Saturday, April 16, 2011

Now it gets official: Bangladesh to adopt Islam


On ground, it was always Islamic nation and behaved like one. One common trait shared by all Muslim majority nations is sub human treatment of non Muslims and humiliation they had to suffer; Bangladesh was no different. Just consider this fact: Percentage of Hindus came down to 7-9% from 23% and atrocities are being committed on other minority groups like Buddhists and Christians. But now, it gets official: Bangladesh is to adopt Islam as state religion (here):
{{{
Despite electoral promises and an apex court’s ruling to restore secularism, the Bangladesh parliament is poised to pass an amendment to establish Islam as the state religion and legalize religious politics.

The Sunni Muslim majority nation of 158 million will relax stringent restrictions imposed in the constitution of 1972.

The constitutional amendment committee members said in “prevailing political reality” the parliamentary special committee on constitutional amendments on Monday decided to advocate for relaxing restrictions on political Islam so that Islamic parties can continue functioning without any restrictions.

The provision of Article 38 of the Bangladesh constitution bans use of religion for political purposes. Instead, the article allows every citizen to form associations or unions, subject to any reasonable restrictions imposed by law in the interest of morality or public order.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, leader of the ruling Awami League, at Monday’s meeting said the ruling party would not curb the political rights of Islamist parties. The secularist activists expressed their frustration and women rights groups are disgusted after recently hearing prime minister's political vision to keep Islam as the state religion in the constitution.

The Awami League government in 1972 banned religion-based organizations after Islamic parties collaborated with the marauding Pakistani army that killed 3 million people in nine months in 1971.....
}}}


Note: One can read more on this by clicking on label 'islam vs. secularism'.