Alphabetical processions were held in different districts including Kurigram, Nilphamari and Lalmonirhat to implement the universal program of Language Day.
In a joint statement issued after the day-long program in the evening, Nurul Karim Akram, central president of Islami Chhatra Andolan Bangladesh, and Sheikh Muhammad Al-Amin, secretary-general, strongly condemned and protested the police crackdown.
As indicated by the police’s obstruction of public programmes on International Mother Language Day, people are denied the right to honour language martyrs and to carry out public programmes such as Mother Language Day. The current ruling regime has changed this country’s culture into a culture of deprivation of human and political rights in the suppression of opposition.
The two leaders said that the rights of the Bengali language as the only language had to be realized through struggle and blood in 1952. But sadly the mother tongue Bengali bought in the blood is utterly neglected today. The proliferation of foreign languages in almost all levels including offices, courts, educational institutions, advertisements, drama-cinema dialogues and the mixing use of Bengali-foreign languages are widely hampering the normal flow. The leaders called upon the government to take effective steps to ensure the use of the Bengali language in all parts of the country.
In the statement, the two leaders expressed their gratitude to the officials at all levels for implementing the program announced on International Mother Language Day in all the districts across the country.
