BSS, Dhaka :Foreign minister AH Mahmood Ali yesterday reiterated Dhaka’s support for Palestinian statehood and condemned Israeli atrocities coinciding with the International day of Criminal Justice.”We continue to stand by the heroic struggle for self-determination by our Palestinian brothers and sisters, and condemn in unequivocal terms the atrocities they are again being subjected to in the Gaza Strip,” he told a discussion on the occasion of the day at the State Guest of House of Panda.Ambassadors of most western and Asia Pacific countries joined the discussion where Ali said, “We (Bangladesh) call for immediate cessation of hostilities and resumption of the peace process towards the creation of a viable and independent statehood of Palestine within the Two-State solution pursued by the international community”.Law Minister Anisul Huq, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s political affairs adviser HT Imam, state minister for foreign affairs Shahriar Alam and chairman of National Human Rights Commission Professor Dr Mizanur Rahman also spoke at the discussion also attended by senior foreign ministry officials.Ali said international criminal justice was a priority issue in Bangladesh’s foreign police since Bangladesh’s 1971 independence while it continued to pursue the policy to negate the “culture of impunity” at home and abroad.”There is some obvious rationale behind Bangladesh’s upholding international criminal justice as a foreign policy priority. The Rome Statue embodies the values and principles of universal peace and justice that we embraced through our national struggle for independence,” he told a discussion to mark the international day of criminal justice here.Ali recalled Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in his inaugural address to the UN General Assembly had affirmed that “peace to endure must be peace based on justice” and made it known to the comity of nations that “Bangladesh, from its very inception, should stand by the side of the oppressed people of the world”. He said the importance that the Bangabandhu had attached in his UNGA address to the need for “liquidating the legacy of injustices from the past” subsequently encouraged Bangladesh to become the first signatory to the Rome Statute from South Asia in 1999 under Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s stewardship.
