Ninety-four eminent citizens of Chittagong in a joint statement on Saturday demanded cancellation of the 15th amendment to the Constitution and recognition of the ethnic minority communities in it.
They came down heavily on the government for imposing Bengali nationality on the minority communities by amending the Article 6 of the Constitution, which now states that all people of Bangladesh will be known as Bangali.
‘Bangladesh is a multi-language and multi-nation country. They are separate in nationality but are Bangladeshi as citizens. The ethnic minorities would never identify themselves as Bangali,’ the statement read.
The signatories to the statement include professor emeritus of Chittagong University Jamal Nazrul Islam, Begum Mushtari Shafi, Zinbodhi Bhikkhu, Nurul Islam, Muhammad Alauddin, Sadaf Nur-e-Islam, and Hafiz Rashid Khan.
They also rejected the 15th amendment to the Constitution for not recognising the ethnic minorities and their contribution to the independence war and retaining Islam as the state religion, which has made the followers of other religions second-class citizens.
They criticised the amendment to Section 38 of Constitution that prohibits the right to form citizens’ organisations.
The statement also called for declaring the Chittagong Hill Tracts a special autonomous zone, recognition and re-establishment of the traditional land rights of the hill people by relocating the Bengali settlers from the hills to the plains, and withdrawal of military personnel from the CHT.
-With New Age input
