DHAKA, April 26, 2023 (BSS) - Human rights experts at an international symposium has reiterated the demand for immediate global recognition of the genocide committed by the Pakistani army in Bangladesh in 1971.

The European Bangladesh Forum (EBF), a platform of the Bangladeshi diaspora in Europe organized the symposium at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London on Tuesday, said an EBF press release here today.

The EBF organized the symposium to inform European politicians, policymakers, human rights activists and academics about the campaign to get international recognition of the 1971 genocide occurred in Bangladesh. 

The speakers at the event called for reinvigorating the spirit of the Liberation War and said the new generation must be taught about the lessons of 1971.

Speaking on the occasion, former Dutch MP Harry van Bommel said, "The campaign we are developing in the Netherlands should eventually lead to proposals in the Dutch Parliament to recognize the genocide". 

In the United Kingdom (UK) and the United States (US) recognition is already part of the political debate, Bommel said, adding, "We must learn from the British and the American experience. I hope to return from this symposium to the Netherlands with fresh ideas for the Dutch campaign. And of course I hope that the Dutch campaign may help others in their respective countries to develop their own campaign".

Dr Ayesha Siddiqa, a British-Pakistani senior fellow at the Department of War Studies in King's College, UK said, "We the Pakistanis continued to be part and share the agony of the Bangladeshis in the then East Pakistan, now Bangladesh". 

Noting that East Pakistan was then the majority of Pakistan, she said yet, governments after governments since 1947 failed to recognise the significance of the then East Pakistan.
 
"Genocide that the Bengalis experienced then, that stories still continues in Pakistan," she said, adding that it is being suffered by Baloch, Sindhis, and also by people living in south Panjab. 

The speakers agreed that Cold War politics and real politics stopped a proven genocide from being recognized internationally.

Mentioning that the post-WW2 international order failed in Bangladesh, they said the United Nations and other international organisations knew what happened, but failed to enforce their own principles.

In Bangladesh, millions of men and women, victims of the 1971 genocide, and their family members are still deprived of justice for the genocide due to lobbying campaigns from Pakistan and pressure campaigns from radical Islamist movements around the world, they added. 

Therefore, it is time for all ethnic and religious groups who are victims of genocide and crimes against humanity across the world to come together on the same platform and demand justice, the speakers said.

Recalling Britain's significant role during the Liberation War of Bangladesh, they said during the crisis in Bangladesh, Sir Peter Shore MP, then Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, placed a motion in the UK parliament condemning the Pakistani atrocities in 1971.
 
It may be recalled that more than 233 MPs later placed another motion seeking an end to the 'Genocide' in Bangladesh and the recognition of it as an independent nation.
 
Bangladesh's genocide is considered as one of the worst mass atrocities witnessed in the 20th century.

 According to the Bangladesh government, approximately 3 million people were killed, over 200,000 women were violated and 10 million refugees were forced to cross the border and take shelter in India.
 
EBF UK President Ansar Ahmed Ullah chaired the symposium while it was addressed, among others, by senior British journalist Chris Blackburn, former Member of Parliament in the Netherlands Harry van Bommel, German Human Rights activist Claudia Wadlich,

 Minister at Bangladesh High Commission in London Sk Md Shahriar Mosharraf, Senior Fellow at Department of War Studies of King's College in UK and a Pakistani British citizen Dr Ayesha Siddiqa, Professor Dr. Tazeen Murshid of Centre for Development Research and Cooperation (DRC-Global), Belgium, former Editor of Bangladeshi English daily New Age Syed Badrul Ahsan, Saad S Khan,

 Visiting Fellow at SOAS South Asia Institute Charles Wallace, Irani-Baluch Human Rights Activist Reza Hosseinbor, Netherlands EBF President Bikash Chowdhury Barua, Executive Member of Swadhinata Trust, UK, Val Harding and noted educationist and intellectual from Belgium Willem van der Geest.

The seminar was broadcast live on Facebook page and YouTube channel of the British Bangla News TV and The New Sun Bangla Post.