Women’s rights and cultural activists on Tuesday condemned recent remarks of the Hefazat-e-Islam Bangladesh about women and demanded punishment for those involved.
Protesting at Hefazat’s remarks made at its rally on May 3 in the capital, the Bangladesh Nari Mukti Kendra staged a demonstration, while a faction of cultural organisation Bangladesh Udichi Shilpigosthi issued a statement.
Addressing a rally in front of the National Press Club, Nari Mukti Kendra president Shima Datta said that different groups, including Hefazat, insulted women and made abusive remarks targeting them as they demanded the cancellation of women affairs reform commission and its report.
Shima also condemned the interim government’s silence regarding the issue, while mentioning that women were facing attacks across the country, jeopardising women’s safety and freedom of expression.
‘We are demanding a press note from the government in protest at Hefazat’s misogynistic remarks,’ she said.
The Nari Mukti Kendra president also asked the government how an organisation was able to call women ‘prostitutes’ at a rally and what consequences it faced from the government for such blatant misogyny.
Socialist Students’ Front organising secretary Pragati Barman Toma at the protest rally demanded punishment for the Hefazat leaders who made those remarks.
Meanwhile, 50 citizens, including activists, academics, lawyers and journalists, on Tuesday expressed concern over some Islamist groups and parties’ demand to cancel the women affairs reform commission and called on the government to clarify its position immediately.
They expressed the concern in a statement sent to the media by Association for Land Reform and Development executive director Shamsul Huda.
Signatories of the statement included former Jahangirnagar University professor Anu Muhammad, rights activist Khushi Kabir, Transparency International Bangladesh executive director Iftekharuzzaman, Bangladesh Legal Aid and Services Trust executive director Sara Hossain, lawyer ZI Khan Panna, photographer Shahidul Alam and writer Rahnuma Ahmed.Â
In a separate joint statement, the Ganosamhati Andolan condemned the attacks on women using offensive language in the wake of women affairs reform commission’s report.
The mentality of creating ‘mob’ was always an undemocratic and fascist way, it said.
In its statement, a faction of Udichi also denounced Hefazat remarks, saying that such misogynist attitude was in stark denial of women’s role in the July uprising.
Hefazat’s remarks along with its demand for the cancellation of women affairs reform commission and its recommendations stemmed from the organisation’s outright discriminatory attitude towards women, said the statement signed by Udichi general secretary Amit Ranjan Dey.
Hefazat on Tuesday in a media statement expressed regret for ‘objectionable’ remarks by two of its speakers, a day after the organisation was served with a legal notice over the allegations of publicly calling members of the women affairs reform commission ‘prostitutes’.
