Latest Posts
Monday, August 29, 2016
Thursday, August 25, 2016
UNESCO - Help save the Sundarbans!
Author: DAVID | 9:44 AM | No Comments |
Sundarbans, the world’s largest mangrove forest, provides protection to millions of Bangladeshis against devastating cyclones, but the massive Rampal coal plant is now threatening its delicate ecology.
Major spills have happened before and the next accident is right around the corner. Yet, the Bangladesh government is relentlessly pursuing major industrial projects like the coal plant that will generate enormous volumes of toxic waste and leave the forest waterways vulnerable to future hazardous spills.
UNESCO is concerned about the World Heritage site, and if enough of us raise our voices now, we can persuade them toofficially declare the Sundarbans as a "World Heritage in Danger" and get the Bangladesh government to protect the forest.
Let’s send a deafening call to the chair of UNESCO’s key committee to save this global treasure! Sign now and tell your friends.
Vote for Sundarban > Click to vote SUNDARBAN
Jacob Milton claims $500 million in damages and an injunction against Sajeeb Wazed Joy
Author: DAVID | 9:37 AM | No Comments |
Bangladesh PM is trying to silence Queens activist: suit
An outspoken gadfly from Bangladesh claims political forces back home are violating his right to free speech — and ruining his business.
Fires, vandalism, hacked e-mail and threats on the street have dogged Jacob Milton and his family since January, when he started using his Queens-based cable television show, “We Are The People With Jacob Milton,” to criticize Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, he claims.
Hasina’s administration has been wracked with scandals in a country controlled by a handful of powerful families, says Milton, who claims his show has an audience of 17 million to 18 million.
Milton believes the intimidation against himself and relatives here and at home are being carried out by Hasina and her son, Sajeeb Wazed, who lives in Virginia. Milton is suing Wazed in Brooklyn federal court.
Milton, 50, claims his business has dropped off because clients are afraid to interact with him due to the attacks, including fires set on his Elmhurst property.
He wants $500 million in damages and an injunction against Wazed and the American branch of the Awami League, the current ruling party in Bangladesh.
Milton was arrested in 2007 on grand larceny charges for allegedly stealing the identities of his fellow immigrants and using the information to buy property in Brooklyn and Queens. He spent three years in state prison, records show.
The lawsuit is “pure fiction,” said a spokesman for Wazed.
Ref>Click Here
Man Survives Terrorist Attack in Bangladesh, but Is in Custody as a Suspect
Author: DAVID | 9:28 AM | No Comments |
DHAKA, Bangladesh — When he was released with seven other hostages after a harrowing night of terrorist violence
last Saturday, Tahmid Hasib Khan expected to be greeted with welcoming
arms. Instead, Mr. Khan, a 22-year-old University of Toronto student,
was grabbed by the Bangladeshi police, beaten and taken into custody. He
has not been seen since.
Mr.
Khan has been held largely incommunicado by law enforcement in
Bangladesh’s capital city of Dhaka for the past week, suspected by the
police of being involved in the attack in which gunmen carrying
explosives stormed a Dhaka restaurant and the Islamic State took credit.
Mr. Khan’s family and friends say it is a case of mistaken identity,
but as the days have passed, they have grown increasingly desperate to
make contact with him, fearing for his life in a country where brutal
interrogation practices are commonplace.
“We
don’t want anything bad to happen to him,” said a cousin of Mr. Khan’s,
Ali Faiyaz Shoumo. “We just want to know that he’s alive and want him
to get proper medical attention and legal representation.” They said Mr.
Khan has epilepsy, a condition that is aggravated by stress.
Human
rights experts share their concerns. “The Bangladesh security forces
have a long record of using beatings and other forms of torture to try
to extract confessions from suspects,” said Phil Robertson, deputy Asia
director of Human Rights Watch. “Bangladesh has been playing a desperate
game of catch-up to try to figure out who is behind this attack, and
the worry is that this will encourage use of extreme methods like
torture against these suspects.”
Five
young men who carried out the attack were killed when the army entered
the restaurant on Saturday morning, law enforcement authorities have
said.
Abdul
Baten, joint commissioner of the detective branch of the Dhaka
Metropolitan Police, confirmed that Mr. Khan and two others were being
held for questioning about the attack in which 20 hostages, most of them
foreigners, were killed, along with two police officers. He said the authorities had not reached “any conclusion about them yet.”
Mr.
Khan is the son of Fazle Khan, the chief executive of a large poultry
company in Bangladesh. A second man being held, Hasnat Karim, is a
British citizen who works for a family-owned civil engineering firm,
Basic Engineering Ltd. in Dhaka, and who was also a hostage at the
restaurant, along with his wife and children, ages 8 and 13.
Mr. Baten refused to release the name of the third man.
Mr.
Khan was majoring in global health and heading into his senior year,
his brother, Talha Khan, said in an interview, and was involved in the
Bangladeshi student group on campus, where he also played sports, acted
in plays and participated in the Model United Nations.
He
had signed up for an internship working for Unicef in Nepal, where he
was scheduled to start work in early July, a letter from the
organization confirmed. He had bought a ticket to fly to Nepal a few
days after the attack.
He
arrived home in Bangladesh on July 1 after the long flight from Canada,
and arranged what promised to be a happy reunion with some old friends
at the Holey Artisan Bakery, a popular hangout in the city’s diplomatic
enclave. But what started as a joyful occasion turned into a scene of
horror.
Nevertheless,
in the early hours of the morning, as the bloodletting gave way to a
grinding hostage siege, the attackers told Mr. Khan and his friends that
they would be spared because they were Bangladeshi Muslims, two people
who were held hostage with him said in an interview. They spoke only
anonymously for fear of upsetting the police, who had asked them not to
speak to the news media.
They
said that Mr. Khan and Mr. Karim were placed at a table of eight
patrons, including Mr. Karim’s two children, all of whose lives were
spared. They were instructed to put their heads down on the table, and
spent much of the night in the dark.
But
several times during the siege, the attackers ordered Mr. Khan and Mr.
Karim to perform specific tasks for them, the two hostages said.
At
one point, the attackers directed Mr. Khan to carry a gun and go with
them to the roof of the restaurant, the hostages said. They said Mr.
Khan resisted, and to persuade him to hold the weapon the attackers
fired it to show him its magazine was empty. Mr. Khan broke down in
tears at their insistence he take the gun, one of the hostages said, but
reluctantly complied.
Ref>Click Here
Bangladesh Police Deny Rescued Hostages Are in Their Custody
Author: DAVID | 9:23 AM | No Comments |
NEW DELHI — The police in Bangladesh
denied Saturday that they were still holding a British man and a
University of Toronto student who have been missing since being rescued
after an attack on a restaurant by radical Islamists, saying they
questioned and released the men.
Hasnat Karim, the British citizen, and Tahmid Hasib Khan, the student, have not been heard from since the authorities questioned them after the July 1 attack, according to their families, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International.
Masudur
Rahman, a Dhaka police spokesman, said on Saturday that neither man was
still being held by the police. He would not confirm reports that they
were still in the custody of some other agency.
Five
gunmen attacked the Holey Artisan Bakery restaurant on July 1, killing
two police officers and 20 people in the restaurant and holding others
inside hostage. Security forces stormed the restaurant on July 2,
killing the gunmen and rescuing 13 hostages.
Ref>Click Here
Ref>Click Here
Unlawful and Disappearances Detentions in Bangladesh
Author: DAVID | 9:17 AM | No Comments |
The
use of unlawful detention and disappearance has become the tactic of
choice in Bangladesh for dealing with anyone deemed a threat, including
political enemies of the government of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.
These practices are a violation of due process and are a mockery of
Bangladesh’s laws.
In
June, nearly 15,000 people were arrested in response to attacks by
militants who killed more than 40 writers, openly gay men, foreigners
and members of religious minorities. The arrests, however, seem aimed
less at bringing the real culprits to justice than in cracking down on
Ms. Hasina’s political opponents. Her government has admitted that only
some 194 of the thousands arrested were confirmed militants.
Similar
motives lie behind the killing of 22 people in June “shootouts”
involving Bangladeshi law enforcement. Among the victims were two
student opposition political leaders.
Unlawful
detentions and disappearances have become routine in Bangladesh.
Authorities act with impunity even when under the international
spotlight. Such is the case with Tahmid Khan and Hasnat Karim, who
survived a terrorist attack at a restaurant in Dhaka on July 1 and then
disappeared after being detained by authorities. The police now admit
they have the two in custody, but have produced no evidence either man
is guilty of involvement in the attack.
Earlier
this month, two other men, Mir Ahmed Bin Qasem and Hummam Qader
Chowdhury, were picked up in Dhaka by men in plainclothes, one plucked
from his car, the other from his home. Authorities deny either one is in
custody, but both men are sons of prominent opposition political
leaders and their disappearance smacks of political vendetta.
A
thorough reform of law enforcement in Bangladesh is in order. A good
place to start would be to release all those detained without charge or a
magistrate’s order after 24 hours, as Bangladeshi law requires. The use
of plainclothes officers, in an attempt to disguise official
involvement, plus a failure to punish police and intelligence officers
who participate in such abuses, feeds a culture of impunity. As Ms.
Hasina struggles with the militant threat, it is crucial to restore
faith in the rule of law.
Ref> Details
Popular Posts
-
DHAKA, Bangladesh — When he was released with seven other hostages after a harrowing night of terrorist violence last Saturday, Tahmid H...
-
A Sonjoy Saha with 5/6 terrorist attacks in a Temple at tongi,Dhaka.They says "Allah hu akbar " before attack. Details>...
-
NEW DELHI — The police in Bangladesh denied Saturday that they were still holding a British man and a University of Toronto student who...
-
The use of unlawful detention and disappearance has become the tactic of choice in Bangladesh for dealing with anyone deemed a threat, i...
-
Bangladesh PM is trying to silence Queens activist: suit An outspoken gadfly from Bangladesh claims political forces back home ar...