Jamaat funding anti-liberation propaganda in US, claims FFs

The Jamaat-e-Islami, which opposed Bangladesh’s independence, is funding a large-scale propaganda abroad against the war crimes trials, an organisation of freedom fighters in the US has alleged.

Speakers at Saturday’s (local time) discussion in New York claimed several local Bangla-language dailies published from there, online newspapers and social media were involved in carrying out the propaganda.

The discussion was organised by the Bangladesh Muktijoddha Sangsad, USA Command

They claimed Jamaat was spending heavily to campaign against the ongoing trial of suspected war criminals in Bangladesh.

The party ‘hired journalists and newspapers’ who were trying to portray a ‘controversial image’ of the trial process, speakers alleged.

They claimed a huge sum of money was being taken out of Bangladesh to fund such propaganda.

Bangladesh put suspected war criminals on trial after setting up a special tribunal in 2010. A second tribunal was formed two years later to expedite the trials.

Most of the war crimes convicts are from Jamaat, whose registration as a political party was scrapped in 2013.

Jamaat claims the tribunals fall short of international standard and accuses the government of unleashing a political vendetta using them, something the government rejects.

Earlier this month, Bangladesh executed war criminal Jamaat leader Mohammad Kamaruzzaman, the second convict to be hanged after Jamaat’s Abdul Quader Molla on similar charges.