Dhaka – State Minister for Foreign Affairs M Shahriar Alam on Friday said the government is not worried at all at the statement issued by Human Rights Watch calling for halting the execution of death-row convicts Ali Ahsan Muhammad Mojaheed and Salauddin Quader Chowdhury.
“What you are seeing is the outcome of lobbyists appointed by them (war criminals) abroad,” he told reporters after an event at Cirdap auditorium in the capital.The State Minister said Bangladesh’s 16 crore people are united on that question and the Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s government is not worried at all.
He said the government is neither taking the HRW statement into consideration nor feeling bothered by it and the war crimes trial will continue.
Earlier, the Human Rights Watch said the Bangladeshi government should halt the imminent executions of two war crimes convicts — Ali Ahsan Muhammad Mojaheed and Salauddin Quader Chowdhury.
Ekattorer Ghatak-Dalal Nirmul Committee arranged the event titled ‘International Seminar on War Crimes: From Nuremburg to Dhaka’. Committee Advisor Justice Syed Amirul Islam presided over the programme.
Speaking on the occasion, Russian Ambassador Alexander A Nikolaev said he is pretty sure that there is direct links between the killings of and attacks on bloggers, publishers and foreigners and those who committed crimes against humanity in 1971.
“I’m pretty sure that there is direct links and relationship, if not physical then moral, between those who committed crimes against humanity and who executed such acts 44 years ago and those who offense independent bloggers, writers and publishers in Bangladesh,” he said.
The diplomat, however, said he cannot define it before the investigation into the recent killings and attacks is completed.
Speaker Dr Shirin Sharmin Chaudhury, Law Minister Anisul Huq, ICT Assistant Prosecutor Tureen Afroz and Ekattorer Ghatak-Dalal Nirmul Committee acting president Shahriar Kabir also spoke at the programme.
Dr Shirin Sharmin said the trial of war criminals in Bangladesh will remain as a unique example in the history.
“The trial of war criminals will strengthen Bangladesh’s rule of law and inspire people to work being united,” she said.
The Speaker said the trial was a much-desired one and through this trial, justice has been established and people’s expectations have been fulfilled.
She called upon all to work unitedly imbued with the spirit of the Liberation War.
Referring to the Nuremburg trial, the Speaker said the brutal mass killings and tortures took place during the Second World War and the trial of that crimes will remain as a milestone in establishing justice.- UNB
