Sun 29 Jun 2008
[ Graph: The Fund For Peace, Washington, D.C.] (more…)
Sun 29 Jun 2008
At one point her employer poured hot oil down the front of her pyjamas. Wahida tried to stifle her screams by putting cotton in her mouth. From time to time she would hit her in different parts of her body with a rolling pin. One day Wahida scalded her on her cheek, which left a deep scar. “When he [Rafiqul Alam] asked about it, mami [Wahida Akhter] said, ‘Why do you care about the bandi of the house, do you want to marry her?’ and he never asked about me again.”
Not satisfied with her torture methods, Wahida moved on to more ’sophisticated’ techniques. A couple of months ago, Wahida took a pair of pliers, put it to Ratna’s breasts and tore off one of her nipples. She bled for days but was never taken to the hospital. With no other body part left unscathed, Wahida once put a hot cooking spoon on Ratna’s tongue when she didn’t do her work ‘properly’. [Read Full Report]
Sat 28 Jun 2008
1, Mustofi sounds a skeptical note on “Creative Capitalism”
2. Durreen’s original op-ed on “Creative Capitalism”
What is Creative Capitalism?
- Mustofi
Looks like this may be the phrase du jour. But beyond the buzzwords, I am puzzled as to what [Durreen Shahnaz] is actually proposing. On a concrete level, how will this make a sizable dent in the rolls of the unemployed? How will this help increase exports? How will this generate lots of jobs for young men and women? How will this take us higher up the value chain? How will this help improve our collapsing infrastructure? (more…)
Thu 26 Jun 2008
[New Age Photo]
SSC results are out. For the first time in history of Bangladesh, students could get their result via the cell phone interactive SMS. A whopping 70% test takers passed the exam this year.
This is significantly different from when I took my public exams in the mid 80s. During those days, the only way to get the results were either school notice board ( which will be torn and taken out as souvenir within hours after posting) or the fine print result sheets in the national newspapers. The pass rate is an improvement too. The pass rate used to be a lowly 30 something percent those days. A better pass rate is a remarkable and much needed leap forward. ‘Nearly 2/3rd of the students are flunking the first national public exams and majority of those failing are from the rural downtrodden communities’– It was indeed a lousy state of affairs.
Thu 26 Jun 2008
We, the average citizens, do not protest when some of us lynch dacoits to death once in a while.
Thu 26 Jun 2008
[Choles Richil, tortured to death in Army custody]
JUNE 26 is UN Day in Support of Victims of Torture. Bangladesh ratified UN Convention Against Torture in 98 but with reservation of Article 14 (providing compensation to victims). Optional Protocol to the Convention Against Torture was adopted by UN in 2006. 35 countries ratified the protocol, Bangladesh is not one of them.
1. A Tortured Image –Rahnuma Ahmed
2. Beyond The Rule Of Law –Odhikar Report
3. Torture Prime Impediment To Democracy
4. Drishtipat on Torture
A Tortured Image, by Rahnuma Ahmed
Social classes are described as relationships of exploitation that endure. Likewise, torture in Bangladesh. It endures changes in government, in systems of ruling, in the legitimacy provided for ruling. Dismantling it won’t be easy. Those committed to doing so insist that the torturers be identified, and punished. Likewise, that those who are higher-up, those who order it, not be given any impunity.
I AM against torture. Nothing justifies torture. This is a principled stand, there are no ifs and buts.
But why is it that when I see a recent picture of Tarique Rahman, son of ex-prime minister Khaleda Zia, his face screwed up in sheer agony, I feel no empathy, no compassion? Why do I not allow myself to dwell on his pain? Why do I shut it out, turn to another news item, or turn the pages of the newspaper?
Why does a picture of this torture victim leave me cold?
Wed 25 Jun 2008
“I’ve already run out of food, water and money: if nobody comes for our rescue, we’ll not survive in the depot as we don’t have money to buy food”–Words of Bangladeshi migrant worker stuck in a camp near KL International Airport in Malaysia, thanks to Shika Trade International, a Bangladeshi manpower agency.
Odd-job worker Ishak Salleh and his family have been staying in a canvas tent since their rented houses were demolished by a relative last Wednesday. They have received assistance in the form of food supply and cash aid from the Seberang Prai Utara district office and the Penang zakat management centre. Ishak was “touched by the amount of aid he received.”– New Straits Times. [Crossposted from Imperfect World]
Tue 24 Jun 2008
Bangladesh makes it to top of Motley Fool list of top performing stock market with a whopping 126% return. But when economic activity is in freeze, business houses are stalled, consumer prices are through the roof, and banks are reporting liquidity crisis, does the Stock Market bubble w/ insane PE ratios represent another 1/11 market distortion? Meanwhile, what of “middle income rich” buzzword. Everyone’s using it. ADB Chief, Army Chief, AL Chief. (more…)
Sun 22 Jun 2008
BREAKING NEWS: As a result of hr campaign & press reports, all 4 members of UPDF were released from custody on the night of June 24th. Kudos to all activists who worked on this case.
On 12th anniversary of disappearance of Kalpana Chakma, new “events” in CHT. Where are Alakesh Chakma and 3 other Jumma activists, picked up by “plainclothes security forces”?
(more…)
Sun 22 Jun 2008
Photograph for TIME by Helen Kudrich
Time throws off its pretense and ignores Fakhruddin alltogether in its new feature on Bangladesh and goes to the real decision maker. The quote speaks for itself below and gives you a context of some of the very policy of crash and burn that has so backfired until now.
The government has made no promises about when it will lift the emergency. Shying away from democratic commitments, Moeen is far more eager to talk about building effective leadership in Bangladesh and educating its vast, illiterate masses — as he himself puts it — “so that they don’t keep on cutting off their own feet.” Such a tone is fitting for a man who styles himself the redeemer of his country. “You can judge the people of a nation by the type of leaders they select,” he concludes. Most Bangladeshis are wondering when they’ll really get that chance.
In the meantime, if you want to meet one of these “vast”, “illiterate”, “docile”, self destructive, too kind for their own good and dumb voters, meet Nazima Akter profiled in Washington Post.
Sun 22 Jun 2008
CRPF personnel patrol at the Hill Cart road near Siliguri
“Beneath that veneer of sophistication, the average Bengali is as communal and parochial as Raj Thackeray and his goons. But, while Raj & Co have the courage to speak their minds, the Bengalis would try and couch their racism in sophisticated language.”
The location is Gorkhaland, but it could also be Chittagong Hill Tracts. (more…)
Sat 21 Jun 2008
This is a tough brief. Perhaps I would have better luck writing in defence of serial killers or kidnappers or puppy-punters. Even writing in defence of lawyers, it seems to me, would be a safer undertaking that would garner me fewer brickbats. But if a columnist cannot take an unpopular position every now and again, then what use are we (don’t answer that question).
Sometimes we have to stick our necks out and defend the very people who are being pilloried, the lowest of the low, the scorned of society, the outcasts, the pariahs, those who are utterly beyond the pale.
In post-1/11 Bangladesh, or at least in the eyes of a considerable segment of the chattering classes, the bien pensants, the intelligentsia, there is no doubt as to the identity of the primary villains of the day. It is not corrupt politicians or crooked businessmen. To the contrary, the lion’s share of anger and contempt is reserved for that ill-defined yet curiously satisfying punching-bag, civil society.
(more…)
Fri 20 Jun 2008
[An edited version of this article was published in STAR magazine.]
Twelve years after the abduction of Adibashi human rights activist Kalpana Chakma, the mystery of her disappearance remains unsolved. (more…)
Fri 20 Jun 2008
Around 90,000 Bangladeshi migrant workers live and work in Bahrain, 10 per cent of the total population of that country. In the year 2006-07, these migrants sent $80 million in remittances home. But the recent murder of a Bahraini man by a Bangladeshi worker has sparked angry reactions from government officials and politicians. The Bahrain government has put an embargo on recruitment of any further ‘unskilled’ workers from Bangladesh. Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Malaysia had already put restrictions on Bangladeshi labourers, sparked by earlier incidents. As often highlighted at conferences and seminars, foreign remittance is the second highest foreign currency earner for Bangladesh. But apathy from our embassies, corrupt middlemen, flawed immigration policies, lack of a robust government response and disparities in labour laws have placed hard-working men and women in international news headlines for the wrong reasons. Read The Report
Thu 19 Jun 2008
[Two months] after the April 20 arson attack in Sajek, Rangamati, the affected villagers remain homeless. Some are staying with relatives, others in the nearby Buddhist Bihar, many, under the open sky. Their possessions burnt to ashes, many of them have nothing to wear but the clothes on them, nothing to earn a living from, from which to feed themselves and their families. The relief goods (5 kg rice, 2 kg potatoes and 1 kg lentils) distributed some weeks ago by the Army Chief was far from enough. The Tk. 10,000 per family which was promised is yet to be paid. (more…)