the government does not recognise them as indigenous peoples. Prof Barkat dedicated the book to his childhood friends who belonged to “Buno” indigenous group, but now remain traceless, Prof Ajoy Roy said, adding that he too had met the group in a small forest in Faridpur. “I have not heard about them since long … May be they were forced to leave the place by the land grabbers and have gone to India and took a different name.” Prof Mizanur said although the prime minister had taken stance in favour of the indigenous peoples, the ruling party leaders were involved in heinous activities against them. Addressing the programme as chief guest, Civil Aviation Minister Rashed Khan Menon urged rights activists to stand by the side of the indigenous peoples. • MRG to Bangladesh: Protect minority rights • Tribune Desk MINORITY RIGHTS GROUP INTERNATIONAL REPORT 2016 PHOTO: MAHMUD HOSSAIN OPU Bangladesh parliament, government officials and law enforcers should consider the protection of rights of the minority communities as a priority since the country has failed to protect them from a new outbreak of targeted killings and communal violence, says a new report by Minority Rights Group International (MRG). There must be a stronger commitment to understanding and recognising the potential drivers of violence that include land grabbing, political rivalries and hate speech so that preventive action can be taken to stop recurrence of abuses. The report “Under threat: the challenges facing religious minorities in Bangladesh, since 2013” mentioned the series of violent incidents targeting religious minorities by local and international militant groups such as Islamic State and al-Qaeda. Furthermore, communal violence driven by political rivalries continues to take place with perpetrators enjoying apparent impunity. The London-based group, which has over 150 partners across some 60 countries, prepared the report based on reported incidents, fieldwork by local rapporteurs and first-hand author interviews with a number of activists, lawyers and journalists. The MRG also expressed concern over the recent attacks on Hindus in Nasirnagar, Brahmanbaria, injuring over 100 people and vandalising over a dozen temples and Puja pavilions. Over 60 houses were also damaged and looted by the attackers who were protesting against an alleged blasphemous post on Facebook demeaning Islam. “The rising attacks and death toll have highlighted how vulnerable minorities are to attacks ... The variety of abuses they experience, from forced abduction and sexual assault to land grabbing and arson, have occurred within a broader climate of impunity, with many abuses appearing to be carried out with the complicity of law enforcement agencies and the judiciary,” Carl Soderbergh, MRG’s director of policy and communications, said in a press release yesterday. The MRG also expressed concern over the systematic migration of the Bengali people in the Chittagong Hill Tracts region, eviction of indigenous peoples and violence against women. “The government-sponsored migration of Bengali settlers since the 1970s has led to conflict and dispossession for indigenous peoples, who are predominantly Buddhist and Christian, as well as Hindu and animist, leaving many displaced from their ancestral land. There are also ongoing high levels of gender-based violence against indigenous women living in the region,” the statement said. Apart from the religious minorities and the indigenous peoples, atheists, secular bloggers and liberals have borne the brunt of extremist attacks. KEY FINDINGS ● Militant attacks on non-Muslims, non-Sunni, liberals and LGBT rights activists, and communal attacks in a climate of impunity ● Political marginalization and economic discrimination ● Minorities sidelined as second-class citizens ● Respect towards religious minorities decreasing RECOMMENDATIONS ● Guarantee the security of religious minorities ● Enforce legal protections for religious minorities ● Ensure justice to victims of targeted rights abuses ● Promote the participation of religious minorities ● Address root causes of violence and discrimination ● Support the work of civil society organizations on behalf of religious minorities ● Strengthen the capacity of the NHRC to address violations Despite the promise of independence in 1971 and the passing of a secularist constitution the following year, an increasingly restrictive religious nationalism in the ensuing years has sidelined Bangladesh’s minorities within their own country, the MRG said. The rights body has asked the government to implement anti-discrimination legislation aimed specifically at religious minorities and marginalised groups; review current inequalities within the legal system, including the place of Islam as the state religion and the use of draconian provisions against secular writers and activists; and take steps to strengthen the National Human Rights Commission to respond to violations against minority communities. The civil society should mobilise a more coordinated response to rights violations, speak out in unison to condemn minority rights violations and support the vulnerable groups including secularists, LGBT groups and liberals. On the other hand, the media should provide adequate coverage to minority rights issues, highlight incidents of abuses, expropriation and violence against religious minorities, and engage activists and community leaders to provide them with a much-needed platform to articulate their concerns. •
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