Sentences for War Criminals in Bangladesh Prompt Both Peace and Violence

By ⋅ March 1, 2013 ⋅ Post a comment
Cartoon: Kawsar Mahmud, Bangladesh

Cartoon: Kawsar Mahmud, Bangladesh

Marco Werman speaks with The World’s Cartoon Editor Carol Hills about a drama unfolding in Bangladesh.

Bangladeshi political cartoons are full of images of hangings. It’s a reference to the country’s war crimes tribunal that’s finally bringing to justice those Bangladeshis who collaborated with Pakistan during the war of independence in 1971.

They are accused of numerous atrocities including killings and raps.

The 1971 war only lasted nine months but as many as three million Bangladeshis may have died during the brief war. The carnage is often referred to as genocide and it casts a pall over Bangladeshi politics.

At issue now is what kind of sentence should be meted out to the convicted war criminals. Many Bangladeshis think nothing short of a death sentence is enough.

Thousands have been demonstrating peacefully at a square in Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, demanding death sentences for the war criminals.

It’s an unusual mix: Students, workers, older people, bloggers and political cartoonists. But the country’s major Islamist party is calling the demand for the death penalty anti-Islamic.

Most of the convicted war criminals being tried and sentence are Islamist and sided with Pakistan because they didn’t want a secular democracy.

This narrated slideshow of Bangladeshi political cartoons shows strong support for the death penalty for the war criminals.


Discussion

3 comments for “Sentences for War Criminals in Bangladesh Prompt Both Peace and Violence”

  • Michael Steckler

    I just returned from almost a month in Bangladesh and rearranging my schedule because of the hartals (strikes) called by the Islamists.  I also saw the peaceful demonstrators gathering at the Shahid Minars in many towns, not just Dhaka.  It was very incongruous to see on the first day of Bengali spring many women dressed in beautiful orange and red robes with headbands calling for capital punishment for the rajakers (collaborators). 

    • http://www.theworld.org The World

      Thanks for sharing, Michael! Would it be OK if we reposted your photo to The World’s Facebook page and Tumblr? If so, please include where and when you took this photo, and the translation of the text on the posters if you know it.
      All the best,Tory Starr, Social Media Producer

  • FreedomFighter71

    Carol, hat’s off to you. At least some people get the Shahbag movement right! Wish the world could recognize our peaceful demonstration against the so called islamist party Jamat (=Nazi). They are terrorizing the whole country as I write this comment. Nazis were banned, Laden was hunted and killed, and hyenas like the war criminals (Jamats) in Bangladesh need to be annihilated in the same way. Otherwise they will annihilate secularism from our country, and convert our beloved land to a dysfunctional state. World, spare a moment.See how we are tackling the Nazis of the present day. Jamats are funded by jihadist terrorist groups; they can buy lobbyists and spread propaganda. We, the Shahbag protesters only have our heart–a heart so heavy with the wounds of 1971.