Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has hinted at the BNP’s support to the movement of the “anti-women” Hifazat-e-Islam and said millions of female readymade garment workers would loss their jobs if the Awami League was not voted back to power.
Hasina, who heads the party, was addressing its Central Working Committee meeting at her official residence, Ganabhaban, on Thursday.
The Hifazat chief Shah Ahmad Shafi has opposed the National Women Policy, including education and employment of women, and what he describes as ‘public mixing of sexes’.
While delivering a sermon recently, Shafi, Director General of Hathazari Madrasa, urged the owners of the readymade garments workers not to employ female workers in their factories.
The main opposition BNP openly lent support to the Hifazat rally held in May. It also slammed the police drive to evict besieging Hifazat activists from the city’s Motijheel.
Talking about Shafi’s sermon, Hasina said, “Now we are being told many things about women. Efforts are on to shut women’s earning opportunities.”
Hasina also castigated the BNP for its stony silence over the sentencing of its key ally Jamaat-e-Islam’s leaders by the International War Crimes Tribunals.
“The BNP is the only party that does not want the trial. They are even silent on the verdicts,” she said. “So, we can assume they are backing the war criminals.”
Hasina said the tribunal verdicts were in keeping with people’s expectations and reconfirmed her resolve to execute them.
She also hoped to try those creating chaos to ‘shield’ the war criminals.
Hasina urged everyone to accept the tribunal verdicts and flayed the Jamaat, a party described as a ‘criminal political organisation’ by the war crimes tribunal, for forcing shutdowns to protest the judgments.
Jamaat had been calling general strikes every time its leaders were convicted for war crimes.
It forced shutdowns this week too after its top leaders Ghulam Azam and Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujaheed were handed down tough sentences.
“How can a party, working in the name of Islam, call a strike during Ramadan?” she asked.
Regarding other issues, Hasina had a few words of advice for those opposing the quota system in jobs.
”The quota system has been in place for a long time. There is a quota for women too. Mustn’t they get jobs?” she asked.
“How many would have got jobs if the freedom fighters hadn’t risked their lives during the Liberation War?” she reasoned.
A group of BCS examinees are on the streets, demanding the scrapping of the quota system, saying it deprives the talented aspirants of government jobs.
About the recent vandalism at the Dhaka University by anti-quota demonstrators, Hasina said, ”Can such unruly people be eligible for government job?.”
She warned that action would be taken against them after they were identified.
Source: Bd news24
