E-Bangladesh

This project aims to compile an insightful reportage on the condition of some 350, 000 internal migrants who are currently employed in the shipbuilding and repairing industry situated on the banks of River Buriganga, Bangladesh. This industry has recently been in for a boost due to exposure to the international market. These workers, who are hardly aware of their rights, are all day labourers. Work in these boisterous, bustling centres of activity is usually conducted in traditional manual form– no proper machines, safety gears, health precautions, no training or access to insurance or health plan. Living conditions are as makeshift as one can imagine. While the industry is changing face by leaps and bounds, with no organization private or public to speak for them or to address their grievances these life-bloods of the ship building industry have experienced no change in their lot. This work is an endeavour to address their unsaid and unstated demands— their rights to a better life.

-

Azizur Rahim Peu[www.arpeu.com] is the Editor of DrikNEWS.

Only ten months ago the so called cartoon blasphemy incident shocked many Bangladeshis. The Bangladeshi media tried to bury the episode and many of us may have forgotten the incident as well as the victim, the cartoonist Arif. E-Bangladesh traced him and published an exclusive interview of him on 27 of May 2008.

Recently he released his first two animated cartoons in his Facebook space. The first one is named as “A Flower”:

Read the rest of this entry »

They claim it never happened: one of the worst nightmares of human history. They claim monsters never existed: those who feasted on their own brother’s blood. Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mojaheed, Shah Abdul Hannan and their comrades in Oxford or the Bangladesh Election Commission have their agendas to propagate revisionist rubbish: “No genocide,” “No war,” “No war criminal” from 1971. Digging through archives, Mashuqur Rahman compiled a video presentation on Bangladesh, 1971: genocide, rapes, war crimes, war criminals. As Shada Kalo puts it, our agenda: “I will not forget. I will not let you forget.”

–

NBC News 1/7/1972: Dhaka University massacre. Video of Pakistani soldiers executing students, professors and workers at Dhaka University on March 26, 1971.

–

CBS News 2/2/1972: Evidence of mass graves and widespread killing in Khulna. Approximately 100,000 people were killed in Khulna.

–

NBC News 2/20/1972: Rape victims. Genocidal rapes of Bangladeshi women and girls during the Bangladesh Liberation War. The report interviews pregnant girls held at Pakistani army barracks and repeatedly raped. Some of the girls are as young as 13.

[An E-Bangladesh Reports]

The major political parties, including Awami League and Bangladesh Nationalist Party were critical of chief adviser Fakhruddin Ahmed’s statement about the jurisdiction of the proposed Truth Commission regarding the top two politicians, Sheikh Hasina of Awami League and Khaleda Zia of BNP.

Awami League, Workers Party of Bangladesh, Communist Party of Bangladesh and Bangladesher Samajtantrik Dal also raised question if there is any necessity of forming the commission at all. 

Fakhruddin Ahmed said in an interview, aired Saturday on Al Jazeera Television, that former prime ministers Sheikh Hasina and Khaleda Zia would not be able to seek pardon from the proposed Truth Commission.

‘There is no necessity of forming the Truth Commission here,’ acting Awami League general secretary Syed Ashraful Islam said Sunday. ‘It [commission] is like a “Kangaroo court” formed in a few countries to control special situations. Here in Bangladesh, political and social situations do not require such commission.’  

Read the rest of this entry »