A 131 hour strike. Catholic activist : People victim of political conflict
Dhaka (AsiaNews )
- The Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP
, opposition) has decided to extend the hartal (general strike ) launched three
days ago to protest the government of Sheikh Hasina by to 131. Meanwhile
, the population of Bangladesh continues to suffer from the tense atmosphere
generated by political conflict between the government ( Awami League ) and opposition (BNP and Jamaat-e- Islami , the Islamic fundamentalist party) . For
Rosaline Costa (pictured) , coordinator of the Catholic Organization for Human
Rights,Hotline Bangladesh , " the real problem is the ego of the country's
political leaders. The population continue to be victims of the strikes, the
climate must change, otherwise the situation will worsen in
the future". "Our
country needs peace. If the political parties would agree to talk to each other
all the problems would be solved ."
On
29 November, the opposition launched a new 72-hour strike which after
four days of clashes claimed the lives of at least 15 people. The
aim of the protest is to
convince the Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to form a caretaker government
ahead of general elections on 5 January 2014.
Today, police
arrested Ruhul Kabir Rizvi , general secretary of the Bangladesh Nationalist
Party in Dhaka. The
police also raided the office of the party and forcibly blocked several
journalists from three private TV channels Samay
TV, TV Ekattor and Gazi - TV , who
arrived on the scene to report on the case .
According
to Prothom Alo , the main daily
newspaper of Bangladesh, at least 25 people were killed in clashes linked to
politics this week. In 11 months, there have
been 347victims of the hartal . Of
these 95% are ordinary citizens who have nothing to do with politics.
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