Bangladesh: Islamist group rallies in Dhaka, calls for abolition of women’s reform commission

Thousands of supporters of Hefazat-e-Islam, a powerful Islamist group in Bangladesh, rallied in Dhaka on Saturday, demanding the government scrap the Women’s Affairs Reform Commission, accusing it of promoting recommendations that conflict with Islamic principles.

Leaders of the Hefazat-e-Islam group said the proposed legal reforms are contradictory to Sharia law. More than 20,000 followers of the group rallied near the Dhaka University, some carrying banners and placards reading “Say no to Western laws on our women, rise up Bangladesh.”

The protest held at Suhrawardy Udyan drew a massive crowd primarily composed of teachers and students from “kawmi” madrassas, non-government religious seminaries that form the core of Hefazat’s support base.

The commission was formed under the interim administration led by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus following the ousting of Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League government last year. Hefazat leaders argued that the suggested reforms undermined Islamic tenets and threatened traditional family structures.

In one of its largest demonstrations in recent years, Hefazat’s senior leader, Nayeb-e-Ameer Maulana Mahfuzul Huq, unveiled a 12-point list of demands. Chief among them was the immediate dissolution of the current commission and the formation of a new body staffed by Islamic scholars and female representatives aligned with religious values.

Another influential Hefazat leader Mamunul Haque demanded punishment for the women reform commission members as they hurt “the sentiments of the majority of the people of this country” by labelling the religious laws of inheritance as the main cause of inequality between men and women.

“Men and women can never be equal,” a women’s madrassa teacher Mohammad Shihab Uddin told the rally, adding that the Quran outlined specific codes of life for both genders and “there is no way we can go beyond that”.

The Hefazat called for reinstating “complete faith and trust in almighty Allah” in the constitution and asked the government to abandon the “suicidal concept” of pluralism and to protect what they said the Muslims faith and practices.

The group also opposed the inclusion of terms such as “gender identity,” “gender diversity,” “gender equality,” “gender discrimination,” “third gender,” and “other genders”.

It argued that these are used to promote LGBT and transgender inclusion under ambiguous slogans such as “Leave no one behind” and “inclusive” and feared that these ideas could lead to a “destructive, anti-religious pro-homosexual society”.

The Women’s Affairs Reform Commission is one of the several commissions instituted by the interim government to carry out reform. It had recently submitted its recommendations to the government.

With inputs from agencies