To: [email protected]

Subject: Condemning your position in favor of War Criminal

Dear Baroness Warsi,

I hope this letter will find you in good health. I came across one of your statements on 19 September, 2013, where you said, “I am deeply concerned at the decision by the Bangladesh Supreme Court to pass the death penalty on Jamaat-e-Islami Assistant Secretary General, Abdul Qader Mollah, for the crimes committed during the war preceding the independence of Bangladesh in 1971.”

You have also tried to clarify your position against death penalty, where you said, “The UK opposes the use of the death penalty in all circumstances as a matter of principle and this decision runs contrary to the international trend towards worldwide abolition.”

Your argument raises several logical questions, which needs clarification.

1. Have you ever protested any decision death sentence by 32 US states and US Military?

2. Do you protest death sentence and public execution by beheading in Saudi Arabia?

3. Do you protest death penalty by your original homeland Pakistan, from where you migrated to UK? Please look at some statistical facts.

The following 21 countries are believed by Amnesty International to have carried out executions in 2012:
Afghanistan (14), Bangladesh (1), Belarus (3+), China (2000+), Gambia (9), India (1), Iran (314+), Iraq (129+), Japan (7), North Korea (6+), Pakistan (1), Palestine (6), Saudi Arabia (79+), Somalia (6+), South Sudan (5+), Sudan (19+), Taiwan (6), UAE (1), USA (43), Yemen (28+).

Have you ever expressed concern over capital punishments in 21 countries other than Bangladesh?
Kader Molla is not a simple criminal. He has committed crimes against humanity; he was a collaborator of Genocide and bears the full political responsibility of the murder and rapes committed against Bangladeshi population as his political party was in the provincial Government at that time.

I demand a reply to the questions above or else I would conclude that you are taking side with a war criminal, not for any fair reasons but to save him as he collaborated with Pakistan Army, the country where you once belonged. You are taking unjust advantage of describing British values and legal system to protect a heinous Criminal.

I would like to remind you that the crimes were committed in 1971, and British law abolished the death penalty in all circumstances in 1998. In 2004 the 13th Protocol to the European Convention on Human Rights became binding on the United Kingdom, prohibiting the restoration of the death penalty for as long as the UK is a party to the Convention.

So if these criminal were not protected by some heinous people and military rulers in Bangladesh, they would have had this punishment long before your so called advancement of Law and society against Death Penalty.


I believe you owe an answer, and I am asking this on behalf of the victims of the war crimes committed in 1971, during Bangladesh war of liberation and condemn your position in favor of these killers and rapists.
Thanking you in anticipation.

Pinaki Bhattacharya
Social activist and citizen of Bangladesh