Bangladesh, ‘My glittering golden Bengal I love you’.
Look at the world, in 2023, you will find a Bangladeshi origin in every corner of this world. Do you ever ask them why did he/she leave the country? The motherland which has a history of a Liberation War, which “Proclaimed that expanded human understanding and understanding among nations will help the elimination of discrimination based on differences of race, colour or creed.” have a son like me who had to leave not only his family, but his motherland too. Why do we need to leave our motherland rather somewhat escape from our motherland? What if I raise these questions to them who have stated in an asylum rejection letter that “The authorities of your home country have taken measures to accommodate the beliefs of non-Muslims,”. No they did not! They did not accommodate the beliefs of non-Muslims. If they did, I would have been ‘peacefully’ having lunch made by my mom, at my safe haven!
I have known Mark Huda Junayed Fino for his blogs, since 2014. He used to criticise Islam as a religion. I have been a witness of his fear of attacks and harassments since then. Not because of his writings, but because of converting himself to a different religion. A country who fought for its language, who fought to be independent, and most importantly who fought together is going ahead to transform it to another Afghanisthan. Religion has become more important than humanity! That’s the worst irony of my motherland. Recently, Fino has faced an asylum rejection, because the respective authority generalised his situation. It is true that there are false asylum seeker from Bangladesh, but the genuine people suffer for these misdeeds. I am not aware of what supportive documents or facts Fino have provided to the authority to explain his threats in his own motherland. But it seemed that the authority is more concerned about the statements written in the constitution. Are they aware of the real scenario of my country? Do they know about us, the activists who are keeping their life in stake to carry on with their activism for a better society? If my constitution allowed me to have equal rights even if we have different beliefs then we would not have lost Ahmed Rajib Haider, Avijit Roy, Niloy Neel, Ananta Bijoy Das and so on. No they might not be renowned globally, but if you search in google writing “Blogger Killed” you will find the top most search as “Blogger killed in Bangladesh”.
Fino might not being able to convince the authority, rather he never realised that his constitution lies. He never realised that the country of his origin have constitution which itself is an irony. We get to know that the rejection letter says “Based on various information concerning your country of origin, the Constitution of your home country guarantees freedom of religion and prohibits discrimination on religious grounds,”. My home country guarantees freedom of religion? I wish this was true, then I would not have to go through such pathetic news which never lets me believe on this statement, rather which never allows me to think even once that my country, my Bangladesh is secular.
The way Bangladesh got support from Japan in building a better commute system for the citizens, I wish activist like Fino would have received a bit more empathy from such a developed country. Japan has always come up with great innovation, but it seems like their mind has become robotic that they couldn’t go beyond a country’s constitution and look into the real picture and decide the credibility.
