E-Bangladesh » Zafa Noor

Rangs Building: A tragedy

E-Bangladesh — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 04:15:33 +0000

Latest: The Daily Star reports, “Rescue operation at Rangs Bhaban, which had resumed yesterday five days into the cave-in of the building, was stopped on safety grounds 10 minutes after the operation had started.”

[Photo/Banglar Chokh: Still waiting for a “rescue operation,” dead bodies decompose.]

[Zafa Noor, USA.]

A horrible tragedy claimed the lives of four demolition crew in the Rangs Bhaban Building stranding at least ten others under piles of rubble Saturday night. The 22-storey building was being demolished by RAJUK (Rajdhani Unnayan Kartripakkha) that had neither the expertise nor the equipment necessary to manage a demolition project so massive. The result was inevitable. Several floors of Rangs caved in and crushed the sleeping workers in several floors. Yes, you read it right, there were demolition crew, exhausted from working for long hours and asleep, under tons of concrete that was lurking on them to crush the unsuspecting sleepers any moment.

How on earth was that possible! What kind of site engineer or project manager would allow any off-duty personnel to even go anywhere near the demolition area.

The demolition zone should have been restricted to only the crew on duty and fully equipped with personal protective gear

Deadly SIDR on the way

E-Bangladesh — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 13:43:30 +0000

[Zafa Noor, USA.]

According to storm watch report, the tropical cyclone Sidr is currently headed for Bangladesh. It is currently (7 PM East, November 13, 2007) running 115 knot max winds, which qualifies as borderline category 4 (Saffir-Simpson scale) and is expected to strengthen slightly in the next day or so.

Tropical Cyclone blog posted the following characteristics of Sidr:

Warning: 07 at 2100 GMT
Approximate position: 13.7N 89.5E
Approximate location: 540 miles South of Calcutta, India
Movement: North at 7 knots
Maximum sustained winds: 115 knots
Maximum gusts: 140 knots
Threatened landmasses: Bangladesh, India

Storm pundit Chris Mooney commented:

Sidr developed in the open ocean near the Andaman Islands, and has all the time it needs to reach peak intensity without obstruction. This is a scary, scary hurricane. Let

One Arifur Rahman and his fight against corruption

Tasneem Khalil — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 20:36:37 +0000

Banner: Sourov.

[Zafa Noor, USA.]

It has been two weeks since Arifur Rahman’s cartoon “Naam” was published which prompted the Bangladesh police to take him to jail and lock him up without pressing any formal charges or allowing him any legal representation in his defense. Arif was picked up from his Uttara residence under Section 54 of Code of Criminal Procedure for drawing the very harmless cartoon that portrayed a widely used naming convention for Bangali Muslim men. The cartoon did not insult the prophet in any way, nor was it Arif’s intention, because his own first name is Mohammed (newspaper reports addressed him as Md. Arifur Rahman).

This young (early 20s) talented cartoonist has earned accolades for targeting corruption with his creative genius. Only a month before his arrest he was awarded with a crest and Taka 10,000 cash in a cartoon contest against corruption arranged by Daily Star, attended by ACC chief Hasan Mashhud Chowdhury among others.

Arif

Mayhem in Burma (Myanmar)

Tasneem Khalil — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 23:25:29 +0000

Video: Al Jazeera English via You Tube.

[Zafa Noor, USA.]

9 people were killed today (September 27, 2007) in Burma (Myanmar), by the country’s military force. For last few days, freedom-loving people took to the streets, protesting against the oppressive military regime that has ruled Burma for the last two decades. The soldiers under instruction of the Junta used batons, rifle butts and riot shields to beat the protesters, including monks and journalists. When that was not enough to stop the protests, the troops fired automatic weapons on the crowd.

The protest began initially against a fuel price hike (on August 19) that accelerated and became a voice of the people when the monks joined the demonstration and launched a pro-democracy movement. Military forces raided many monastries and beat up many Buddhist monks severely, arrested hundreds of them and at one point fired automatic weapons on the thousands of angry protesters chanting, “Give us freedom.” There are blood stains on the stairs of the sacred institutions and on the streets. The monks are highly revered in Myanmar.

Witnesses and a Western diplomat told the Associated Press (AP) that dozens of men were arrested and severely beaten after soldiers fired into one crowd of protesters. Troops in at least four locations fired into crowds after several thousand protesters ignored an order from security forces to disband.

While the riot broke out on the streets of Myanmar’s major cities, people around the world worried about the safety of Aung Sung Suu Kyi, Myanmar’s symbol of hope — the daughter of Burma’s assassinated independence hero — who has been under house arrest ever since the military rulers took power. In 1988 Suu Kyi co-founded the National League for Democracy that won elections by a landslide in 1990.

[Photo/National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma: September 23. Riot police stand guard between Aung Sung Suu Kyi and monks.]

The military regime never allowed her to lead her people, rather kept her under house arrest for the last 12 years in various capacity. She was offered freedom if she would leave the country, but she refused. Highly influenced by Gandhi, Suu Kyi has always insisted on non-violence as the way to “freedom from fear,” and won the Nobel Peace prize in 1991.

Her most notable quote is

“Fear of losing power corrupts those who wield it and fear of the scourge of power corrupts those subject to it.”

Suu Kyi was not even allowed to pick up her Nobel Prize in 1991. UN urged the regime to set her free since her house-arrest was against the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) but it was ignored. UN envoys have not been allowed to enter the country since 1994, and her house arrest continued to be extended. The government of Myanmar imprisoned Suu Kyi under the 1975 State Protection Act (Article 10 b), which grants the government the power to imprison persons for up to five years without a trial. Sounds eerily familiar to some of the “special powers” being practiced by the government in Bangladesh, doesn’t it?

The international community has somehow woken up to this crisis, even though the country has been under military dictatorship for the last 45 years. Among those killed Thursday was Kenji Nagai, a journalist for Japanese video news agency APF News. That quickly prompted Japan’s foreign minister state that “..international community cannot allow peaceful protesters to be killed and injured.”

China, after years of refusal to use its regional influence on Myanmar’s still refused to impose sanctions against the country but agreed to condemn the recent crackdown and urge the country’s military rulers to allow in a UN envoy.

European Union diplomats agreed to consider imposing more economic sanctions on Myanmar. US called on Myanmar’s military leaders to open a dialogue with the protesters. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill said “

IOJ goes to the Election Commission

zafa — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 22:11:30 +0000

[Zafa Noor, USA.]

The Election Commission in Bangladesh is apparently in good company, discussing “reforms” with ultra-right Islamist parties while plots are being designed to dismantle their mainstream, pro-democracy, secular counterparts.

Islami Oikko Jote (IOJ) was the first in line to be invited by the Election Commissioners (ECs) to discuss various aspects of election reform (including the reforms within political parties). The EC must be going from least to most important of the parties, considering that the IOJ won only 2 seats (out of 300) during 2001 parliamentary election.

Mufti Fazlul Huq Amini, the current chairman of IOJ was among the 10 people that met with the ECs on Wednesday, September 12. Amini later told BBC that he was turned off by the rule that one-third of the party committee seats should be filled by women members at all levels. He said it was not possible to allot 33% of the committee seats to women, considering the social and cultural reality of Bangladesh. IOJ opposed the proposal of using transparent ballot box for the polling, and proposed to increase the election expenses and reduce the party registration fees and made several other suggestions to EC.

What are the implications of sending an IOJ member to the parliament to represent a constituent? Their mandate pretty much revolves around fatwa, shariah, islamization of Bangladesh etc. Not that there is anything wrong in preaching one

Fakhruddin Ahmed addressed the nation

zafa — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 02:14:35 +0000

[Zafa Noor, USA.]

The regular evening news in Bangladesh on September 9 was interrupted to carry live the speech delivered Chief Advisor (CA) of the Caretaker Government (CTG) of Bangladesh Fakhruddin Ahmed. Dr. Ahmed addressed the nation and revealed some very important decisions made by the CTG. Note that there was no prior announcement of this speech. The program was broadcast by Bangladesh Television (BTV) and simultaneously transmitted by other private channels.

I have to say the style and delivery of a speech by a head of the government had never been better or more eloquent. The well orchestrated speech clearly indicated that lots of thought had been put into preparing the speech, and there has been a deliberate effort made to address some of the allegations of torture and intimidation alleged by international human rights groups and journalists .

I am going to highlight a few of the issues the CA mentioned in his speech. The most anticipated one is obviously the lifting of ban on indoor politics. Before the foot soldiers of the political parties get too excited with their agenda, they should know there have been some restrictions imposed on the indoor politics (thence the term relaxed ban on indoor politics) :

a political party may hold meetings of its forums to discuss only its organizational reforms and the Election Commission’s (EC) proposal for electoral reforms
a political party may hold the meetings at its central office, hotels, restaurants, auditoriums, and residences of its members, but it will have to inform the Dhaka Metropolitan Police in advance about the meetings.
a political party may hold the meetings only in the capital as the ban on indoor politics remains in the rest of the country
according to the notification, which was issued amending a provision of the Emergency Power Rules, a maximum of 50 leaders may meet at a time. If the number of attendees at a meeting is to exceed 50, the party will have to take prior permission from the home ministry
a political party may also hold its council to bring reforms to itself with prior permission from the home ministry.
those who will violate the restrictions will be punished with prison terms of two years to five years and fines.

It is conceivable that after eight months of gag order the political leaders are fully charged to launch their election campaigns and come up with party platforms. But who will lead these campaigns? The top leaders of the two major parties are sitting in special jails, without any possibility of obtaining bail any time soon, leaving their parties in serious rifts. Many of the former political front runners are either detained awaiting formal charges, or absconding justice or charged with petty crimes such as “keeping alcoholic beverages in their home without proper liquor license”. So it played according to the CTG’s plan of political purging in Bangladesh very well.

In his speech, Dr. Ahmed also mentioned that reform proposals of the Election Commission that already received nods from Civil Society and professional groups will soon be discussed with the political parties (or what is left of them) beginning as early as September 12. Considering how little objections we have seen from the civil society group over the last eight months on CTG

Presidential Vacuum, Constitutional Crisis and the Chief Justice

admin — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 13:48:19 +0000

[Zafa Noor, USA.]

a la Pakistan?

Tasneem Khalil — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 01:56:44 +0000

Photo: General Moeen Uddin Ahmed.

[Zafa Noor, USA.]

A day after the most controversial adviser of current government Mainul Hosein claimed the current government was a “national government backed by the army,” General Moeen Uddin Ahmed decided to put the chip back in its place by the following statement:

“I don’t think so. Government is here and it’s a caretaker government