The High Court will deliver its verdict on Jamaat-e-Islami’s legality of securing the registration as a political party any day. The court ended hearings on the petition by June 12.
Twenty five people including Bangladesh Tariqat Federation Secretary General Syed Rezaul Haque Chandpuri, Jaker Party Secretary General Munshi Abdul Latif and Sammilita Islami Jote's President Maulana Ziaul Hasan filed the petition in January 2009. According to the petition, Jamaat’s charter and its activities are contradictory with the Election Commission preconditions and the country’s constitution.
However, following lax but repeated pressure from the EC, Jamaat, last December, submitted its revised party constitution with massive changes to comply with the EC’s directives. Still, some objectionable clauses remained unchanged. It was the 49th time the party changed its charter.
Meanwhile, the prosecution of the International Crimes Tribunal has been preparing to try Jamaat as a criminal organisation for its role in the Liberation War – in light of the recent verdicts.
The judges mentioned that Jamaat was chiefly responsible for the formation of auxiliary forces like Razakar, al-Badr, al-Shams and the Peace Committee which sided with the Pakistani occupation army forces. The para militia forces were recognised and aided with arms and funds by the Pakistan army.
Jamaat, under the helm of convicted war criminal Ghulam Azam, had also campaigned abroad – mainly in the Middle East, immediately after the war to prevent countries from recognising the newly liberated Bangladesh. The party, like the Pakistan government, is yet to apologise to the nation or to be tried for its crimes. To this date, Jamaat leaders leaders deny their role in the crimes against humanity.
Jamaat had been banned after the independence and remained so from 1972-1975 for its anti-Bangladesh role. After the assassination of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in 1975, subsequent governments paved the way for Jamaat's revival – the collaborators act was annulled and over 23,000 accused were released.
In 1978, Ghulam Azam returned to independent Bangladesh with a Pakistani passport. In the following year, Azam revived Jamaat-e-Islami when then president Ziaur Rahman, BNP's founder, was in power and introduced religion-based politics.
The party didn’t face massive opposition from the subsequent governments in operating through the country. The people did react though; and in 1981, angry pro-liberation people at Baitul Mokarram hit Ghulam Azam with shoes on his first public appearance.
After the fall of the military ruler HM Ershad in 1990, teacher and martyred freedom fighter’s mother Jahanara Imam launched a public movement to try Jamaat kingpin Ghulam Azam in a mass court and people agreed that he be hanged.
The demand was later carried out on the parliament by BNP, the ruling political party at the lime, but it was never passed due to the reservations of the Awami League.
In 1995, as the AL showed no objection over Jamaat’s presence in the opposition alliance that demanded a caretaker government, Jamaat gained ground to survive without hindrance during the AL government of 1997-2001. The Awamy Leage, though, claims it severed Jamaat connections after a couple of months and regretted the whole situation.
Despite having privileges from the AL, Jamaat joined the BNP to form a four-party alliance in the following term and two of its leaders – one convicted and another facing trial for crimes against humanity – became ministers.
During the military-backed caretaker government in 2007-2008, while many leading politicians of the AL and BNP were being sued, arrested and jailed, Jamaat managed to escape clean in a mysterious ordeal.
In 2008, when the Election Commission asked for revised party constitutions to vie for the national polls, Jamaat submitted an unedited version but stroke-out the objectionable parts to comply with the RPO.
It then changed its name – bringing “Bangladesh” before “Jamaat-e-Islami” from the tail. Jamaat, historically, is a radically Islamist international party with its headquarters in Lahore, Pakistan.
The latest call for slapping a ban on Jamaat and its violent student wing Islami Chhatra Shibir came up from the country’s most significant mass movement of the history in early February this year, when thousands of Bangladeshis expressed their solidarity with the movement in Shahbagh from in and outside the country, demanding death penalty for all war criminals and a ban on Jamaat-Shibir.
The spirit soon spread across the globe and expatriate Bangladeshis also took part in processions-rallies and human chain programmes over the same cause.
On February 17, the ruling government incorporated the provision for trying political parties and organisations for the 1971 war crimes in the International Crimes Tribunal Act 1973. Earlier, only individuals could be tried.
A day before the passing of the law, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said on the parliament: “The Jamaat and Shibir has no right to do politics in Bangladesh as they do not believe in the country's independence and the spirit of the Liberation War.” She defended the delay in banning Jamaat pointing at the petition pending with the court.
People who respect the spirit of independence and recognise the sacrifices of the freedom fighters, women who were tortured and violated, and those who had to flee to India, want to see Jamaat-Shibir banned in independent Bangladesh. Their elements and establishments have to be uprooted to ensure that we’re actually free from the defeated force.