Active beyond Shahbagh
The youngsters of Shahbagh movement are not only demonstrating on the streets, they have declared war against online campaigns of Jamaat-e-Islami and its supporters.
At Shahbagh, around 30 protesters armed with laptops are working round-the-clock watching Jamaat activities on Facebook and Tweeter as well as different blogs and news sites.
They have promised zero tolerance for propaganda against the Shahbagh movement and war crimes trial. These cyber soldiers are backed by many other friends working from homes and remote locations.
"Whenever we see a post, comment or image spreading lies on Facebook, we all report to Facebook administrators," said Kajal, coordinator of Swadhin Bangla Facebook Kendra.
The Kendra has a booth set up jointly by Dhaka University-based Slogan Ekattur, DU Information Technology Society and Facebook group Mango People.
The activity reminds people of Swadhin Bangla Betar Kendra, a radio station set up to fight intellectual war against Pakistan occupation force in 1971.
Bappi Nahid, another cyber warrior, proudly tells The Daily Star, "We are also publishing all the names of Jamaat and pro-Jamaat pages of Facebook so that people can easily identify and boycott them."
The activists have also opened a Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/shahbagecyberjuddho) to post messages from protesters and the movement updates. It got more than 38,000 likes till yesterday evening.
They are also active on twitter under twitter.com/scyberjuddho.
The Shahbagh movement, demanding capital punishment to all war criminals, started on February 5, hours after Jamaat leader Quader Mollah was given life term by International Crimes Tribunal-2.
The fight went online on Saturday evening.
The anti-liberation forces are spreading manufactured photos and statements full of lies to confuse people about the movement.
They open fake Facebook accounts using the name of some protesters and post comments and status insulting Islam, so that the movement appears to be hurting religious sentiment.
The Jamaat-Shibir groups are also posting pictures of 31st night parties, claiming the photos were taken at Shahbagh.
"To protect people from being misguided and to foil Jamaat-campaigns, we have launched the war," said Kajal. "We are also motivating people to join the movement."
Recently, an article titled “Laws of passion: the Shahbagh protests†spoke against Shahbagh movement.
Posted on opendemocracy.net, it calls the Shahbagh protests a rally of “hate and revenge†but did not mention genocide, rape and other crimes against humanity committed by war criminals in 1971.
The cyber soldiers unleashed a torrent of comments against the piece.
“Everyone working here has separate accounts on different blogs,†said Bappi Nahid. “As we see any post or write-up that goes against the Liberation War or the movement, we all together swoop on it."
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