Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-04-14-Speech-4-158"
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"en.20050414.25.4-158"2
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".
Mr President, today is New Year’s Day in Bangladesh. It is my heartfelt wish that the blessing of the Lord may rest upon that country’s leaders and its inhabitants for the New Year. While there is room for improvement in Europe too, we also have a few suggestions for Bangladesh in terms of New Year’s resolutions. Although it is regrettable that the constitution has since 1998 declared Islam the state religion, it does allow other religions to be professed, practised and propagated, so it is odd that it does not protect the ‘right to convert’. Would it not be a sound resolve to better regulate the freedom of religion in the constitution and abolish state religion?
I should like to illustrate the need for this with a real-life example. On Monday 4 April, reliable sources confirmed that Dulal Sarkar, a Christian, was killed on 8 March of this year. He was the pastor of the Bangladesh Free Baptist Church in the village of Jalalpur in the south-western district of Khulna. This man was simply doing his job and was not offending against the constitution in any way. On his way home, he was attacked by ten armed Muslim extremists and subsequently beheaded. These Muslim extremists are reported to have links with the Jamaat-e-Islami, a political party currently forming part of the government coalition. Dulal Sarkar leaves behind his mother, his wife and five children, and at present, his wife and family are forced to move from house to house in an effort to avoid retaliatory action from Muslim extremists.
The draft resolution that we co-signed is therefore extremely clear. We are indeed deeply concerned about growing Muslim fundamentalism with its paramilitary groups and the abuse of power by fundamentalist Muslim parties. I am at the same time emphatically opposed to moderating amendments that have been tabled in respect of this unambiguous draft resolution. I urge the Council and the Commission, in conjunction with the State Department referred to in citation 2(2), to fight these expressions of Muslim fundamentalism. This can be done by applying the penalties referred to in cooperation agreements to violations of democratic principles, all of this in a bid to improve the plight of the Bengali citizens."@en1
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