Shahbagh demonstrators have declared a week long fresh programme including rallies and processions to press home their six-point demand.
According to the new programme, they will stage rallies in Uttara, Chittagong and Ashulia between March 10 and March 16.
Imran H Sarker, convener of Blogger and Online Activist Network, announced the programme at a rally — Nari Jagoron Samabesh (rally for awakening women) — at Shahbagh intersection.
In his speech, Imran called upon all to remain united to make the programmes a success.
Highlighting the contributions of women during and after the Liberation War of the country, he urged all to be aware of eliminating discriminations towards women.
At the end of his address, Imran administered an oath to the audience vowing to continue their demonstrations until their six-point demand including awarding death penalty to all war criminals and banning the politics of Jamaat-e-Islami.
NEW PROGRAMMES
March 10: A rally at Uttara-11 Chourasta at 3:00pm
March 13: A protest procession and a rally on Chittagong University campus at 11:00am and a grand rally at historic Laldighi Maidan at 3:00pm
March 15: A grand rally at Ashulia at 3:00pm
March 16: A solidarity rally at every educational institution at 11:00am
Women from different walks of life attended the rally.
Earlier on Thursday, they held a rally at the Shikha Chirantan at Suhrawardy Udyan marking the historic March 7.
The Shahbagh movement began on February 5, hours after Jamaat assistant secretary general Abdul Quader Mollah was sentenced to life in prison for rape, killing and genocide during country’s Liberation War in 1971.
Rejecting the verdict, Bloggers and Online Activist Network initiated the protest that soon turned into a mass movement.
It also spread to other parts of the country and eventually abroad later.
Source: The Daily Star
Here is what an expatriate Bandladeshi friend who lives in Europe said about Shahbag movement:
“Bangladesh must be the only country in the world where people are holding candle light vigils baying for blood (in the words of my friend ***). Also, the only country where left-leaning intellectuals, secu-lib academics and activists, and human rights defenders are advocating for death penalty and also advocate for due process selectively as a collective force.
The sheer insanity which is the presence of tens of thousands of privileged middle class people, mostly students and youth, the alleged backbones of Bangladeshi society and the historic harbingers of revolution, are out there protesting a sentence (mind you, not the process or the competence of the politically appointed prosecution) and by doing so are letting this trump bigger issues of public-sector corruption, a gaping fiscal deficit, a crippling power crisis that may result in a terrifyingly dangerous nuclear solution, the prisoners of conscience, the rapid decline of rule of law or the abysmal situation of workers’ rights in the country, is really depressing me. What’s more depressing is that so many people I know and care about are party to this and it’s impossible to engage any of them in an objective discussion, let alone debate, on this.
42 years after the war if 160 million people can till be divided along the imaginary divide of pro and anti liberation, then it says a lot about the national conscience of the country. A society so divided, can never move forward towards political reconciliation. We defeated Pak army, but we seem to be fighting each other still over the same cause.
It’s a sad day for me because I realized that collectively, we want to regress into further political divides, instead of moving forward towards unity”.
Sent from my iPad
__._,_.___