A massive coronavirus prayer session with tens of thousands of devotees sparked an outcry in Bangladesh on Wednesday as the South Asian nation reported its first death from the COVID-19 pandemic.
About 10,000 Muslims gathered in an open field in Raipur to pray “healing verses” from the Koran to rid the country of the coronavirus, Raipur Police Chief Tota Miah said.
“They held the Khatme Shifa prayers after dawn to free the country from the coronavirus,” Miah said.
Photo: AFP
Organizers claimed that the number of worshipers was 25,000.
Organizers did not get permission from authorities to hold the session, Miah said.
Photographs of the gathering were widely shared on social media, with commenters slamming the massive rally.
Bangladeshi authorities have already shut schools and asked locals to avoid large gatherings in an effort to halt the spread of the coronavirus.
“Unbelievable how they even have done it without notifying the police? They will be held responsible if anything happens to the people in the region,” Abdur Rahman wrote on Facebook.
Despite the authorities’ appeal to avoid crowded public areas, many took the opportunity to head to tourism sites.
Police said that they had to close two beaches, including one at Cox’s Bazar, which is home to nearly 1 million Rohingya refugees from Myanmar.
Awami League General Secretary Obaidul Quader said a lockdown might be required to contain the virus.
“If necessary, Bangladesh will be shut down. It’ll be enforced where necessary. People must be saved first. We’ll do everything for that,” he told reporters.
Polish presidential candidates offered different visions of Poland and its relations with Ukraine in a televised debate ahead of next week’s run-off, which remains on a knife-edge. During a head-to-head debate lasting two hours, centrist Warsaw Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski, from Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s governing pro-European coalition, faced the Eurosceptic historian Karol Nawrocki, backed by the right-wing populist Law and Justice party (PiS). The two candidates, who qualified for the second round after coming in the top two places in the first vote on Sunday last week, clashed over Poland’s relations with Ukraine, EU policy and the track records of their
UNSCHEDULED VISIT: ‘It’s a very bulky new neighbor, but it will soon go away,’ said Johan Helberg of the 135m container ship that run aground near his house A man in Norway awoke early on Thursday to discover a huge container ship had run aground a stone’s throw from his fjord-side house — and he had slept through the commotion. For an as-yet unknown reason, the 135m NCL Salten sailed up onto shore just meters from Johan Helberg’s house in a fjord near Trondheim in central Norway. Helberg only discovered the unexpected visitor when a panicked neighbor who had rung his doorbell repeatedly to no avail gave up and called him on the phone. “The doorbell rang at a time of day when I don’t like to open,” Helberg told television
‘A THREAT’: Guyanese President Irfan Ali called on Venezuela to follow international court rulings over the region, whose border Guyana says was ratified back in 1899 Misael Zapara said he would vote in Venezuela’s first elections yesterday for the territory of Essequibo, despite living more than 100km away from the oil-rich Guyana-administered region. Both countries lay claim to Essequibo, which makes up two-thirds of Guyana’s territory and is home to 125,000 of its 800,000 citizens. Guyana has administered the region for decades. The centuries-old dispute has intensified since ExxonMobil discovered massive offshore oil deposits a decade ago, giving Guyana the largest crude oil reserves per capita in the world. Venezuela would elect a governor, eight National Assembly deputies and regional councilors in a newly created constituency for the 160,000
North Korea has detained another official over last week’s failed launch of a warship, which damaged the naval destroyer, state media reported yesterday. Pyongyang announced “a serious accident” at Wednesday last week’s launch ceremony, which crushed sections of the bottom of the new destroyer. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un called the mishap a “criminal act caused by absolute carelessness.” Ri Hyong-son, vice department director of the Munitions Industry Department of the Party Central Committee, was summoned and detained on Sunday, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported. He was “greatly responsible for the occurrence of the serious accident,” it said. Ri is the fourth person