Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami central Naib-e-Amir Professor Mujibur Rahman MP said workers and the public would carry on their movement until people’s voting rights and the verdict of the referendum were implemented. He said that if the government did not respect the people’s verdict, the struggle to establish people’s rights would continue.
He made the remarks as chief guest at a unit representatives’ conference of the Bangladesh Sromik Kalyan Federation, Chattogram city, held at the Engineers’ Institution auditorium in the city on Friday.
The conference, presided over by federation city president S M Lutfor Rahman, had as special guests Jamaat-e-Islami central assistant secretary general Maulana Muhammad Shahjahan, federation central president Advocate Atiqur Rahman, city Jamaat Amir Muhammad Nazrul Islam, secretary Principal Nurul Amin, federation central vice-presidents Mojibur Rahman Bhuiyan and Muhammad Ishaq, and city Jamaat assistant secretaries Faisal Muhammad Yunus and Principal Khairul Bashar.
Professor Mujibur Rahman said there was no alternative to following Allah’s law and Islamic ideals to establish a just society and the country’s welfare. People’s true freedom and peace could not be ensured through man-made doctrines, he said, calling on working and labouring people to unite and play a part in the movement for social change.
He said an organised force must be built to protect the interests of the country’s workers and ordinary people. Ideological and moral leadership must be created by conveying the call of Islam to people, he said, claiming that positive change in the country was possible only through the support and participation of workers. On the proposed budget, he said it needed to be made more people-friendly and worker-friendly. He expressed disappointment at the absence of effective steps to remove unemployment, create jobs and improve the standard of living of working people, but said any good initiative by the government would be welcomed.
He said praising good work and criticising wrong decisions were both part of Jamaat-e-Islami’s position of principle. He also stressed coordinated efforts by the government and the opposition in the country’s greater interest.
Calling on the working class to unite under the banner of the Sromik Kalyan Federation, Maulana Muhammad Shahjahan said the welfare of the working class and the desired goals could be achieved only by creating honest, capable and principled leadership. To that end, he called on all leaders and workers active in the labour field to continue the steady practice of self-purification and self-building.
Federation central president Advocate Atiqur Rahman said that despite the important contribution of working people to the anti-discrimination movement and the sacrifice of more than a hundred workers, workers’ interests had not been properly reflected in state policymaking. He alleged that the July Charter contained no clear commitment to improving workers’ standard of living, and noted that the recommendations of the Labour Reform Commission had also not been reflected in the proposed budget.
He said the allocation for the Ministry of Labour and Employment in the 2016-17 financial year had been 0.06 percent of the national budget, which had now fallen to 0.04 percent. He demanded that at least 10 percent of the national budget be allocated for the welfare and improved living standards of the country’s workers.
Muhammad Nazrul Islam said the BNP had pledged, before the vote, to establish a Madina-model system of governance in the country. “We want to remind them of that,” he said. Addressing the prime minister, he said: “Conspirators are giving you bad counsel. If you act on their words, you will be misled, you will say wrong things, you will damage your own dignity and bring shame on the country and people. We do not want such a situation. You are the prime minister of 18 crore people, the prime minister of the full bounds of Bangladesh. So protecting the dignity of all the people of Bangladesh, and the dignity of the country, is part of your responsibility. From Chattogram port to everywhere, a deep conspiracy is under way to re-establish the associates of fascism. You must stay alert to that too, and take every decision giving priority to the country’s interest.”
The conference, conducted by Sromik Kalyan Federation Chattogram city general secretary Abu Taleb Chowdhury, was also addressed by city federation vice-presidents Nazir Hossain and Makbul Ahmed Bhuiyan.
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report