Dhaka: An Islamist group in Bangladesh has demanded the abolition of the Women’s Affairs Reform Commission formed by the interim government to introduce reforms aimed at empowering women, saying it will launch a nationwide campaign to press for its demands.
Hefazat-e-Islam Bangladesh has sought the abolition of the commission, its spokesman Maulana Mamunul Haque told reporters on Sunday.
He said the commission, in its report, noted that the Islamic inheritance provision, the family law and some other religious rules created discrimination against women, which was “objectionable”.
Therefore, Hefazat demanded the recommendations be scrapped alongside the complete abolition of the commission, it added.
“Ensuring equality is a Western ideology,” said Azizul Haque Islamabadi, another senior leader of Hefazat, considered one of Bangladesh’s largest and most influential Islamist groups that largely dominate the country’s thousands of non-government madrasas.
The commission recommended a uniform family code instead of Muslim family law, which governs inheritance, marriage, divorce, and other issues.
The group also expressed strong objections to some provisions proposed by the Constitutional Reform Commission while it rejected the proposal to incorporate pluralism as one of the state principles and instead reinstate reaffirming “faith and trust in Allah” in the constitution.
Hefazat-e-Islam Secretary General Maulana Sajidur Rahman said their meeting on Sunday unanimously decided to stage a grand rally at Dhaka’s Suhrawardy Udyan on May 3 to press for their demands.
The group urged imams and religious leaders across the country to highlight the “flaws and irrelevance” of the commission’s proposals during prayers on April 25 and May 2.
The group also asked the interim government to take appropriate steps to pressure the Indian government to repeal the recently passed Waqf Amendment Act.
Bangladesh’s largest Islamic political party, Jamaat-E-Islami, earlier demanded the immediate cancellation of the commission recommendations, saying “recommending initiatives to ensure equality between men and women is a malicious effort to distort Islamic ideology”.
The commission on Saturday submitted its report to Chief Adviser Muhammad Yunus, who appreciated the recommendation.
Bangladesh in recent months witnessed the cancellation of several women’s football matches, the vandalising of Sufi shrines and the blocking of several cultural events deemed “anti-Islamic”.
