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Letters sent to political parties to resist zealots
Staff Correspondent
The South Asian Peoples Union against Fundamentalism and Communalism (SAPUFC) yesterday sent letters to pro-liberation political parties urging them to join the gathering at the Ahmadiyya Complex at Bakshibazar in the capital on August 27 to resist fanatics and initiate a movement against fundamentalist forces.
The recent and organised fascist display of torture on religious and ethnic minorities is repression on Ahmadiyya community. Major coalition partners Jamaat and Islamic Oikya Jote (IOJ) and their fundamentalist allies are torturing Ahmadiyyas and capturing and defiling their mosques, violating not only the Bangladesh constitution but also the UN Human Rights Charter, the letter reads.
Coming to power, the defeated forces of 1971 are now trying to turn a progressive and democratic Bangladesh into an extreme fundamentalist state in Taliban style, said the letter sent to the chiefs of the Awami League, left-leaning 11-party alliance and Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal.
Prof Kabir Chowdhury, SAPUFC president, requested the leaders to mobilise public opinion against the move by a group of religious fanatics to lay a siege to the Ahmadiyya complex on August 27.
Expressing grave concern at the fanatics move, he urged the participation of pro-liberation and progressive parties in eliminating fundamentalism and communalism.
Fundamentalist and communal forces are getting stronger and expanding their activities in an alarming way, the SAPUFC president cautioned.
The religious bigots will have to pass over our bodies if they go to besiege the Ahmadiyya complex, he said.
Meanwhile, anti-Ahmadiyya fanatics body Amra Dhakabashi yesterday announced it would bring out a burial shroud procession from Chawkbazar Shahi Mosque after Juma prayers today and hold demonstrations to drum up support for the August 27 planned siege of the Ahmadiyya Complex. They urged people to join the procession to compel the government to declare the Kadianis (Ahmadiyyas) non-Muslim.
Source: http://www.thedailystar.net/2004/08/20/d40820012222.htm
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