Briefs

A court in eastern Bangladesh has sentenced the principal of an Islamic school and 15 others to death over the killing of an 18-year-old woman who was set on fire for refusing to drop sexual harassment charges against the principal. Judge Mamunur Rashid of the Women and Children Repression Prevention Tribunal found Principal Siraj Ud Doula and the others guilty of either killing the woman or ordering her death in April. The brutality of the death triggered nationwide protests. Tens of thousands of people attended Nusrat Jahan Rafi’s funeral prayers in her hometown, and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina pledged that her family would get quick justice. All of the defendants, including a local ruling party member and some students at the school, were in the court in handcuffs during the reading of the verdict. The principal, who had smiled as he was brought into the court, cried after the verdict was announced, local media reported. The defendants began shouting and screaming as they were taken away in a police van. Defence lawyer Giasuddin Nannu said all 16 defendants would appeal the verdict. Rafi said she was lured to the roof of her rural school in Feni town and told to withdraw the charges by five people clad in burqas. When she refused, she said her hands were tied and she was doused in kerosene and set on fire. Rafi told the story to her brother in an ambulance as she was taken to a hospital and he recorded it on his mobile phone. She died four days later.

India holds Kashmir elections Village council elections have been held across Indian-controlled Kashmir, with the detention of many mainstream local politicians and a boycott by most parties prompting expectations that the polls will install supporters of the central Hindu nationalist-led Government that revoked the region’s semiautonomous status in August. Indian officials are hoping the election of leaders of more than 300 local councils will lend credibility amid a political vacuum and contend they will represent local interests better than corrupt state-level political officials. Thursday’s elections were boycotted by most political parties, including those whose leaders had been sympathetic to the central Government but are now in makeshift jails or under house arrest. India’s main opposition Congress party boycotted as well, possibly allowing a clean sweep for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party. The BJP has a very small base in the Kashmir valley, the heart of a decades-old anti-India insurgency in the region of about 12 million people. Predominantly Muslim Kashmir is split between India and Pakistan, with both countries claiming the region in its entirety.

Minister quits in scandal

Japan’s Trade Minister has resigned a month into his job in a scandal over condolence money, expensive melons and other gifts allegedly offered to election supporters. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was quick to remove a potential damage to his Cabinet. He accepted Isshu Sugawara’s offer to resign yesterday and replaced him. Sugawara, 57, had been grilled in Parliament after a magazine reported that he had paid condolence money and sent expensive melons, crab and other gifts to his election district supporters in 2006-2007. Such payments are considered donations that are against Japanese elections law. Another magazine article on Thursday provided more details of alleged giveaways in his election district of Nerima in Tokyo, which apparently triggered his decision to offer his resignation.

Challenge for peace laureate Ethiopia’s Nobel Peace Prize-winning Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed is facing the most serious political challenge of his short rule as officials say dozens of people might be dead after two days of unrest caused by tensions between security forces and the country’s most prominent activist. Ethiopia’s largest regional state is engulfed in protests sparked by apparent friction between security forces and Jawar Mohammed, a media entrepreneur who many say played a key role from afar in mobilising months of widespread protests that led the previous Prime Minister to resign.