Only 14, Bangladeshi girl charged with adultery was lashed to death

[struggle4progress]

47. A number of accounts indicate that the venue was some sort of extrajudical "village court"

or "village arbitration" composing local leaders. It is clear that a local teacher Saidur Rahman and a local "imam" Mafiz Uddin wreinvolved, and according to some reports Mafiz was subsequently arrested. I provide a link for that below. I can't determine exactly their relationship to any of the principles in the case

Judged from satellite images, Chamta seems a pretty small place; and since it lacks electricity, running water, and paved roads, it's not terribly prosperous, so there's unlikely to be any professional/salaried religious class there. In the context of Chamta, imam may signify nothing more than some local person regularly chosen to lead prayers, and it probably does not imply much religious training. Similarly fatwa is usually used in connection with scholarly religious rulings, whereas here the term might be used to describe an utterance by a probably untrained local prayer leader, or (to judge from local press) simply "the extrajudicial punishments pronounced by 'makeshift village arbitrations.'" My immediate conclusion from these considerations is that careless usage of words such as imam or fatwa may not be contributing much to the discussion and may actually be misleading: for all I know, these words were added by the various reporters

It's quite possible to imagine a coherent story here with no religious overtones: Mehbub returns home from his trip to Malaysia, flush with cash, and is a big man and world traveler in the eyes of folk in Chamta. He takes a liking to his cousin Hena and harasses her regularly, until her father complains to police and gets a sizable judgment against him (which is never paid). This irritates Mehbub, his wife Shilpi, and their immediate families. But Mehbub still wants Hena and finally sexually assaults her. Shilpi interrupts this assault but blames Hena; she drags the girl back to her house and beats the crap out of the kid for a day, then summons the village elders back to her house to render judgment. Naturally, she does not accuse Mehbub of rape: instead, she accuses her niece of being a little bitch temptress who has seduced her husband away from his life of connubial bliss. Meeting in Shilpi's house, the village elders, with the help of Shilpi and her sister, decide Hena deserves punishment for this and provide a substantial lashing sentence, as well as a hefty monetary judgment against her father (which conveniently cancels the prior judgment he obtained against Mehbub); Mehbub also earns a lashing sentence, but it is to be administered by his own father, and he somehow immediately escapes. Hena, on the other hand, who has been raped, and then beaten for twenty four hours by her angry aunt, now faces a real whopping, and she succumbs to it. Since Mehbub and his family have real political or economic clout in the village, several doctors are easily persuaded to rule Hena's death a suicide

Bangladeshi family tells of grief over girl whipped to death
February 6, 2011
Fariha Karim

... The assault left her on the brink of consciousness, unable to walk or talk. But instead of punishing Hena's attacker, elders called a shalish - a village meeting - where she was accused of having an illicit relationship with a married man. Mahbub's wife, Shilpi, complained that he had secretly been meeting Hena. Village elders found both cousins guilty ... Sara Hossain, a barrister involved in the high court case, said: "We have no Sharia law in Bangladesh except when it comes to family matters. Elders who find a woman guilty of something which they believe to be a social or immoral offence have no authority to do so" ... "I'm not educated," Darbesh said. "I don't know what the court laws are. But I know that if I don't listen to the elders, we would be outcast. None of my daughters could marry, no one would even look at us. If I had known that it would be them who would be punished, not me, then I would have tried to stop it." Makeshift shalish courts, in which village elders and religious clerics hold a trial based on traditional, often religious norms, have been an age-old tradition in rural Bangladesh ...

Shariatpur fatwa case accused still at large

... Hena, a 14-year-old girl, died on Monday after .. 101 lashes .. which villagers said had been ‘endorsed’ at a makeshift village arbitration ... On Tuesday, the police arrested four people in connection with the incident who were then sent to jail. However, the 14 accused, including the main accused, local madrassah teacher Saidur Rahman and local union parishad member Idris Sheikh, were still absconding ... Madrassah teacher Rahman and Imam Mafiz Uddin pronounced a decree to administer 101 lashes on Hena. The police have already arrested Mafiz ... The High Court sought a statement from the local administration .. to explain what measures the local administration had taken to resist Hena’s killing, in line with a previous HC verdict regarding false religious decrees (fatwa) ...

Main suspect in Hena killing held
Re-autopsy report submitted

... The High Court on July 8 last year served a ruling on the government, law enforcers, municipalities and the Union Parishads to take measures against 'fatwa', the extrajudicial punishments pronounced by 'makeshift village arbitrations.'

Hena Whipped to Death
2 accused denied bail
Thursday, March 3, 2011

A Shariatpur court yesterday rejected bail of two accused in connection with the second case filed after rape victim Hena Akhtar was whipped to death ... District Women and Children Repression Prevention Tribunal Judge Fazlur Rahman rejected the bail petition filed on February 22 seeking bail of UP member Idris Sheikh and Ala Box Karati ... Five other accused who are also in the jail were on the dock. They are 'rapist' Mahbub, his wife Shilpi, local imam Mafiz Uddin, Latif Meer Malat and Joynal Meer Malaot ... On February 11, In line with a High Court order, victim's mother filed a fresh case in connection with the death of the rape victim against the same accused on five charges ... The charges are rape, abduction, hatching conspiracy, holding unlawful assembly and torture ...

Islam in Bangladesh

... The majority of Muslims in Bangladesh are Sunni ...

Imam

... The Sunni branch of Islam does not have imams in the same sense as the Shi'a, an important distinction often overlooked by those outside of the Islamic faith. In every day terms, the imam for Sunni Muslims is the one who leads Islamic formal (Fard) prayers, even in locations besides the mosque, whenever prayers are done in a group of two or more with one person leading (imam) and the others follow by copying his ritual actions of worship ...