US shouldn’t ‘advocate for terrorists’ in BD: Speakers

City Desk  :
Ensuring peace and secularism and stopping “advocating for terrorists” in Bangladesh should be the top priority of the US and other western countries, speakers at a webinar have said.

Western partners of Bangladesh also need to ensure that the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and its leader, Tarique Rahman, who has been convicted of corruption and terrorism, do not receive patronage from any international partner, they also said, reports UNB.

They were speaking at a seminar on “Violence, Democracy, and US Policy in Bangladesh” on held on Friday.

Citing recent moves by the US in some Muslim-majority countries and examples of the US departure from Afghanistan and Iraq, the speakers also emphasized that Bangladesh could turn into another Afghanistan or Iraq if the right-wing, Islamist extremists come to power in the next national election.

Dr. Nuran Nabi, Councilman of Plainsboro, New Jersey, and freedom fighter, chaired the webinar, while prominent Bangladeshi human rights activist Shahriar Kabir, international public policy expert Seth Oldmixon, political analyst Chris Blackburn, and Professor ABM Nasir spoke at the seminar.

“Religion-based organizations do not believe in democracy, and those organizations would like to rule Bangladesh using religion,” said Shahriar Kabir.

Mentioning the atrocities of the Islamist political party, Jamaat, against the minority Hindu community during 2001-2006, he asked how those organizations would practice democracy.

Seth Oldmixon said the US should not do anything to remediate conflicts among domestic political parties; it is the job of Bangladeshis.