Speakers including leaders of the national minorities, researchers, academics and rights activists at a discussion in the capital on Sunday demanded constitutional recognition of national minorities and protection of their rights.
They also demanded the Professor Muhammad Yunus-led interim government to form a reform commission to work for rights of national minorities and to ensure meaningful engagement of national minority representatives in the state decision-making process.
The speakers raised the demands at the national level discussion session organised by Kapaeeng Foundation.
Delivering his welcome speech, Trijinad Chakma from the foundation said that people of national minority communities had been fighting for their rights for a long time.
Kapaeeng Foundation executive director Pallab Chakma demanded constitutional recognition of the minorities as 鈥榓divasis鈥�.
Pallab mentioned that national minority people were in a vulnerable situation as land grabbing and forced eviction were done in the name of development.
He recommended implementation of the Chittagong Hill Tracts Peace Accord fully following a time frame bound roadmap, implementation of the ILO Convention 107 and ratification of the ILO Convention 169, formation of a separate land commission for plain land national minorities, an end to culture of impunity and publication of disaggregated data on national minority communities, among others, to protect the rights of ethnic people.
Jahangirnagar University associate professor Rezwana Karim Snigdha criticised development works in the CHT mentioning that resorts were built there instead of schools and hospitals.
She also criticised the interim government for not ensuring representatives from ethnic minority communities in the reform commissions.
Jatiya Nagarik Committee member Sarwar Tusher called for establishing a state where all citizens, including hill people and plain land national minority people, would be secured by the state without denouncing their identities.
Referring to the constitution of the country that defines the people of Bangladesh as Bengalis, and the citizens of Bangladesh as Bangladeshis, Tusher said that not all the people in the country were Bengalis.
He emphasised the importance of a new constitution that could address diversity in the country giving recognition of the national minorities.
Jatiya Adivasi Parishad vice-president Philemon Baske, Transparency International Bangladesh executive director Iftekharuzzaman, Rangamati Hill District Council member Nai U Prue Marma, ILO national programme officer in Bangladesh Amexius Chicham, poet and journalist Sohrab Hassan, Kubraj Antapunji Unnayan Sangathan general secretary Flora Bably Talang, CHT affairs ministry additional secretary Prodip Kumar Mahottam and Association for Land Reform and Development executive director Shamsul Huda spoke at the session, which was presided over by Bangladesh Adivasi Forum vice-president Ajoy A Mree.