[Dhaka Tribune] Jamaat-e-Islami...
The Islamic Society, founded in 1941 in Lahore by Maulana Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi, aka
The Great Apostosizer. The Jamaat opposed the independence of Bangladesh but has operated an
independentbranch there since 1975. It maintains close ties with international Mohammedan groups such as the Moslem Brotherhood. the Taliban, and al-Qaeda. The Jamaat's objectives are the establishment of a pure Islamic state, governed by Sharia law. It is distinguished by its xenophobia, and its opposition to Westernization, capitalism, socialism, secularism, and liberalist social mores...
will observe a nationwide dawn-to-dusk hartal
... a peculiarly Bangla combination of a general strike and a riot, used by both major political groups in lieu of actual governance ...
for Thursday protesting the death penalty of its chief Motiur Rahman Nizami
...During the liberation war of 1971, Nizami formed the Al-Badr Force and acted as its supreme commander. The Al-Badr militia took active part in rape, extortion, looting and killing of Bangladeshis who supported the liberation, including a pre-planned massacre on December 14, 1971, when the Al-Badr militia along with Pakistan Army rounded up hundreds of doctors, professors, writers, and other Bengali intellectuals, and executed them...
in one of the 10-truck arms haul cases.
Earlier on Friday, Jamaat's acting Secretary General Shafiqur Rahman called the hartal. Later, the party has postponed its Monday's hartal to Thursday because of Akheri Munajat of Bishwa Ijtema and Saraswati Puja.
A Chittagong court on Thursday handed down death sentences to 14 people including Jamaat ameer and former industries minister Motiur Rahman Nizami for criminal masterminding the country's largest ever smuggling of weaponries in 2004. He was given life-term in the arms case.