E-Bangladesh

[Dhaka Correspondent]

The acting secretary-general of the pro-government faction of the BNP, M Hafiz Uddin Ahmed, on Saturday said he has little faith in the statements made by Khaleda Zia’s counsels on her sending the purported letter to the Election Commission. 

‘I do not believe the statements of the lawyers and neither does Khandakar Delwar Hossain. He said political statements cannot be issued from jail and I think that he was right. I do not want to talk on the issue as it is still sub judice and hope there will be a direction from the High Court in this regard in the next few days,’ said Hafiz at a news briefing.

He recalled Khandakar Delwar’s statement after one of Khaleda’s attorneys, Mahbub Uddin Khokan, said the detained chairperson had told him that she preferred ‘unity in the party at any cost’.  

‘We think we are the mainstream of the party and we are ready to make any sacrifice for the party’s unity, and they [Delwar-led faction] should also be ready for sacrifice,’ he said, responding to a question on unity moves in the party.

‘The chairperson asked us to be united at any cost and we tried to do so, but first it needs a meeting. The dispute can be settled through discussion if both the sides are ready to compromise,’ he added.

Hafiz said that unity cannot be brought about by speeches or statements to the press — it can only be created through discussion. ‘They know it very well, and so do we,’ he said. 

‘Unofficial communications will continue between us. As soon the election schedule is announced, both the factions will face severe pressure from the grassroots-level workers and activists to unite,’ he said. 

When he was asked about the other faction’s demand for resignation of Saifur Rahaman, Hafiz said, ‘Saifur Rahman is the top leader in the party after Khaleda Zia. Why should he resign? Once they sent only an assistant office secretary to him for discussion. Khandakar Delwar should himself come to meet Saifur Rahman,’ he said.

Hafiz made the statement within 24 hours after the statement made by the deputy inspector-general of prisons, Major Shamsul Haider Siddiqui, about Khaleda’s reported communiqué to the chief election commissioner and the High Court. ‘No detainee can make a political decision,’ said Shamsul, referring to the provisions of the jail code, at a press conference at Dhaka Central Jail on Sunday.

Khandakar Delwar Hossain, when approached for his reaction to Hafiz’s comment, declined to say anything. ‘I will make my observations after getting more information. I should not make any comment on the basis of hearsay,’ he said.

[Dhaka Correspondent]

The detained former prime minister Sheikh Hasina’s physician on Friday advised she should be admitted to hospital for proper treatment.

The medicine department chair at Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University, ABM Abdullah, told newsmen, ‘I have advised the jail authorities to get Sheikh Hasina admitted to hospital for her proper medical treatment.’

‘I have also advised Sheikh Hasina to get admitted to hospital,’ said Abdullah after examining Hasina, also the Awami League president, during a scheduled check-up in the special jail on the Jatiya Sangsad complex Friday morning.

The inspector general (prisons), Zakir Hossain, and deputy inspector general (prisons) Shamsul Haider Siddiqui accompanied the physician during the check-up.

Shamsul told newsmen, ‘The physician, after examining Sheikh Hasina, has advised her to get admitted to Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University hospital.’

‘We have completed all the formalities and are ready to move her to hospital as soon as she agrees,’ Shamsul said.

Sheikh Hasina has for long been suffering from fluctuating high blood pressure and eye, ear and kidney problems.

Abdullah entered the special jail at about 10:15am to examine Hasina. He also spent two hours there and discussed with her the health problems.

The former prime minister is suffering from eye and ear problems. Forty per cent of her hearing in the left ear as been damaged because of the August 21, 2004 grenade attack, said Abdullah.

‘If she is admitted to BSMMU Hospital, we may form a medical board and provide her with all medical support as she is very sick. Her blood pressure appeared normal today,’ Abdullah said on Friday.

Some of her relatives met Hasina on Thursday and they said Hasina had agreed to receive treatment in a specialised city hospital.

[Dhaka Correspondent]

Seven months have gone after the Election Commission announced the electoral roadmap, but it has not done even half of the work mentioned in the roadmap.

The EC, which was reconstituted on February 4, 2007, missed the deadline for most of the tasks that were supposed to be finished by the time specified in the roadmap it unveiled on July 15, 2007. For instance, the dialogues with the political parties on electoral law reforms and institutional reforms were not held in September-November last year according to the roadmap.

Political leaders expressed their doubt if the tasks mentioned in the roadmap would be completed within the stipulated timeframe. The election commissioners, however, are repeatedly claiming that all the tasks of the roadmap will definitely be completed in the scheduled time.

One of the major tasks of the EC is to prepare the voters’ roll with photographs by October this year, but so far less than half of the expected total number of voters has been registered. The EC’s own contribution to the project of voters’ registration was minimal, with the army doing the bulk of the work. A total of 3.44 crore voters has been registered in the voters’ lists as of February 11 in the last six months, starting from August last year. The EC expected that the total number of voters would be around 8 crore this time.

It also did not begin the tasks for printing, posting and correcting the draft voters’ lists which were supposed to begin last October, two months after the field-level tasks had begun. The EC, at last on Thursday, said it would publish the draft voters’ lists of four city corporations and seven municipal areas on February 18.

The EC has decided in principle to include the names of expatriate voters this time in the electoral roll, but there is no visible progress in this regard. The two elections commissioners — M Sohul Hussain and M Sakhawat Hussain — went on a visit to the United Kingdom between November 5 and 20 on the EC’s expense to assess the eagerness of expatriate Bangladeshis there to be enlisted as voters, although there is still no rule to facilitate their enrolment in the electoral roll.

The roadmap also detailed a number of reforms within the EC itself. According to the proposed reforms, the EC’s secretariat should have been made independent and its information technology wing strengthened by December 2007. Separation of the EC secretariat from the Prime Minister’s Office, which is now the Chief Adviser’s Office, remains in limbo because of a provision of the ordinance in this regard. Also, no move has been made for strengthening its IT wing as yet.

The roadmap said that the internal reorganisation of the EC secretariat would be completed by December 2007. But the work of the EC — from the secretariat-level to the field-level — was mostly done on an ad hoc basis. The vacant positions at different levels of the EC were not filled and frustration is reportedly brewing among the officials who have been deprived of due promotion.

The EC, however, has claimed that the draft of the amendments to its service rules, aimed at making the jobs of election officials transferable and the EC secretariat independent, was at its final stage.

The EC missed the December 2007 deadline to wrap up its dialogues with the political parties over the proposed electoral reforms because of the delay in resolving the legal dispute over which of the BNP factions should represent the party at the talks. The EC, without completing the first round of talks, has announced a five-day schedule for the second round of dialogues with political parties from February 24.

The EC is yet to begin the other major tasks of holding elections to different local government bodies within January as per its electoral roadmap. Its roadmap stipulated that all the overdue city corporation, municipality, union parishad and upazila parishad elections should be held before the general elections. It later modified the plan, seeking to complete the city corporation elections before the parliamentary polls.

The EC had announced that the elections to Rajshahi City Corporation would be held in January. The work for preparing the voters’ list started there in August last year. But the EC later shifted its stance, saying it wanted to hold the overdue polls to four city corporations in Rajshahi, Khulna, Barisal and Sylhet in April.

According to the roadmap, the political parties will have to be registered with the EC by June this year. But it is yet to finalise the pros and cons of the provision of registering the political parties.

Awami League’s presidium member, Matia Chowdhury, said, ‘It is uncertain whether the EC will complete the tasks within the timeframe mentioned in the roadmap as it has been going at a slow pace.’

[Dhaka Correspondent] 

The BNP would go to the High Court once again seeking direction on the jail authorities to dispatch the party chief’s letter to the election commission soon as the jail authorities has said that they may not hand over the letter that has requested the commission to communicate with Khandaker Delwar Hossain on any issue related to the party. 

‘We would go to the court once again anytime this week as it seems that the prison authorities are unwilling to send the detained party chairperson’s letter to the Election Commission requesting it to communicate with Khandaker Delwar Hossain on any issue related to the party,’ said a BNP standing committee member close to secretary-general Khandaker Delwar Hossain.  

Khaleda’s attorney Sanaullah Miah also echoed the standing committee member.

Their move comes after the jail authorities on Friday said the detained former prime minister, Khaleda Zia, will not be allowed to send out any ‘political’ as per the jail code and if she does so it would not be reached to the addressee.

The deputy inspector general of prisons, Major Shamsul Haider Siddiqui, told reorters that if the letter contains any political issue it would not be despatched. ‘No detainee can make a political decision,’ he said citing the jail code.

He also accused the BNP chief and her attorneys of violating the jail code through discussing political issues with her attorneys.

‘Speaking of politics is a violation of the jail code. They had taken permission to discuss legal issues for the former prime minister. But later they told journalists about different political decisions by Khaleda Zia. It should not be done,’ he said.

He claimed that the jail authorities are yet to receive any letter from the BNP chief and if the letter contains political issues, steps will be taken as per the jail code.

He said the detained persons have to collect paper from the authorities for sending letter and if anybody is unable write the authorities are supposed to take their dictation but nothing of such took place in Khaleda’s case.

‘She did not ask for any paper from the authorities. Maybe the letter was not handwritten,’ he said.

Haider promptly arranged the news conference after two attorneys of Khaleda after meeting her on Thursday evening said she had sent a letter to the chief election commissioner through jail authorities.

Khaleda’s attorneys, Nawshad Zamir and Sanaullah Miah, said she wrote the letter in their presence and gave it to jail authorities.

In the letter Khaleda has described Khandaker Delwar Hossain as the ‘legal’ secretary general of the party and urged the CEC to hold talks on electoral reforms only with him.

According to Nawshad, Khaleda Zia on November 5, 2007, also sent a letter to the Election Commission and she wrote to the commission again as she did not know what happened to the letter she sent to the commission earlier.

Sanaullah Miah, however, claimed that neither the lawyers nor the detained prime minister have violated the jail code. ‘We did not violate the jail as we discussed about the writ petition, which challenged the election commission’s invitation to BNP faction secretary general Hafuzuddin Ahmed for its dialogue on electoral reforms, pending with the High Court,’ he said.

He said the detained BNP chairperson gave dictation of the [Thursday] letter to Nawshad Zamir in front of jailer Faruque. ‘Two copies of the letter were prepared as she wanted to convey her views to both the Election Commission and the High Court. The letters were handed over to the jailer, who was present there, to send to the commission and the court through the deputy inspector general of prisons,’ he said adding, ‘This was the only lawful way for her to convey her views as she is yet to be taken to the court.’

Sanaullah said they would inform the High Court about the views of the detained party chief about the commission’s invitation for electoral reforms talks scheduled for November 22, 2007.      

The Election Commission and four of the seven BNP standing committee members on February 12 submitted separate replies to the rule issued by the High Court.

Four standing committee members of BNP— RA Gani, M Shamsul Islam, Khondker Mahabubuddin Ahmad and Chowdhury Tanbir Ahmed Siddiqui — in their separate replies before the High Court bench said that no meeting of standing committee was held on October 29.

They claimed that they had just joined a tea party hosted by former finance minister Saifur Rahman at his Gulshan residence that day.

Two ‘unidentified officials’ were present at the late evening party, the BNP leaders said, adding that they were to sign a resolution due to ’special circumstance.’

The High Court on November 18, 2007 issued the rule on the Election Commission and the government to explain why the commission’s invitation letter addressed to M Hafizuddin Ahmed, acting secretary general of a BNP faction, would not be declared illegal.

After hearing a writ petition filed by detained BNP chairperson Khaleda Zia, the court had also stayed the operation of the invitation letter to the government-backed BNP faction.

7th January -Oscar winner Nafees with his mother in their village home in Rajbari. Photo by Banglar Chokh 

[Sushanta Das Gupta, UK] 

Nafees Bin Zafar , a proud Bangladeshi has won the Scientific and Technical Academy Awards 2007 in OSCARS. The award was declared at The Beverly Wilshire on Saturday, February 9, 2008. Here is the OSCARS press release: 

7th January - Nafees with his family in his village home in Rajbari.

In an interview with philly. com honoree Nafees Bin Zafar said earnestly,”Fluid effects rock and all of us who work in fluids know this.” 

The blogger Promethean Dreamer wrote a few things about Nafees. 

[Saleem Samad, Canada.]

What ’s in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.