Bangladesh govt under pressure to act, says official
The (Bangladesh) government is assessing the situation.
DHAKA/ISLAMABAD: Amid protests over the remarks against Prophet Mohammad by two now-suspended BJP functionaries, a senior leader of the ruling Awami League has said that the Bangladesh government is under pressure to take “action” as events in India have consequences in the country.
Khandakar Goulam Moula Naqshbandi, chairman of the religious affairs sub-committee of the ruling Awami League and a member of the advisory committee, also said that disruptive forces try to take advantage of such a situation to disturb law and order in Muslim-majority Bangladesh.
“Many issues arise due to conspiracy at the international level and petty politics at the local level, but the situation worsens if immediate action was not taken,” Naqshbandi said while talking to a group of Indian journalists here.
“Bangladesh is under pressure from clerics and civil society to take action over the remarks against the Prophet,” he said, adding that Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina knows how to deal with the situation.
Naqshbandi said that Bangladesh has good relations with India, which is a friendly country. He said that the particular incident is an internal matter of India, but “such incidents affect the people here (in Bangladesh).”
On Friday, hundreds of people took to the streets in several major cities in Bangladesh, protesting against the controversial remarks made by two former BJP spokespersons against the Prophet. The protesters rallied after Friday prayers, chanting slogans and demanding that the
Bangladesh government condemn the “derogatory comments” and boycott Indian products in the Muslim majority country. Naqshbandi said that such statements should be avoided as they can hurt the sentiments of anyone.
Pak FM informs UNGA
Pakistan foreign minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari in a telephone call apprised Abdulla Shahid, president of UN General Assembly, of the controversial remarks made by two former senior officials of India’s ruling party against Prophet Mohammad, the foreign office said.
Noting that such provocation had deeply hurt the sentiments of billions of Muslims around the world, the Bilawal urged Shahid to take cognisance of this “abhorrent” development amidst rising Islamophobia in India, it said.
Referring to the muted response of the Indian leadership to the incident, the foreign minister noted that “silence could be taken as complicity, and could lead to further incitement to violence, communal discord and hate incidents,” the Foreign Office said.
Abdulla underscored the important role of the General Assembly and the need for the membership to work together on these issues.
Welcoming his government’s victory in a High Court hearing on Friday that gave the plan to send asylum-seekers to
Rwanda a green light online,” state-run China Daily newspaper said in a report on Saturday.
The attack generated hundreds of millions of comments on social media, where users urged authorities to crack down on violence against women.
Chinese netizens have raised questions about the sheer brazenness of the incident, given that the suspects knew they were in a public place under the scrutiny of CCTV cameras and passers-by were also seen recording the incident.
“All of this could happen to me, could happen to any of us,” said one commenter in a post liked over 100,000 times.
Campaigners say domestic abuse remains pervasive and underreported while prominent feminists also face regular police harassment and detention. Web censors blocked keywords linked to the #MeToo movement after a wave of women accused university professors of sexual harassment in 2018.