While Bangladesh restores itself, the Islamic alternate sees an opening

Extremists began to emphasize control of women’s bodies.

In the political vacuum that appeared after the overthrow of the authoritarian leader in Bangladesh, the religious fundamentalists declared in one of the town that the young women were no longer able to play football. Elsewhere, they forced the police to liberate a man who harassed a woman to not cover her hair in public places, then his flags in wreaths of flowers.

More calls follow rude. The demonstrators at a gathering in Dhaka, the capital, warned that if the government does not give the death penalty to anyone who does not respect Islam, they will execute their hands. Days later, a banned group held a large march calling for the Islamic caliphate.

Bangladesh also tries Rebuel its democracy A new future for its future has drawn 175 million people, a series of Islamic extremism that has long been lurking under the secular façade in the country retreating.

In the interviews, representatives of many Islamic parties and organizations – some of which were banned previously – explained that they were working to push Bangladesh in a more fundamentalist direction, a shift that little was noticed outside the country.

Islamic leaders insist that Bangladesh focuses a “Islamic government” that punished those who respect Islam and impose “humility” – mysterious concepts that they give in other places the way to vigilance or the thunderborn rule.

Officials all over the political spectrum who draft a new constitution acknowledged that the document is likely to decrease secularism as a distinctive feature of Bangladesh, and replaced it with pluralism and redrawing the country along more religious lines.

The fundamentalist turn was particularly sad for the requests that helped topple the country’s repressive prime minister, Sheikh Hasina.

They were hoping to replace its partisan rule with a democratic openness that accommodates the diversity of the country. But now they find themselves competing for religious popularity that leaves women and religious minorities, including Hindus and followers of small sects of Islam, especially weakness.

“We were at the forefront of the protests. We have protected our brothers on the street,” said Sheikh Tasnim Evroz Amy, 29, a sociology graduate from Dhaka University. “Now after five or six months, everything turned.”

Critics say that the country’s interim government, led by the 84 -year -old Nobel Prize holder, Mohamed Eunus, has not been strongly declined against extremist forces. They accuse Mr. Yunus of being soft, loss in the herbs of democratic reforms, and aims to conflict and are unable to express a clear vision with extremists’ assumption of a more general space.

Lieutenant describes a sensitive budget action: they must protect the right to freedom of expression and protest after years of tyranny, but doing so provides an opening to extremist demands.

The police, who ran greatly after the fall of Mrs. Hasina, can no longer be moral, to carry the line. The army, which has taken some police duties, is increasingly inconsistent with the interim government and the movement of students, which want to hold the officers accountable for the past atrocities.

What began to happen in Bangladesh reflects a wave of fundamentalism that consumed the region.

Afghanistan has become a severe ethnic country, depriving women of basic freedoms. In Pakistan, Islamic extremists practiced his will through violence for years. In India, the firm right -wing Hindu wing undermined the country’s traditions of secular democracy. Myanmar was held by Buddhist extremists who oversee an ethnic cleansing campaign.

Nahid al -Islam, a student leader who was a government minister in temporary administration in Bangladesh before moving away from the leadership of a new political party, admitted that “fear exists” that the country will slip towards extremism.

But he hopes that despite the changes in the constitution, the values ​​such as democracy, cultural diversity and alienation from religious extremism can bear. “I do not think that a country can be built in Bangladesh that contradicts these basic values,” he said.

Some refer to Bengali culture with a deep tradition of art and intellectual debate. Others find hope in the form of the country’s economy.

Women are very integrated in Bangladesh’s economy – 37 percent In the official workforce, one of the highest rates in South Asia – which can make any efforts to force them to return home to a violent reaction.

The extremist forces are trying to push their way to the picture after 15 years, as Mrs. Hasina has suppressed and retrieved.

A police state that broke the Islamic elements, including those close to the main current, which could be a political challenge. Meanwhile, I tried to beat the base of the Aid Conservatives of Islamic Parties by allowing thousands of unorganized Islamic religious seminars and putting a billion dollars towards building hundreds of mosques.

With the end of Mrs. Hasina, it seems that the smaller extremist clothes that want to lift the entire regime, and more prevailing Islamic parties that want to work within the democratic system, are close to a common goal in Bangladesh more conservative.

The largest Islamic party, the Islamic group, sees a great opportunity. Analysts and diplomats said that the party, which has significant commercial investments, plays a long -term game. While it is unlikely to win an expected elections at the end of the year, the party hopes to take advantage of the reputation of the prevailing secular parties.

Mia Golaam Baror, the group’s Secretary -General, said the party wants an Islamic welfare. He said that the nearest model, in a mixture of religion and politics, is Türkiye.

Mr. Barwar said: “Islam provides moral guidelines for both men and women in terms of behavior and morals.” “Within these guidelines, women can participate in any profession – sports, singing, theater, judiciary, military and bureaucracy.”

However, in the current vacuum, men at the local level remained their interpretations of Islamic rule.

In the agricultural town of Taraganj, a group of organizers decided last month a football match between two teams of young women. The goal was to provide entertainment and the inspiration of local girls.

But with the start of preparations, the leader of the city mosque, Ashraf Ali, announced that women and girls should not be allowed to play football.

Mathematical organizers usually announce the details of the game by sending loudspeakers associated with vehicles throughout the city. Mr. Ali compiled them by sending his own speakers, and warned people against attending.

On February 6, while the players were changing in their shirts in the classroom, they turned into a dressing room, local officials were holding a meeting around the game. “It is preferable to become a martyr instead of allowing the match.”

The local administration entered, announcing the cancellation of the game and placing the area under the curfew.

Tassella Aktar, 22, who traveled four hours by bus to play in the match, said she saw “a lot of cars, army and police”, and who told the players that the match was parked.

Mrs. Aktar said that during her contract to play football, this was the first time that she faced such an opposition.

She said, “I am a little afraid now than it could happen.”

The organizers were able to implement a women’s match two weeks later, in the presence of dozens of security forces. But as a precaution, they asked the young women to wear socks under their short pants.

With unworthy threats, the organizers said they were not sure that they would risk again.

During an interview, Mr. Ali, the leader of the mosque, proudly: He has turned something worldly into something disputed. He said in a rural area like Targang, women football contributes to “privacy”.

The sport of women was just an issue. For years, he preached and sat against Ahmadiyya, a minority Muslim community for a long time, in an attempt to expel 500 members of his region.

The place of Ahmadiyya worshipers was presented by the mob the night in which the government of Mrs. Hasina collapsed, which is part of a national wave of chaos that targeted the religious sites of minorities, especially those in Hindus. The Ahmadiyya community still lives in fear; The attendees shrink in their prayer hall by about half.

They are not allowed to rebuild the destroyed hall mark or broadcast their call to prayer from loudspeakers. Sayyid Ali ignored any responsibility for violence. But the sermons of the preachers who love him, declaring our Ahmadiyya movement who need to be expelled, continue to displace.

“The audience is respectful,” said Ak Shadfoul Al -Islam, head of the local Ahmadiyya department. “But these religious leaders are against us.”