Detroit reverberates with Shahbagh protests

shahbag Detroit

Hundreds of Bangladeshis living in the US state of Michigan on Sunday expressed solidarity with the Shahbagh demonstrators pledging to launch public awareness campaign in the United States in support of the trial of war criminals back home.

They also urged the US lawmakers not to be goaded by the lobbyists hired by identified war criminals.

“We will campaign in every strata of American life to bring the true history of 1971. We will ask our American friends to write to their elected representatives to support the judicial process against the war criminals, who are accused of killing, rape and other horrendous crime,” said Dr Ahmedul Hasan, a renowned physician.

He hoped American politicians would ultimately listen to their constituents, not to the lobbyists hired by the Jamaat-e-Islami and their allies.

Braving freezing cold, the expatriates gathered in Hamtramck, a Bangladeshi-dominated area adjacent to Michigan’s largest city Detroit.

A large number of children also joined their parents who echoed the slogans being chanted at the Shahbagh intersection for the last seven days. They called for death sentence to those now being tried by the International Crimes Tribunal for committing crimes against humanity during Bangladesh’s Liberation War in 1971.

Yusuf Salahuddin Ahmed, a veteran freedom fighter, urged everyone to socially boycott the war criminals including severing all ties with the war criminals-controlled business establishments.

Conducted by Md. Abu Naser, an Assistant Professor of journalism at Oakland University, the rally was addressed, among others, by Engineers Jami Ahmed Khan and Monir Zaman, and Abu Hanif.

Source: bdnews24