Pakistan Army Atrocities in Bangladesh (formerly East Pakistan)

Guilty Verdict of Bangladesh War Crimes Tribunal on 1971 Atrocities

by Salim Mansur
CIP
February 11, 2013

http://www.islamicpluralism.org/2193/guilty-verdict-of-bangladesh-war-crimes-tribunal

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Some excerpts below:

The Bangladesh International Crimes Tribunal has announced one of the first major judgments at trial of individuals alleged to have committed war crimes in 1971, when the Pakistan Army waged a near-genocidal war in the former East Pakistan. As the judges note in this document, some three million people were killed, some quarter million women were raped, and an estimated ten million people became refugees in neighbouring India.

It is also history-making for it brings Muslim perpetrators to answer for their crimes against humanity, for their murder, rape and pillage of innocent people, a majority of whom were Muslims, and then for the indiscriminate hate-filled violence against Hindus and other non-Muslims that I personally witnessed as our own family gardener, a Hindu, was executed in our home for simply being a Hindu, by soldiers of the Pakistan Army who raided our property.

It is important to note that the OIC – the Organization of Islamic Cooperation – has not stepped forth to support the landmark effort of the Bangladesh War Crimes Tribunal in bringing individuals to indictment for war crimes committed in 1971.

On the contrary, the President of Turkey, Abdullah Gül, is on record a having written to the President of Bangladesh an improper letter in flagrant violation of diplomatic protocol or respect for the independence of the Tribunal in a sovereign country, asking for suspension of the Tribunal with forgiveness for those accused of war crimes.

Anyone in the West seriously concerned for human rights, due process, rule of law, individual rights and freedoms, misogyny and violence against women, and democracy, should support the efforts of Bangladesh as a poor Muslim-majority country setting a precedent among OIC states of bringing war criminals, almost without exception Muslims, and many if not most of the indicted still alive and living in Pakistan or in many instances in the West, to justice.