Forces dangerous to religious freedom on the rise: Rizvi

BNP Senior Joint Secretary General Ruhul Kabir Rizvi has stated that forces that are dangerous to religious freedom are on the rise.

He said, "The rise of the forces that we are witnessing is dangerous for the country's democracy, dangerous for the practice of democracy, and also dangerous for the people's religious freedom."

He made the remarks at a discussion and prayer meeting organised by the Diploma Engineers Association of Bangladesh (DEAB) in the capital on Sunday (September 14) afternoon for the health condition of BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia and to mark the 18th anniversary of the release of the Acting Chairman Tarique Rahman.

Rizvi said, "The ballot papers for the DUCSU and JUCSU elections were printed by a privately-owned organisation, whose owner has a close relationship with a particular political party."

Pointing out that there are Jamaat-e-Islami-supported Vice-Chancellors in 16 universities of the country, Rizvi said, "We have seen the results of this in the university elections. If any engineering is done to make one student organisation win, it will be exposed."

Commenting that student election is like a festival, he said, "Former students go to that festival, student representatives go. But the Vice-Chancellor of Dhaka University created a new code of conduct and said that no outsiders can come. A university is not an isolated country." The BNP leader alleged, "The VC has played a deliberate role in collusion with some pro-government people to monopolise the university elections."

He further said, "Here, people pray five times a day, and also watch dramas on television, listen to music—this is our cultural reality. But when you make everything one-sided, fascism will rise. And the ultimate form of fascism is the development of extreme communalism and extreme religious politics."