A court in Bangladesh yesterday sentenced 16 people to death over the murder of a 19-year-old female student burned alive in April that provoked outrage across the country.
Nusrat Jahan Rafi was doused in kerosene and set on fire after refusing to withdraw a sexual harassment complaint against the head teacher of the seminary she attended.
“The verdict proves that nobody will get away with murder in Bangladesh. We have the rule of law,” prosecutor Hafez Ahmed told reporters in a crowded courtroom.
Rafi was lured to the rooftop of the seminary, where her attackers pressed her to withdraw the complaint she had filed with police.
When she refused, she was tied up, doused in kerosene and set on fire.
She suffered burns to 80 percent of her body and died in a hospital five days later on April 10.
Her death triggered outrage and also highlighted an alarming rise in sexual harassment cases in the South Asian country of 165 million people.
Protesters in the capital, Dhaka, staged days of demonstrations seeking “exemplary punishment” for the killers.
Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina had promised to prosecute all those involved.
Rafi had in late March gone to police to report the sexual harassment, and a leaked video shows the local police station chief registering her complaint, but dismissing it as “not a big deal.”
At the time police had said that one of the 18 people initially arrested had accused the school’s principal of ordering the attack.
The teacher “told them to put pressure on Rafi to withdraw the case or kill her if she refused,” Senior Police Superintendent Mohammad Iqbal, who led the investigation, had told reporters.
Iqbal had also said that some of the suspects arrested were the victim’s classmates and that they had tied her up with a scarf before setting her on fire.
“The plan was to pass the incident off as a suicide, but it fell through after Rafi managed to come downstairs while on fire because the scarf burned and freed her hands and feet,” he said.
Activists have said that the murder exposed a culture of impunity surrounding sex crimes against women and children, and that those who report harassment often suffer a backlash.
Prosecutions are also rare in cases of rape and sexual assault in the country.
After the murder, Bangladesh ordered about 27,000 schools to set up committees to prevent sexual violence.
Defense lawyers yesterday said that they would appeal the verdict in the Bangladeshi High Court Division.
A new online voting system aimed at boosting turnout among the Philippines’ millions of overseas workers ahead of Monday’s mid-term elections has been marked by confusion and fears of disenfranchisement. Thousands of overseas Filipino workers have already cast their ballots in the race dominated by a bitter feud between President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and his impeached vice president, Sara Duterte. While official turnout figures are not yet publicly available, data from the Philippine Commission on Elections (COMELEC) showed that at least 134,000 of the 1.22 million registered overseas voters have signed up for the new online system, which opened on April 13. However,
EUROPEAN FUTURE? Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama says only he could secure EU membership, but challenges remain in dealing with corruption and a brain drain Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama seeks to win an unprecedented fourth term, pledging to finally take the country into the EU and turn it into a hot tourist destination with some help from the Trump family. The artist-turned-politician has been pitching Albania as a trendy coastal destination, which has helped to drive up tourism arrivals to a record 11 million last year. US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, also joined in the rush, pledging to invest US$1.4 billion to turn a largely deserted island into a luxurious getaway. Rama is expected to win another term after yesterday’s vote. The vote would
ALLIES: Calling Putin his ‘old friend,’ Xi said Beijing stood alongside Russia ‘in the face of the international counter-current of unilateralism and hegemonic bullying’ Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) yesterday was in Moscow for a state visit ahead of the Kremlin’s grand Victory Day celebrations, as Ukraine accused Russia’s army of launching air strikes just hours into a supposed truce. More than 20 foreign leaders were in Russia to attend a vast military parade today marking 80 years since the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II, taking place three years into Russia’s offensive in Ukraine. Putin ordered troops into Ukraine in February 2022 and has marshaled the memory of Soviet victory against Nazi Germany to justify his campaign and rally society behind the offensive,
Myanmar’s junta chief met Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) for the first time since seizing power, state media reported yesterday, the highest-level meeting with a key ally for the internationally sanctioned military leader. Senior General Min Aung Hlaing led a military coup in 2021, overthrowing Myanmar’s brief experiment with democracy and plunging the nation into civil war. In the four years since, his armed forces have battled dozens of ethnic armed groups and rebel militias — some with close links to China — opposed to its rule. The conflict has seen Min Aung Hlaing draw condemnation from rights groups and pursued by the
RSS