Islamists flex their muscles in Bangladesh

Nadira Yeasmin, assistant professor at Narsingdi Government College, has been ousted from her job for speaking up against attacks on women’s inheritance and property rights in Bangladesh.

Hefazat-e-Islam (Protectors of Islam), a coalition of Islamic groups, formed in 2010 in opposition to plans to give women equal inheritance rights with men, issued a 48-hour ultimatum for her removal from post and transfer to a college 270 km away on the border with India.

Yeasmin is an outspoken women’s rights activist who has written for a local magazine Hisya (Rights), arguing for equal rights with men. Hefazat-e-Islam viewed the articles as contradictory to Islamic laws and for that she was punished.

Ominously, the Directorate of Secondary and Higher Education has now appointed her as an Officer on Special Duty (OSD), which means she has been removed from direct teaching. Her new post is at the Satkhira Government Mahlia College in Dhulna district, an area of hard core support for the Islamists.

Yeasmin has not committed a crime. She simply entered the public debate about democratic rights in Bangladesh. The Bangladesh constitution guarantees equal rights for women in all aspects of life. In reality, violence against women remains rife, justice for women is second class and economic equality at best an aspiration.

Yeasmin said her “freedom of expression has been violated”. “As a woman, I protest this incident. However, no force can suppress my voice when it comes to speaking up for human rights”.

Since the overthrow of the Awami League (right-wing, corrupt, but semi-secular) government by mass protests in August 2024, Bangladesh has had a secular caretaker government under “Chief Adviser” Muhammad Yunus, an 84-year-old economist of international fame. The previous main (right-wing) opposition party, the BNP, and Islamist forces have so far cautiously gone along with the new government.

But recent mass mobilisations of Islamists want to silence the voice of all women in Bangladesh. They have aggressively opposed proposed reforms from a women’s rights commission’s proposed reforms and called for the commission to be disbanded.

Hefazat-e-Islam and their supporters say the demands are “mocking Islamic law… and contradicting the Quran”. The women’s commission has called for the criminalisation of marital rape, parliamentary representation, equal rights in inheritance, and protection for sex workers.

Women’s rights activists have been protesting and arguing the women’s commission’s demands are in line with fundamental principles of democracy and secularism enshrined in the constitution. They insist they will not back down.

There should be no uncertainty from trade unionists, socialists, and feminists in the UK about solidarity and support for the women’s rights movement in Bangladesh.