THE Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh, which is accused of having actively collaborated with General Yahya鈥檚 regime that killed thousands of people during the liberation war in 1971, has been banned. The home affairs ministry on August 1 issued an official notification to this end, keeping to the Anti-Terrorism Act 2009, also banning Jamaat鈥檚 fronts, including Islami Chhatra Shibir. The party has, however, not been banned for the crimes it specifically committed against humanity during the war although international crimes tribunals set up in 2009 in some of the judgements against individual war criminals much earlier observed that Jamaat-e-Islami should be tried as an organisation for the crimes it committed in 1971. It has not so far been done. The ban on Jamaat now, therefore, appears to be political opportunism to tarnish the non-partisan essence of the ongoing student protests that have sought reforms in civil service job reservations and the ruling Awami League people and various law enforcement units attacked the protests. It also appears to be an effort to cover up the brutality of the police and other law enforcement units on peaceful protests of unarmed students that have so far left more than 200 dead and hundreds of people wounded.
One cannot also afford to forget that the Awami League had been a political partner of Jamaat for quite some time when the Awami League, then in opposition, carried out a violent movement in the mid-1990s and demanded a non-party, caretaker government for the conduction of general elections. The Awami League, perhaps, believes that by playing the religious extremism card this time it could paper over its image and that of the government that have gone wrong to the outside world, including the west, because of its recent murderous campaign against students and people. This is another political trickery and is, therefore, unacceptable. Besides, we are afraid that this could do a favour to Jamaat because the proposition leaves Jamaat with the scope to move the highest court and legally come back into politics. The constitution, in its Part XI, interprets a 鈥榩olitical party鈥� to include a group or a combination of people who operate within or outside the parliament under a distinctive name and who hold themselves out for the purpose of propagating a political opinion or engaging in any other political activity. Under the circumstance, a legal comeback for Jamaat could be possible with the sanctions of the court as Jamaat has not purportedly done anything that contradicts the constitutional definition of a political party.
The Awami League and the government it presides over should have, therefore, tried Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh as an organisation for the organised crimes that the party committed during the liberation war in 1971 and banned on verdict of the court after credible investigation on that ground. And, the ban must not be done with political ill intention to tarnish the image of the protesting students who now seek justice for the murders that the Awami League and the government have committed by using party fronts and law enforcement units or to regain the image in the outside world that, rather, the train of death and attacks on the protests have tarnished.
