Massacre in Norway

The Guardian of London in its editorial of 24th July correctly advised the readers to remain humble and  objective and not to jump to conclusion lest they risk  missing the reality that the massacre in Norway was perhaps “above all a catastrophic psychopathic event”. The advice was timely as immediately after the terror attack the finger of blame was put at Islamic radicals and al-Qaeda. Those who had chosen the Islamists as guilty had no end of justifications --¬NATO activities in Libya, cartoon relating to Prophet Mohammad (peace be upon him), racist discrimination in Europe etc.

But soon it was revealed that the perpetrator of the ghastly act was Anders Behring Breivik, the self-confessed terrorist and a right wing extremist who hates Muslims, multiculturalism and the left. He believed in the promotion of Catholicism, freemasonry and Knight Templar and supported the “Vienna School of Thought” who are against multiculturalism and the spread of Islam.

His 1500 page manifesto posted on the web and titled “2083: European Declaration of Independence” exhorted  Europeans to take political and military control of West European countries and implement a conservative political agenda.

“What most people do not understand’ he wrote “is that the ongoing Islamisation of Europe cannot be stopped before one gets to grips with the political doctrine which makes it possible”.

Surprisingly The Norwegian  counter insurgency appears to have been so engrossed with Islamic extremism that they had little time to focus on growing domestic fascism and people like Andreas Breivik who wrote in February last year that almost a quarter of young British Muslims were supporters of al-Qaeda.

But then both Europeans and Americans, to a lesser degree, have been open in their criticism and fear of Islamic extremism and in France, Germany and some European countries political leaders have publicly denounced multiculturalism as unworkable in their societies and thus put millions of Muslims, who have little practice of the Islamic faith, at jeopardy and subjected to discrimination in their day to day life.
The riots that had erupted in France when Nicholas Sarkozy was interior Minister (before he became President) resulted from exclusion of the young Muslims from the benefits of a French citizen and their loyalty was questioned though they had never seen the land of their ancestors to which they were asked to go.

Millions of the Muslim diaspora in the West were left to find a perilous existence as second class citizens in the land of their birth. That such a policy is unjust is irrefutable. Yet one has to take into account the security concern of the developed economies that, many in those economies feel, is rooted in the religion of Islam.
Whether it is so and Islam does not preach violence are questions better left to theologians well versed in the texts and interpretations of the holy books of different faiths. What is important is the public perception of Christians about Muslims, a brutal expression of which the world witnessed in the carnage in Norway.

Despite President Obama, Prime Minister David Cameron and other Western leaders’ pronouncements that the “war on terror” is not being waged against Islam several  research results have shown  Westerners to be reluctant to accept Muslims as their neighbors and similar survey in the Islamic world, particularly in Pakistan, has shown that the US, the greatest financier of Pakistan’s war with Taliban and its fragile economy, is regarded as the primary enemy  of the people. 

Pakistanis feel deeply humiliated by the American killing of Osama bin Laden in Abottabad without their knowledge, seen as a breach of Pak sovereignty, forgetting that in this world today sovereignty and territorial integrity inscribed in the UN Charter, described by John Foster Dulles as a pre-atomic document, is largely invalid  where membership of the international community is contingent upon the nations of the world in following  civilized norms of behavior with regard to their citizens as well as to those beyond their national borders.
Derogation from Westphallian concept of sovereignty    has been evolving for quiet sometime, more so during the Cold War when then two super powers had no qualms in invading countries within their area of influence (Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Granada, Haiti, Panama Etc,) for “ erroneous” policy followed by these states.

Whether some of these military interventions were for justifiable reasons though illegal under international law is a matter of another debate. The moot point remains that from the enunciation of the Monroe Doctrine military intervention or threat thereof were dictated by the perception of the powerful countries as to what threatened their strategic interests.  The gung-ho invasion of Iraq by George W Bush on the false premise of Saddam Hussein’ intention to attack the West with weapons of mass destruction and his unproved links with al-Qaeda produced collateral damage in the form of  powerful Christianity trying to decimate weak Islamic countries.

Anders Behring Breivik is an example of extreme xenophobia gone wrong where the victims were all Christians though in his warped mind he was fighting the Muslims and voicing his opposition to immigration “polluting” the purity of the white race and liberalism, so close to Hitler’s concepts of racial purity and his aversion to communism.

Finnish commentator Aris Rusila (After Norwegian massacre¬way forward to prevent similar actions) wrote, “Extremism, xenophobia and racism can only be slightly limited by state or top level actions, besides this approach would lead towards controlled security based police state with limited civil liberties”.

He suggests development of local democracy and citizens’ participation channels from pseudo-democracy to decisive power -- then people would not have feeling that their needs and thoughts are ignored. Inter related with this debate is Jurgen Habermas’s claim of the  emergence of the post-secular world explored at length by Cesare Merlini, Chairman of Italian Institute of International Affairs( Survival-April-May 2011). 

Merlini thinks that though popular support for the Catholic church might have declined due to the sexual deviations of some priests and the Vatican’s efforts to suppress the scandal, the decline was more than offset by the rise of neo-Protestants, ¬Evangelists, Pentacostalists and others¬ that contributed to the resurgence of religion in the West and the spread of this resurgence in Africa, Latin America and East Asia .

One of the reasons the Americans support Israel against their better judgment is because many believe that the return of Jesus is conditional to the return of the Israelites to the Holy Land. Thus an undercurrent of conflict between Islam and Christianity   arose between the West and the Muslim world.

Breivik’s anger against the ruling Labour party in Norway, as described in his manifesto, was due to the “failure” of the Labour government to defend the country from Islamic influence, and his insane fear that European identity will be lost   in what he called “Marxist multiculturalism”.

European countries must bear the responsibility of ignoring the rise of extreme right despite open display of anti-immigration and anti-Islamic chauvinism and putting their full attention to the possible threat posed by Islamic extremists.  Yet one must applaud Norwegian Prime Minister’s declaration that “we will never abandon our values. Our reply is; more democracy, more openness, and more humanity”. The world beset as it is with myriad of problems threatening the existence of this planet can hardly afford the fissures that would separate further the different parts of the globe.

Female Reporters Humiliated By Israel PM’s Guards

Foreign journalists on Friday [July 22] spoke of their distress after being asked to remove their bras for a security check before being allowed into the offices of Israel's prime minister. The three women were told by security personnel to undress and take off their bras for x-ray in two separate incidents at the Jerusalem offices of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

All three complied with the request, despite the distress it caused, in an incident denounced by the Foreign Press Association (FPA) as "unnecessary, humiliating and counter-productive."

Each of the women was taken behind a curtain in the lobby of the entrance hall and patted down before being told to undress, then their bras were passed out in full view of male and female colleagues and security personnel, to be put through an x-ray machine. Their personal effects were also emptied out in public view and put through the machine.

"The Foreign Press Association strongly condemns the continued harassment of journalists attending media events at the prime minister’s office," a statement from the Tel-Aviv based group said.
"This type of treatment is unnecessary, humiliating and counter-productive."

Sara Hussein, who works for Agence France-Presse (AFP), described the incident as utterly humiliating.

"I can only describe the experience as among the most humiliating in my life," she wrote in a complaint to the FPA. "I have covered meetings of presidents at the White House and not been subjected to anything similar."
Neither of the other two women reporters, both of whom were deeply distressed by the incident, wished to be identified.

All three have filed detailed complaints with the FPA, which is pursuing the matter with the Israeli authorities.
In January this year, Netanyahu's security staff came under fire for ordering a pregnant Arab correspondent for Al-Jazeera to remove her bra in order to attend a cocktail event for the press at a five-star hotel in Jerusalem.

The FPA said it was considering whether or not to continue sending its members to events where they risked such treatment at the hands of the premier's security team.
"After repeated appeals and promises by security officials, it appears that the prime minister's office does not have the desire to stop this happening," it said.

But, will the people forgive the president..?

THE president has granted clemency to AHM Biplob, son of Lakshmipur ruling party leader Abu Taher, a death row inmate, convicted of kidnapping and murdering advocate Nurul Islam on September 18, 2000, who was then the organising secretary of the Lakshmipur BNP (Bangladesh Nationalist Party).

But will the people forgive the president? This is the question that grips politicians, lawyers, intellectuals and activists as they discuss and debate, that arouses common people’s passions as they argue and pass judgement, even those who are opposed to the death penalty in principle, as I am. The ruling party’s electoral pledge to establish the rule of law now rings hollow. Absolutely. Finally.

Since July 14, when presidential clemency was granted to Biplob.

Ruling party leaders insist that the president, Zillur Rahman, has acted in accordance with his constitutional powers. Part IV, Article 49 says, ‘The President shall have [the] power to grant pardons, reprieves and respites and to remit, suspend or commute any sentence passed by any court, tribunal or other authority.’

But surely presidential pardons must necessarily be exercised with discretion? With caution? Only in cases where there is reasonable ground to assume that a miscarriage of justice has occurred? To prevent it from happening?

That, however, is not the case.

The truth can no longer be hidden. It has been exposed as it was bound to, revealing the corrupt arrogance of ruling party talking heads who prove yet again to be blind to the absolute misery of common people devastated ever more by killings. By senseless road accidents. By sexual assaults, rapes, mob attacks leading to deaths. By extra-judicial killings.

By cover-ups in the making which criminalise innocent people. Limon, a 16-year-old Jhalakati college student whose leg had to be amputated after Rapid Action Battalion forces shot him, was dubbed a ‘terrorist’ by the prime minister’s defence adviser. His father, too, was labelled a ‘terrorist’ by the adviser who added, I’m a ‘hundred percent sure.’ And, no, chimed in the home minister, these statements won’t influence the police investigation. Nor the judicial process.

The truth has been exposed by the presidential clemency which has de-criminalised a convicted criminal.

He should be kept above politics, says senior Awami League leader Suranjit Sengupta. Criticism must be targeted at the home ministry and the government, not at the president. Offered as a skin-saver—obviously the prime minister’s since constitutionally the president is bound to act in accordance with her advice—it expresses wishful thinking, for the clemency proves that the president is deep into party politics as he has intervened to save the life of a convicted criminal belonging to the ruling party, an act that offers us deep insights into how the ruling party actually rules. A knife that cuts away at the lies and hypocrisies.

Of the prime minister. Of her cabinet ministers, and senior ruling party members. The Awami League is committed to establishing the rule of law, a lie repeated ad infinitum. Even after the clemency. No reprieve. Not from lies, no.

The judgement passed by M Hasan Imam, judge, Speedy Tribunal, Chittagong on December 9, 2003 contained a description of the gruesome murder. The accused Biplob, Lavu, Jiku, Rinku and Shipon had thrown Nurul Islam down on Biplob’s bathroom floor.

They had used machetes and scythes, they had hacked him to death. Nurul Islam had pleaded for his life, he had even promised to leave Lakshmipur (Kaler Kantho, July 22, 2011). His body parts had been dumped in the Meghna river. Of the 31 accused, 15 were acquitted. Five including Biplob were condemned to death; 9 were given life sentences, while 2 were given 5-year imprisonments.

Biplob was gone for 10 years. Absconding, nowhere to be found. Until this April 6 when he turned up and surrendered before the tribunal. His father Abu Taher, Lakshmipur’s ‘godfather’, appealed to the president for his son’s life. The presidential pardon was granted a little over 3 months later. Was Biplob’s return a strange coincidence? Or, had the pardon been worked out in advance? Had it been guaranteed? By who?

Biplob’s pardon is preceded by another last year, of 20 death-row inmates, most of them Awami League supporters, termed a ‘wholesale’ pardon (The Daily Star, September 8, 2010). They had been convicted of killing Juba Dal leader Sabbir Ahmed Gama, nephew of former BNP deputy minister Ruhul Quddus Talukdar Dulu in 2004. How can death penalties be awarded to 21 persons for the murder of only one person? 

There are those who contend that Dulu must have influenced the trial process, but he refutes the allegation.

But has a president ever granted such a wholesale pardon in the history of Bangladesh? Jurist Shahdeen Malik described both the verdict and the clemency as ‘unusual’. Human rights activist Sultana Kamal felt that the grounds on which the clemency had been granted needed to be explained by the government.

The law minister Shafique Ahmed thought otherwise, the law ministry had given its recommendation, it was up to the president to grant it if he desired. The home secretary Abdus Sobhan Sikder stressed that it is was the president’s ‘absolute power to grant mercy to any convict.’ And what about the attorney general Mahbubey Alam? It was the president’s ‘right’, he maintained, expressing absolute disregard for history.His own.

When Mohiuddin Ahmed Jhintu, convicted of committing a double murder, was awarded presidential clemency during the BNP-Jamaat rule on January 13, 2005, the Supreme Court Bar Association, then headed by the current attorney general, had demanded that the pardon be scrapped. At a rally held on August 8, 2005, SCBA leaders had demanded that all documents should be made public, they had castigated barrister Moudud Ahmed, then law minister, for ‘flip-flopping’ on the issue. But the SCBA, not content with these demands alone, had demanded the resignation of the ruling coalition because of its ‘misrule’; it had demanded the establishment of the ‘rule of law’.

Advocate Sahara Khatun, current home minister, had also addressed the rally, which was followed by a procession (see photo) where lawyers had raised the slogan, Jhintu-Moudud dui bhai, ek dorite fashi chai (Jhintu-Moudud are brothers, they should be hanged on the same rope).

Jhintu’s tale is in many respects similar to Biplob’s. According to press reports, 3 others along with Jhintu had been awarded the death penalty. Only Kamal had been arrested, he was hanged immediately after the judgement. Jhintu, Shaheed and Manik absconded; in an interview given to Probashir Kontho, a Sweden-based Bangla newspaper (February 2004), the former Jatiyatabadi Chhatra Dal leader Jhintu had said, I was approached by the Ershad government, ‘we would be pardoned if we surrendered,’ but I did not compromise on BNP ideology.

When I hid in Bangkok during the 1980s, former BNP secretary general Abdus Salam Talukdar advised me to flee to Europe. Other details emerge from the interview, Khaleda Zia, then prime minister, had given him the task of re-organising the BNP’s Sweden chapter, she had reportedly promised him that she would try to get him ‘justice’.

Pictures of Jhintu with Khaleda Zia (2003), and with the former finance minister Saifur Rahman (2004) graced the pages of the newspaper. His photo with barrister Moudud, presiding at a reception hosted in the latter’s honour when he had visited Sweden, gave lie to Moudud’s claim that he did not know Jhintu. That such statements were false, they were aimed at defaming him (The Daily Star, July 29, 2005).

Jhintu returned to Bangladesh 23 years later and surrendered before the court. A mere ten days later, he received a presidential pardon.

Moudud Ahmed now—now, that Biplob has been freed—insists that Jhintu’s case is different to Biplob’s. The former had been tried in a ‘kangaroo court’ (1982), referring presumably to former president HM Ershad’s martial law regime, in which he himself had served as a cabinet, and later, as the prime minister.

Who will ensure our safety, asks Shahin Rashida Islam, Nurul Islam’s widowed wife. How can killers be so powerful? She raises yet another, more powerful, question: will the president be able to forgive his wife Ivy Rahman’s killers? A reference to the August 21 grenade attacks on a rally presided by Sheikh Hasina, then opposition leader, in which 23 Awami League members and supporters, including Ivy Rahman, was killed.

Offering it was suicidal, a retraction would be wise. One can only hope that the president, and the prime minister, realise it.

  

By - Rahnuma Ahmed.

Is Awami League creating a 'terror raj'?

President of Bangladesh, Zillur Rahman, has pardoned a man who was sentenced to death for committing one murder and life-term for two other killings. He has granted mercy to AHM Biplob, a son of ruling party leader Abu Taher of Laxmipur and a death row inmate in much-talked-about Nurul Islam murder case.
 

The widow of murdered lawyer Nurul Islam--the best known of the murder victims--has now put a question to the President: "Has he not now lost the moral right to demand punishment of those who killed his wife Ivy Rahman?" Mrs. Islam has further said, "President Zillur Rahman should now stop all proceedings of the Ivy Rahman murder case and announce that he has pardoned her killers."
 

The man who has received the presidential pardon and is now expecting to step out of prison as a free man is H. M. Biplab, son of ruling Awami League (AL) leader and Chairman of Luxmipur Municipality, Abu Taher. Biplab was convicted of kidnapping and then murdering Advocate Nurul Islam in that town on September 18th of 2000. He was tried in absentia by a speedy trial court.
 

The daily Samakal said this death sentence was confirmed by the High Court Division and Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of Bangladesh. Biplab remained a fugitive from law. He surrendered to court and went to prison a few months ago while his father submitted mercy petition to the President.
 

A brother of Biplab has told the Kaler Kantha newspaper that he has also been pardoned on the charge of murdering a Chhatra League leader, Kamal, and the process of reprieve in a third murder case, that of killing an Islami Chhatra Shibir leader Mohsin. The papers of this prayer of pardon are now at the Prime Minister's office. The President, it seems, is taking the recommendation of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in these cases.
  
Rashida's questions
Rashida Islam, wife of murdered lawyer and popular BNP leader at Luxmipur, has also addressed a remark at Sheikh Hasina. She told the Prime Minister, "I urge you to ensure the severest punishment to the murderer . Just as you have given the topmost priority to the trial of your father's killers, my children also want to see that their father's killers are punished. If that is not done then Allah's judgment will visit those who protect their father's killers."
 

Rashida Islam left Luxmipur shortly after her husband was murdered and has been living in Dhaka since then. She told newsmen that she is frightened once again. Rashida Islam recalls her murdered husband's body was never found as it was cut into pieces and dropped into the river Meghna by the criminals.
 

It may be mentioned here that Ivy Rahman, Awami League leader and President Zillur Rahman's wife, was killed in the terrible grenade attack at an Awami League rally at the capital's centre on August 21, 2004, while Sheikh Hasina was addressing it. After a prolonged investigation police has recently charged BNP leader, Khaleda Zia's elder son Tarique Rahman, two former ministers, and several Islamist extremists for plotting the attack and sheltering the attackers.
 

Pro-BNP lawyers say that the investigation is flawed. BNP is staging protest against the charge. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's father Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, founding president of Bangladesh, his wife, three sons and two daughters-in-law were killed on August 15, 1975, in a coup led by a number of army officers. Sheikh Hasina was successful in arresting several of the military coup-makers when she became elected prime minister in 1996 and in holding their trial.
  
Appeal for justice
Five of them were executed by hanging in 2010. Her government is trying hard to get at least half a dozen more fugitives extradited from other countries to face execution. This is among her government's top most priorities. Mrs. Rashida Islam has referred to these cases while appealing for justice in the case of the murders of her husband.
 

Senior lawyers Barrister Rafiqul Huq and Khandker Mahbub Hossain have warned, while the constitution gives the President the power to pardon or commute any sentence it is now being misused.
 

It should be mentioned here that President Ziaur Rahman, President Ershad and President Iajuddin Ahmed each had also pardoned at least one murder-convict each.
  
20 death row convicts freed
Thus the number of persons getting presidential pardon, bending the rules in case of the son of one top Awami League leader, by the hands of President Zillur Rahman has been far greater.
 

On September 7, 2010 President granted clemency to 20 death row inmates under a presidential pardon, as they awaited execution for murdering a local leader of Bangladesh Nationalist Party in 2004. He is acting upon the recommendation of the Prime Minister and the Law Minister, say Supreme Court lawyers.
 

At the same time a committee headed by the Minister of State for Law has withdrawn several thousands criminal cares against Awami League leaders on the ground that these cases were filed on political consideration. Beneficiaries of this special action by the Sheikh Hasina government include a number of persons charged for murder.
 

Opposition BNP says the Awami League government is setting free such dangerous people in order to create a 'terror raj' with the aim of influencing voters in the next parliament election. No person belonging to BNP has been freed of any criminal charge by this review committee.

Concern grows as political landscape is changing fast

Politics is entering into a volatile phase. BNP chairperson and leader of the opposition Begum Khaleda Zia urged the people, especially the younger generation to 'rise up against the fascist' Awami League (AL) government in Arab-type revolution to bring change in the country's political landscape.

She said the government by changing the constitution has made it a virtual manifesto of the ruling Awami League and if her party goes to power next time they will 'throw it away'. Begum Zia further said no election would be held without a caretaker government, because elections under the ruling Awami League will cause high risk of extensive rigging.

Meanwhile, Awami League leader Suranjit Sen Gupta threatened Begum Zia of suing her on charge of treason for comments on the constitution saying it carries the highest capital punishment and she must be careful.

Apprehensions
This is just one example of how the country's political landscape is fast changing to bring the two major parties closer to repulsive confrontation. There is fear everywhere that things are going out of control on the political front. Something unpredictable is in the making that may destabilize the country's democratic foundation.

In this background the Indian Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh recently sounded apprehension on the stability of Awami League government. He said political landscape, meaning regime change may happen here any time virtually bringing embarrassment to the party in power.

Col (retd) Oli Ahmed made similar prediction last week saying this government will fall very soon. Veteran journalist A B M Musa also voiced alarm on the rapidly changing political perspective recently and urged Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to be aware of the sandy ground she is walking on. He said he fears the repeat of the circumstances leading to the making of the August tragedy of 1975 can't be ruled out, there is bad smell in the air in which more Khondker Mostaques are roaming around her.

Such warning from all directions is intensifying the fear of a regime change in the country however, may be real or part of an orchestrated campaign to malign the government.
 

Musa said like Manmohan Singh, Indira Ghandi and Fidel Castro had also warned Bangabandhu but he ignored. ABM Musa, a close well-wisher of the Prime Minister warned, like others that political landscape is rapidly changing and the Prime Minister should take more cautious steps to defuse the situation.
 

It is not only BNP or the Islamist parties which are now calling for the ouster of the government, even several leftist groups are openly coming against the government this time joining hand with the National Committee for Protection of Oil, Gas, Electricity, Mineral Resources and Ports.

Govt. is aggressive
The government is rapidly becoming aggressive but also lonely. Even there is visible rift within the grand coalition. Ershad is ignored and his brother the minister for civil aviation and tourism, G M Kader is only a back bancher in the cabinet.

There is a growing whisper in the power corridor that nine ministers with leftist background are now dominating the government while most Awami League ministers and MPs are busy making illegal fortunes and siphoning off funds out of the country. Bangladesh Bank reportedly decided recently to inform the Prime Minister's office of the spate of over invoicing that many businessmen cum MPs are using to transfer funds.

Left wing ministers
The case of the distancing left from the core epicentre of Awami League politics reportedly flared up last week during the cabinet meeting. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina suddenly wanted to know from senior minister Motiya Chowdhury why she and such other left ministers in the cabinet did not turn up in the grand council of Bangladesh Chhatra League (BCL), the student wing of the ruling Awami League. They had no answers for a few moments but the Prime Minister had already said what she had in her mind.
 

Critics say Motiya Chowdhury had once refused to speak to Bangabandhu as a fiery leader of Bangladesh Chatra Union. Now she is the standard bearer of Bangabandhu but question remains how much she got integrated to the party politics. Otherwise, why she did not attend the BCL council, they questioned.
 

Yet another critic says Banglabandhu had formed BKSAL on the advice of NAP leader Prof Muzaffar Ahmed and people like Suranjit Sen Gupta, among others. This is the cruel side of politics.

'Reign of terror'
In this background, BNP chairperson and leader of opposition in Parliament, Begum Khaleda Zia has given the call of an all-out movement to oust the Awami League-led grand coalition government for failures on many counts -- skyrocketing of foods and other essentials, alrming rise of criminal activities, absence of rule of law, human rights violation, and repression on opposition political leaders.
 

She alleged that the Prime Minister has unleashed a reign of terror on the opposition including the Islamist groups and far lefts in one hand and destroying public and political institutions on the other.
Changes in the constitution removing the caretaker government and the faith and confidence in the Almighty are some issues which have touched public opinion in the grassroots.
 

Moreover, the war crime trial has created more divisiveness in the country not because why it is being held but for the alleged denial of the basic rights and norms of an international trial court to those on trial.

The government's subservient policy on India has also become a controversial issue now in the border region as the ruling party is preparing to hand over a large chunk of the country's land to India which local people claim to have inherited from their forefathers as the ancestral property.

 People are in the dark
 It is signing transit deals and such other agreements keeping the people in the dark and reportedly surrendering vital national interest. The biggest failure came to the fore in running the economy.
Taka is losing to dollar, capital flight has assumed alarming height, trade deficit is soaring and inflation is on the rise. Moreover, the recent stock market scam in the hand of businessmen close to the government has come as the single most factor to identify the incumbents as anti-people.

Mass hunger strike
BNP and the Islamists called hartals twice in the past weeks making the government vulnerable to further erosion. In the wake of it, BNP and like-minded parties observed a mass hunger strike on Wednesday last in the city to further press home the demand for bringing down the government.
 

They are preparing as they claim to bring about a Middle East type uprising in the country and Begum Zia has announced strong street agitation after the fasting month of Ramadan. She called upon the people, especially the young generation to rise and secure the safety of their land from danger at home and coming from abroad.
Analysts hope the government will make concessions to the opposition to make future election fair and peaceful to ensure a democratic transition without any unpredictable change. People would expect that the ruling party will play the proactive role to reassure the nation that it is on the right track and peace and development will find priority than chaos and confrontation in the street.