Fakhrul freed at last

We welcome the freeing on bail of Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) leader Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir. Fakhrul was imprisoned for the last 56 days since being arrested on charges of arson, vandalism and rampage during the opposition's blockade on December 9 last year. He was implicated in one case after another and shown arrested in a total of six cases while being mentioned in the “descriptions” of another 14 cases.
It is hardly believable that a senior leader such as Fakhrul would be involved in such street-level violence and vandalism. The case is obviously one of unbridled harassment, unprecedented in scale and totally unacceptable as per civilised norms. The trumped up charges led to the demand for a huge number of days of remand, which, thankfully, the Court did not grant. In fact, the High Court on January 27 directed the government not to harass Fakhrul in the next two months by implicating him in more cases “without the due process of law.”
Granted, members of the then opposition Awami League, too, were subjected to harassment and even violence and killing during the reign of the BNP government, but this does not justify such victimisation. Both major parties must end this vindictive, vicious cycle of oppression and show greater tolerance and respect towards each other and to senior leaders, even those in the opposition. The unfortunate practice of intolerance towards, and oppression of, political opponents has become far too deeply embedded in our political culture. It has increasingly led to confrontational rather than constructive political debate and decision-making which does not bode well for the nation. We hope that such incidents are not repeated and that the trend of political intolerance and repression of political opposition ends, and soon.