Bangladesh Tariqat Federation

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Bangladesh Tariqat Federation , or Bangladesh Tarikat Federation ( BTF , Bengali বাংলাদেশ তরিকত ফেডারেশন ) is a party in Bangladesh . It represents a Sufi- Islamic political direction. The main political opponent is the Islamist Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami .

Party history

After the parliamentary elections in Bangladesh in 2001 , a coalition government led by the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) was formed under Prime Minister Khaleda Zia . The coalition government also included the Islamist Jamaat-e-Islami (JI). This was heavily criticized by the opposition parties and was also controversial within the BJP, as Jamaat had opposed Bangladesh's independence from Pakistan in the 1971 war of independence and supported the Pakistani military in suppressing the independence movement. During the coalition government's term until 2005, there were repeated terrorist and bomb attacks by Islamist groups in Bangladesh. A series of nationwide bomb attacks on August 17, 2005 by the illegal terrorist organization Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh was particularly spectacular . In addition, there had been a number of bomb attacks by ( Sunni ) Islamist extremists on Sufi shrines. Rumors circulated again and again about secret connections between Jamaat and the Islamist terrorists, but these were denied by the latter.

Because of these widely suspected links between Jamaat and Sunni Islamist terrorism, various Sunni and Sufi organizations called on the Prime Minister on July 6, 2005 to dismiss the Jamaat ministers from the cabinet. People who show no respect for Sufi shrines, mausoleums and shrines would have to be punished. Jamaat should be seen as an enemy of the state. When this did not happen, the BNP politician Mujibul Bashar Maizbhandari announced his exit from the BNP at the end of September 2005. He can no longer support a coalition with Jamaat. A week later, on October 3, 2005, in Dhaka, he announced the formation of a new party, the Bangladesh Tariqat Federation . The name refers to the term " Tarīqa " from Sufism, which formed an essential part of the ideological basis of the party.

In 2006 the BTF formed an alliance ( Jatiya Oikiya Front , "National United Front") with two other micro-parties, Bikalpa Dhara Bangladesh and Oikya Manch.

In the 2008 general election , BTF won 19,750 votes (0.03%) compared to Jamaat-e-Islami, which received 3.16 million votes (4.5%).

In January 2009, BTF and other parties filed a lawsuit with the Bangladesh Election Commission to withdraw the registration of Jamaat-e-Islami as a political party because JI had violated the electoral code. On August 1, 2013, the Bangladesh Supreme Court revoked JI's registration as a political party, with the result that Jamaat could not vote in the 2014 general election . At a press conference on August 5, 2013, BTF representatives expressed their satisfaction with the verdict and called for a complete ban on Jamaat-e-Islami. Jamaat is not a real political party, but a religion-based organization that propagates communalist ideas. Therefore, it can simply be banned by government decree.

Before the 2014 parliamentary elections, BTF formed a multi-party alliance (" Grand Alliance ") with the Awami League . This alliance achieved a two-thirds majority in parliament due to the election boycott of the opposition parties. The Tariqat Federation also won one of the total of 300 constituencies ( Chittagong-2 (279) - here party leader Maizbhandari was successful) and was involved in the following government under Hasina Wajed .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Remove Jamaat leaders from cabinet. In: The Daily Star. June 7, 2005, accessed August 28, 2016 .
  2. ↑ Refugee Review Tribunal AUSTRALIA, RRT RESEARCH RESPONSE. (PDF) August 18, 2008, accessed on August 28, 2016 (cited is an article from the New Age newspaper from October 4, 2005).
  3. ↑ Ali Riaz, Mohammad Rahman Sajjadur: Routledge Handbook of Contemporary Bangladesh. Routledge, London / New York, 2016, ISBN 978-0-415-73461-5 . P.73
  4. ↑ Jamaat loses registration. bdnews.com, August 1, 2013, accessed February 11, 2015 .
  5. ↑ Tarikat Federation urges govt to ban Jamaat. risingbd.com, August 30, 2016, accessed August 30, 2016 .