{"id":21314,"date":"2015-11-22T02:40:16","date_gmt":"2015-11-22T02:40:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/bangladesh-hangs-chowdhury-and-mujahid-over-1971\/"},"modified":"2015-11-22T02:40:03","modified_gmt":"2015-11-22T02:40:03","slug":"bangladesh-hangs-chowdhury-and-mujahid-over-1971","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/bangladesh-hangs-chowdhury-and-mujahid-over-1971\/","title":{"rendered":"Bangladesh hangs Chowdhury and Mujahid over 1971 war crimes"},"content":{"rendered":"

{Two Bangladesh opposition leaders have been executed for war crimes committed during the 1971 independence struggle against Pakistan.}<\/p>\n

Salahuddin Quader Chowdhury and Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujahid were hanged in Dhaka’s central jail.<\/p>\n

They were convicted of genocide and rape – charges they denied.
\nChowdhury has been an influential politician – he was elected MP six times. Mujahid was a top leader of Bangladesh’s largest Islamist party.
\nHome Minister Asaduzzaman Khan said they were hanged after President Abdul Hamid rejected appeals for clemency by the two men.
\nHowever, family members have dismissed reports that the men had made any such appeals, which would have also required admissions of guilt.<\/p>\n

“My father said he did not seek any mercy,” Chowdhury’s son, Humam Qauder Chowdhury, told AFP news agency, after meeting his father for the last time hours before his execution. “He has always said he’s innocent.”<\/p>\n

The Supreme Court upheld their sentences earlier this month.
\nChowdhury was the most senior leader of the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party to be sentenced for crimes against humanity.<\/p>\n

Two years ago, a special war crimes tribunal found him guilty of nine out of 23 charges including genocide, arson and persecuting people on religious and political grounds.
\nThe prosecution said that his father’s residence in Chittagong was turned into a torture cell during the war.
\nMujahid was the secretary-general of Jamaat-e-Islami. He was sentenced to death in July 2013.<\/p>\n

He was accused of responsibility for the killings of a number of pro-independence Bangladeshi leaders and intellectuals.
\nThe tribunal found him guilty of five charges, including abduction and murder.
\nBangladesh’s government says the war crimes trials are necessary to bring murderers to justice.
\nBut the opposition says they have been used to persecute them and human rights groups have said the tribunal does not meet international standards.
\nline break
\nBangladesh independence war, 1971<\/p>\n

Civil war erupts in Pakistan, pitting the West Pakistan army against East Pakistanis demanding autonomy and later independence<\/p>\n

Fighting forces an estimated 10 million East Pakistani civilians to flee to India
\nIn December, India invades East Pakistan in support of the East Pakistani people
\nPakistani army surrenders at Dhaka and its army of more than 90,000 become Indian prisoners of war<\/p>\n

East Pakistan becomes the independent country of Bangladesh on 16 December 1971
\nExact number of people killed is unclear – Bangladesh says it is three million but independent researchers say it is up to 500,000 fatalities<\/p>\n

\"Ali<\/figure>\n

BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

{Two Bangladesh opposition leaders have been executed for war crimes committed during the 1971 independence struggle against Pakistan.} Salahuddin Quader Chowdhury and Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujahid were hanged in Dhaka’s central jail. They were convicted of genocide and rape – charges they denied. Chowdhury has been an influential politician – he was elected MP six […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2000070305,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[101],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-21314","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-internationl","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"featured_image":{"id":2000070305,"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton21314.jpg","alt":"","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","width":0,"height":0,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton21314.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton21314.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium_large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton21314.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton21314.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"full":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton21314.jpg","width":0,"height":0}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21314","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21314"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21314\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2000070305"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21314"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21314"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21314"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=21314"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=21314"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}