Staff Reporter :The BNP will stage countrywide demonstration today (Sunday) protesting the government’s refusal to give permission to the party to hold a rally at the Suhrawardy Uddyan on November 7. The demonstration will be held in the capital Dhaka and all the district headquarters simultaneously.BNP Acting Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir announced the programme in a press briefing at the party’s Nayapaltan central office on Saturday. The party had a plan to hold a rally on Saturday afternoon, marking the ‘National Revolution and Solidarity Day’. BNP Chairperson Begum Khaleda Zia was supposed to address it. For this, the party wrote to the Dhaka Metropolitan Police on October 29 for permission. “We came to know from the DMP officials on Friday night about the government’s decision,” said Mirza Fakhrul, adding, “The government does not have least respect for freedom of speech and freedom of procession.””When Awami League was permitted to organise a rally at Suhrawardy Uddyan on November 3, why should we not be given permission? He questioned.The BNP leader said that they didn’t cancel the rally. Rather, it is the government that forced them to do so. Finally he urged the people from all walks of life to take part in their Sunday’s programme.He censured the DMP for refusing the permission and regretted that the police were speaking like politicians.Condemning the arrest of party’s Jubo Dal President Moazzem Hossain Alal and other leaders and workers, he said that the whole country has now become a police State. Mirza Fakhrul drew the attention of the government to the statement of National Human Rights Commission’s Chairman Mizanur Rahman’s where he said that the chain of command of police administration had broken down and that the present government had established a one-party rule in the country.About the Transparency International Bangladesh report on the corruption in the health sector, Mirza Fakhrul alleged, corruption now prevails in the country’s each and every sector. The government has destroyed the country’s other sectors also; even it interferes in the independent judiciary.
