Candle-light vigil, sit-in held as rape protests continue
Protesters displayed paintings, cartoons, and pictures of previous rape victims
Protests continued across the country on Sunday to change the system that fails a rape victim in her legal battle, ostracises her socially, and puts the blame on her instead.
While the state machinery turns a blind eye to the rape menace, activists of left-leaning organisations, students, and children of liberation war heroes have taken it on themselves to unmask the distorted notions that have all along been put forth as excuses for rape, to point out cracks in the law to punish the perpetrators, and to demand social, cultural and legal transformations.
More than 16 organisations have been demonstrating in a recent outbursts of rage after a video of torture and rape of a 35-year-old housewife in Noakhali went viral.
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The rapists captured the September 2 incident on mobile phone and blackmailed her. When the victim did not respond, the perpetrators released the video on social media.
It took more than a month for the law enforcement agencies to learn about the incident and to take action because no case had been filed before. The victim's family was afraid of consequences for taking legal action against the rapists, whom the victim's father deemed influential.
With rage, protesters on Sunday began demonstrations in the capital and 63 other districts under the platform "Bangladesh against rape and impunity", organised by more than 16 student and cultural organisations, including Bangladesh Udichi Shilpigosthi.
They displayed paintings, cartoons, and pictures of previous victims of rape, and held a candle-lit vigil and a sit-in in front of the National Museum at Shahbagh.
The pictures would remind anyone of previous rape victims like Sohagi Jahan Tonu, who was found dead in Cumilla Cantonment in March 2016, and Shazneen Tasnim Rahman, who was raped and murdered in her own Gulshan house when she was a student of class nine in 1998.
It took more than one-and-a-half decades for the Supreme Court to deliver the final judgment in the case of Shazneen, daughter of late Latifur Rahman, chairman of Transcom Group, and Shahnaz Rahman. Tonu's case is still in limbo.
Jamshed Anwar Tapan, from Udichi, said they pressed home a nine-point demand and protesters would hold a long march from Dhaka to Noakhali next Friday.
The demands include exemplary punishment of those involved in rape and violence against women, and an end to repression of indigenous women in the hills and plain land.
The platform also asked the authorities to stop anti-women campaigns in all kinds of social gatherings, including religious sermons.
A social and cultural movement is necessary along with legal change because law is necessary to punish the culprits but a change in the patriarchal mindset is what "we need to stop the crime", said Arif Noor, secretariat member at Bangladesh Udichi Shilpigosthi.
Moreover, leftist student groups arranged a mass signature programme. A demonstration was organised by Muktijoddha Sangsad Sontan Command.
Samajtantrik Chhatra Front, which pressed home a nine-point demand on Friday, said they would hold a sit-in outside the National Museum every day from 4pm until the demands were met.
They will also organise an anti-rape cultural event on Monday (October 12), a film festival on October 13, a women's rally on October 14, and a cycle rally on October 15.
After these, they will arrange a road march to Noakhali on October 16.
Meanwhile, the female student of the University of Dhaka, who filed a rape case against six people, including former vice-president of Dhaka University Central Students' Union Nurul Haque Nur, vowed to continue her hunger strike until the accused were arrested.
She continued her hunger strike for the fourth day on Sunday.
She started the hunger strike at the base of Raju Memorial Sculpture accompanied by some classmates and female activists of Chhatra League Friday night.
On Sunday, she became weak for not having food and her condition was deteriorating fast as she vomited 11 times.
