 TORONTO: The Muslim Canadian Congress has expressed shock at the statement of a Bangladesh cabinet Minister who claimed that criticising Jamaat-e-Islamiis tantamount to criticizing Islam. In a report published in the Dhaka newspaper The Daily Star, Industries Minister Motiur Rahman Nizami was reported as saying that speaking against Jamaat-e-Islami amounted to a conspiracy against Islam.
| "And speaking against me is the same as speaking against JI, so shut yer fudge up and do as yer told!" |
Rizwana Jafri, president of the MCC said she was shocked at Mr. Nizami's equating of Islam and Jamaat-e-Islami as one and the same. "This indicates a very fascist streak among Islamic fundamentalists who will do anything to destroy democracy and install Taliban type governments across the Muslim world."
| This is from the Muslim Canadian Congress? Wow, my surprise meter is working, after all. |
She added that the Muslim Canadian Congress denounces such claims in clear terms as absolutely unislamic and undemocratic. It shows a clear lack of understanding of Islam's divine peace-message.
| She must not get out much |
Tarek Fatah, a Board member of the MCC said any party who was complicit in the genocide of the Bangladeshi people in the 1971 Liberation War and worked as collaborators, should hang its head in shame instead of lecturing about Islam. The jamaat-e-islami's record is tainted as anti-democracy, not only in Bangladesh, but also in Pakistan, from where it draws much of its origin. As Muslim Canadians who cherish democracy and a separation of religion and state, we are alarmed at the silence of the Bangladeshi government in dealing with islamic fundamentalist forces that are trying to destroy the intrinsically democratic nature of Bangladeshi society.
| We'd believe you more if you called yourselves "Canadian Muslims", but it's a start |
Throughout Muslim history such efforts to monopolise Islam as the ownership of a selected few hardliners has caused immense harm and bloodshed; it is time to stop this in Bangladesh.
Rizwana Jafri
President
Muslim Canadian Congress
www.muslimcanadiancongress.org |