BANGLADESH USES SCARED ARABIC TO STOP PEEING IN PUBLIC
DHAKA - For years authorities in Bangladesh have battled to
stop men urinating in public, with signs in the local Bengali language failing
to halt the seemingly endless number of offenders.
But the Bangladesh religious affairs ministry’s recent
decision to erect new signs in Arabic has had a marked effect, despite most
Bangladeshis being unable to read the language.For most in the mainly-Muslim country, Arabic is sacred because it is the language their holy book, the Koran, was revealed in.
“This campaign has received a great positive response so
far,” Anwar Hossain, a ministry spokesman, told AFP. “Bangladeshi people
respect Arabic and we’ve just utilised that.”A two-minute video against public urination that promotes the new Arabic signs has gone viral in Bangladesh since it was uploaded onto social media earlier this week.
A group of people are shown approaching a public wall, but then jump back for fear of committing a sin when they see the Arabic sign against peeing in public.
- The campaign however has sparked a strong rebuke from influential cleric Fariduddin Masud, who said it tarnished the prestige of the Arabic language.
- “Nobody has the right to use the language of the Koran for such a campaign,” the cleric said, according to online newsportal Natunbarta.com.
Source: – AFP
13 DIE AS LIGHTNING STRIKES BANGLADESH MOSQUE
DHAKA, Bangladesh - At least 13 Muslim worshippers were killed and 15 hurt when lightning struck a mosque in a remote village in northeast Bangladesh as they held special Ramadan prayers, police said on Saturday.The imam was among those instantly killed when a lightning bolt hit the tin-and-thatch building at Saraswatipur village, about 200 kilometres (125 miles) from the capital Dhaka, late on Friday.
The lightning appeared to "electrify" the mosque after hitting a rooftop microphone being run on power from a car battery, local council member Abul Kalam told AFP by telephone.
- About 35 people from the village in the lake district of Sunamganj were holding prayers known as taraweeh - offered during the holy fasting month of Ramadan - at the time, police chief Bayes Alam said.
- Villagers rushed to help after hearing cries, Alam said.
- "It was a terrible scene. Dozens were lying on the floor - some dead, others writhing in pain," he said, adding most of the victims were young men in their 20s and 30s.
- "We took the injured in three boats and headed to hospital in Dharmapasa", the closest big town, he said. "But it took hours to get there," he added.
- Lightning is a major threat in Sunamganj, home to some of Bangladesh's biggest lakes. Most lightning strikes occur during the monsoon season between June and September when the district receives huge amounts of rainfall.
Bangladeshi environmentalists blame global warming, which has unleashed a growing number of tropical storms, for the increase in the frequency, devastation and deaths caused by lightning strikes in recent years.In May last year, at least 29 people were killed. Most of them farmers who were harvesting rice and dozens injured when a series of lightning strikes hit several districts in a single day.
24 FORCED LABOUR BOYS RESCUE IN BANGLADESH
DHAKA, Bangladesh - Police in Bangladesh have rescued 24 boys, several of them just six years old, from a brick-field where they were forced to work all day and chained up at night.Officers raided the premises in the south of the country after parents of two captive children complained to the police, police captain Sirajul Islam said.
All the children were aged between six and 15 years, he said, adding they were brought from one of the poorest districts in northern Bangladesh.
"They (owners) beat us everyday and did not give us proper food. We had to relieve ourselves in the room we lived in," one boy told the private TV channel Somoy.- As thousands of brick-making facilities have sprung up across Bangladesh over the past few years to feed a construction boom, forced labour has become a growing concern for human rights groups.
- Since January last year, police and paramilitary troops have launched several raids in brick-fields.
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