Despite electoral promises and an apex court’s ruling to restore secularism, the Bangladesh parliament is poised to pass an amendment to establish Islam as the state religion and legalize religious politics.
The Sunni Muslim majority nation of 158 million will relax stringent restrictions imposed in the constitution of 1972.
The constitutional amendment committee members said in “prevailing political reality” the parliamentary special committee on constitutional amendments on Monday decided to advocate for relaxing restrictions on political Islam so that Islamic parties can continue functioning without any restrictions.
The provision of Article 38 of the Bangladesh constitution bans use of religion for political purposes. Instead, the article allows every citizen to form associations or unions, subject to any reasonable restrictions imposed by law in the interest of morality or public order. [AHN] Read more
