Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami Female Wing Secretary Begum Shamsunnahar Nizami has strongly protested and condemned unlawful arrest of 13 Islamist women, who maintain veil, including Women Rights Movement’s leader and language movement veteran Prof Chemon Ara.

Police arrested them when they attended a programme arranged at the National Press Club on Saturday protesting police arrest and torture of other 20 women in custody.

In a statement on Sunday, earlier on December 17 police arrested 20 female students of Islami Chhatrai Sangstha and detained Jamaat leader Abdul Qauder Mullah;s wife Sanowara Jahan. They were unjustly kept in jail under Section 54 of CrPC for that time, which is unprecedented.

She said that police have been repressing on them, even they weren’t allowed to wear veil despite they used to follow Islamic rules and regulation from childhood.

Protesting such unjust, undemocratic and anti-humanity activities of the government, the Women Rights Movement led by Prof Chemon Ara organized the discussion at the National Press Club.

Police arrested 13 women from the discussion, attending where is the constitutional rights of them. Later at the midnight, police released seven of them and kept other six women and sent to jail under Section 54 that is a deterrent law. The law is being misused on women, he said, adding that it is very much sorrowful and dishonoured for the women.

By the state-terrorism on the women, the government blemished the long practiced Islamic tradition in the country, astonishing all.

Any government that tortured women faced dire consequences in the past; the incumbent will have to face the same fate, she warned.

She called upon the government to immediately release the detained female leaders including activists of Islami Chhatri Sonsta.

The women leader also called upon the country’s people including human rights groups to raise their united voice against the tyranny of the government.