BNP Chairperson Begum Khaleda Zia will meet her party’s policymakers and leaders of the 18-Party alliance to formulate fresh programmes to press ahead with the opposition movement demanding a nonpartisan administration to oversee the next general election.She will meet her party’s National Standing Committee on Wednesday night and top leaders of the opposition coalition the next day, her special assistant Advocate Shamsur Rahman Shimul Biswas said.
He told journalists that the Standing Committee meeting will begin at 8:30pm on Aug 14 and the 18-Party alliance meeting on Aug 15 night.
He said the meetings would discuss the current political situation and the course of the opposition’s movement.
The BNP would not resort to any demonstration if the government created “equal opportunities for all” by heeding its demand for the restoration of a caretaker government, Khaleda Zia had said on Friday.
She took this position though several senior BNP leaders had warned of a tougher opposition agitation after Eid.
Acting Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir told bdnews24.com: “We are still hoping that the government will choose come to an understanding and take a positive decision about the issue of non-party government. Our leader has already said that there will be no need for agitation if the government meets our demand.”
But the party would be left with no option but to intensify its stir if the demand is not met, he added.
Responding to a question about the nature of the fresh programmes, Standing Committee member Moudud Ahmed said that would be decided in the meeting.
Meanwhile, Bangladesh is bracing for a 48-hour nationwide general strike called by BNP’s key ally Jamaat-e-Islami to protest a High Court verdict which revoked its registration.
Though the main opposition is not in favour of the approaching shutdown, Mirza Fakhrul had said in an earlier statement that his party did not consider the cancellation of any political party’s registration through a court verdict to be right. – bdnews24.com
Begum Khaleda Zia has condemned the arrest and police remand of Adilur Rahman Khan, Secretary of Odhikar, a human-rights organisation.
She alleged the arrest was made at the government’s behest.
“The human-rights situation in Bangladesh is grave. The government is swooping down on those who are speaking on the issue,” Khaleda said in a statement on Sunday.
Khan was arrested on Saturday night at Dhaka’s Gulshan for allegedly ‘distorting information’ over the May 5 police drive against the rampaging Hifazat-e Islam at Dhaka’s Motijheel.
A Dhaka court on Sunday remanded him in police custody for five days.
Adilur Rahman was a Deputy Attorney General during the BNP’s last tenure.
Odikhar, in one of its recent reports, claimed 61 people were killed in the Motijheel drive but the government rejected it saying there had been ‘zero casualties’ in the drive.
The BNP and its key ally Jamaat-e-Islami had alleged ‘thousands’ were killed in the crackdown.
But New York-based Human Rights Watch had ruled out the opposition’s claim of ‘genocide’ as ‘unfounded’ and said such claims “only served to heighten tension”.
Khaleda said her party was ‘concerned and anxious’ over the incident.
“The arrest shows the government’s autocratic nature,” she said.
She called for immediate release of Khan.
Members of the BNP-led 18-Party alliance have also issued statements condemning the arrest.
The Leader of the Opposition alleged the government had been using the law-enforcing agencies for political purposes and infringing the right to freedom of speech.
The former Prime Minister further said the arrest and remand came at a time when Bangladesh’s grave human-rights condition was being revealed in and outside the country.
“This goes to show how the government is going ahead with a blueprint,” she said. – bdnews24.com
