Jamaat-e-Islami will field women candidates directly in the next national parliamentary election, according to Mardia Momtaz, the party’s member of parliament for a reserved seat. The matter has been discussed within the party and is more or less final, she said.
She was speaking on Thursday at a discussion titled “The July uprising and women’s rights” at the Jatiya Press Club, organised by the Anti-Hegemony Citizens’ Society and chaired by Professor Dr Dilara Chowdhury.
“Before the last election, too, the women in our party were asked whether they wanted to stand directly,” Mardia Momtaz said. “Seventy per cent of the women said no. They asked: if I stand for election, will I be safe?”
“Today women are in no position to take to the streets,” she said. “If I speak against the party, I will not get a post or an allocation.”
Asked about standing in the Dhaka-8 constituency, she said: “If I stand in Dhaka-8, will I end up like Osman Hadi? Then I think I won’t stand.”
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report