AL calls for an end to HR violation

The main opposition Awami League (AL) has vowed to free the country from repression in 2003 and urged the government to end human-rights violation experienced last year.

The newly elected 73-strong AL Central Working Committee (ALCWC) took up a set of resolutions and decisions at its first meeting at the party headquarters on the Bangabandhu Avenue yesterday, with AL President Sheikh Hasina in the chair.

The three-hour meeting over, Hasina told the waiting newsmen that the country went through a horrible period of repression and torture in 2002. "I hope 2003 would be a year of freedom and people would be relieved of repression, crime and corruption."

Hasina expressed concern over the indifference of the government towards the victims of cold wave countrywide. "Two hundred people died from cold and the government is doing nothing at all," she said.

The ALCWC meeting decided that four AL teams would soon fan out across different northern districts to help the cold-hit people out.

The plan for the humanitarian visit will be laid out at a meeting of the party secretariat tomorrow in the city.

Following yesterday's meeting, the new committee placed a wreath at the Central Shaheed Minar and later garlanded the portrait of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman at the Bangabandhu Memorial Museum.

Besides, decisions were taken to place wreaths at the National Memorial on January 5 and make a ziarat to the grave of Bangabandhu at Tungipara, Gopalganj, on January 10.

In her introductory speech at the ALCWC meeting, Hasina urged her party colleagues to make use of the new fusion of old and new leaders in the party.

Hasina apart, outgoing general secretary Zillur Rahman, new General Secretary Abdul Jalil and central leaders Bir Bahadur, Col. (retd) Faruk Khan, Sultan Md Mansur Ahmed, Akhtaruzzaman, Mirza Sultan Raja, Khairuzzaman Chowdhury Liton and Fazle Rabbi took part in the discussion.

The meeting in a political resolution said that since launch of the Operation Clean Heart on October 17 last year 'political persecution' has notched up.

The meeting was highly critical of the arrests of party-men and intellectuals and their maltreatment in prisons. The AL expressed concern at the arrest of opposition leaders and activists in connection with 'false cases' soon after their release on High Court orders.

The ALCWC urged the government to end human-rights violation and political persecution, release political detainees, stop patronising local criminals and international terrorists, permit rallies and demonstrations, execute the verdict of Bangabandhu Murder Case, expedite the trial of Jail Killing Case, stop distorting history, end crimes on campuses, uphold freedom of press, lower prices of essentials, stop politicising the administration, stave off economic stagnancy, create congenial environment for investment and form an independent anti-corruption commission.

In another resolution, the meeting alleged that the government went for direct recruitment for public jobs bypassing the Public Service Commission and was politicising the administration.

With two-stroke auto-rickshaws withdrawn from the city streets and many thoroughfares off-limits to rickshaws, the AL demanded alternative arrangements for commuters and job opportunities for unemployed rickshaw-pullers and auto-rickshaw drivers.

It criticised the recent vandalism of the Jatiyatabadi Chhatra Dal, the student chapter of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, at the Dhaka Medical College.