Demand for changing nat’l anthem affront to the nation

Forty-eight citizens, including prominent human rights activists, academics and civil society members, have condemned the demand for changing Bangladesh’s national anthem.
In a statement yesterday, they described it as an affront to people’s emotions about the Liberation War and called on people to be vigilant and united against such “audacious” questioning of issues that are established by people’s mandate historically and related to the 1971 war.
They also threatened to announce programmes to build resistance if such statements or false information about the war and the national anthem do not stop.
Dhaka University Professor Emeritus Dr Serajul Islam Choudhury, human rights activist Sultana Kamal, Nijera Kori Coordinator Khushi Kabir, Jahangirnagar University Prof Anu Muhammad, Supreme Court lawyer ZI Khan Panna, TIB Executive Director Iftekharuzzaman, Central Women’s University Vice Chancellor Parveen Hasan, photographer Shahidul Alam, among others, signed the statement.
“We are witnessing with deep concern and anger that a communal quarter has started a campaign with an ill and political motive. It is demonstrating audacity to question the established aspects of the Liberation War of 1971 and even the national anthem,” the statement said.
It said Jamaat-e-Islami Ameer Shafiqur Rahman advised all to forget the past only a few days back, and it is assumed that by “past”, he meant the role of the Jamaat in the Liberation War.
It became “clearer” on September 3 when former Brig Gen Abdullahil Amaan Azmi, son of ex-Jamaat supremo Ghulam Azam, spoke about changing the constitution and the national anthem, the citizens said.
“We condemn his motivated, communal and audacious statement.”
Brig Gen Azmi was detained for eight years in Aynaghar, a secret detention centre of the military intelligence, through enforced disappearance during the Awami League government’s tenure. He and many other detainees were released after the AL government’s fall in August.
The citizens said they have been vocal against such human rights violations and are still against these types of activities. “We want justice for all victims of enforced disappearance, including this former military officer.”
“But we would like to remind him that freedom of expression does not mean one can speak whatever one wants.”
The statement by the citizens said Azmi “deliberately insulted”  the national anthem and the principles of Bangladesh’s constitution to hurt the emotions of the country’s people.
It noted hundreds of thousands of youths, students, farmers, workers, members of the armed forces, and police irrespective of their faith, race, gender and ethnicity made the supreme sacrifice to liberate the country. They had to face the cruelty of the Pakistani military and its collaborators, including the Jamaat.
“The people of this country have remembered this history for generations and will continue to remember. No one should dare to ask for forgetting this history.”
The 48 signatories also warned against pitting the recent student-led mass movement against the Liberation War. People trying to do so are “enemies of the victory of the anti-discrimination movement”, the statement said.
“All need to be careful so that no quarter can use this victory, achieved through the deaths of hundreds of students, children, adolescents and other people, for their malicious partisan and communal interests,” the statement added.