Twenty years have handed and nonetheless counting. Throughout these years, Blitz has witnessing a number of ups-and-downs – someday we felt terribly considering our dream publication would go defunct. However with our terrific ethical energy, till date, Blitz is constant its publication on print and on-line with over 25,000 copies printed each Thursday. Folks in Bangladesh learn Blitz with a little bit of curiosity and generally with hidden anger, as we promote unpopular opinion. We present the audacity of breaking taboos – each social and non secular. Twenty years in the past, in Bangladesh, the third-largest Muslim nation with 170 million inhabitants – the phrase Jew was thought of as taboo whereas publicly uttering Israel was socially and legally forbidden. There was not a single copy of Torah at any of the native bookstores, apart from the museum and handpicked public libraries. Native Jewish group needed to dwell underneath large concern – thus principally hiding their spiritual id. Locals by no means heard of Yom Kippur, Rosh Hashanah or any of the Jewish spiritual festivals. Native media by no means revealed any article about Judaism regardless of the actual fact, in accordance with Koran, having religion in Prophet Moses and Torah are religiously obligatory to each Muslim.
Folks ask me – why I’m an exception in a rustic that perceives Jews as “descendants of pigs and apes”. They ask – why I respect Jewish populace and why at the price of unimaginable ordeals and sufferings I’ve been selling unpopular opinion thus confronting radical Islam, denouncing anti-Semitism and Holocaust denials and selling interfaith concord. I solely inform them – when a human being and humanity change the blindness of spiritual bigotry, everybody would do the identical.
Once we launched Blitz – twenty years in the past, everybody mentioned, this newspaper can’t maintain by selling and publishing unpopular opinion. However after twenty years, individuals learn Blitz with curiosity as we publish unmolested and untwisted details about Israel, Jews and Zionism. We don’t concern criticizing notoriety and terrorist agendas of Iran and its proxies – together with Hezbollah and Hamas.
Through the previous twenty years, Blitz has succeeded by means of persevering with publishing investigative reviews and significant evaluation in getting Hizb ut Tahrir outlawed in Bangladesh. We’ve succeeded in getting anti-Ahmadi Islamist bigots banned on this nation. As a consequence of our steady efforts, copies of Jewish holy scripture Torah – Hebrew, English and Bangla variations at the moment are out there in virtually all of the bookstores in Bangladesh. Every year, we’re organizing particular occasions to have fun Rosh Hashanah, which is attended by students, journalists, intellectuals and even Islamic clergymen.
As a consequence of our relentless efforts, again in 2021, Bangladesh authorities had omitted “Besides Israel” from our passport. Beforehand, Bangladeshi passports had been legitimate for “All international locations of the world besides Israel”. We succeeded in getting these unjust wordings faraway from our passports. Instantly after elimination of those phrases, Palestinian “envoy” in Bangladesh, Yousuf Ramadan had vehemently reacted. He even met Bangladesh overseas minister with the request of restoring these phrases. Lastly, his efforts fell flat, once more due to our steady publication of reviews and opinion editorials condemning Ramadan’s undiplomatic habits.
Nonetheless, we’re publishing an anti-jihadists, anti-Islamist and pro-Semite newspaper from a rustic the place virtually 95 p.c of the full inhabitants nonetheless are having excessive hatred in the direction of Israel and Jews. Because of this, many individuals contemplate us as fools or mentally insane. They assume, by publishing and selling unpopular opinion, we’re risking our lives and future.
Again in 2003, when an Islamist coalition authorities of Bangladesh Nationalist Celebration (BNP) and Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI) pushed me into jail for the “crimes” of confronting radical Islam and denouncing anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial. I used to be branded as a “Mossad spy” and sedition, treason and blasphemy expenses had been introduced towards me. Though I used to be launched on bail in 2005, authorities despatched me again to jail in 2012 and in 2014, a courtroom in Dhaka had handed me down seven-year’s rigorous imprisonment. By that point, me and my household had been completely deserted by everybody – we had been pushed into the black gap the place we additionally felt, individuals – Muslims and non-Muslims – sane and insane – highly effective and powerless, everybody had forgotten us.
After serving the total jail time period, after I received launched in July 2018 – I stepped right into a world – the place I needed to start every part virtually from trashes. For a lot of months, I needed to transfer by public transport – or simply on foot, as a result of, seven years imprisonment had destroyed my very supply of earnings and bodily energy. I knew, there isn’t any one to assist. As an alternative, individuals had been mocking of my scenario – each at house and overseas – a few of them, together with some members of the media started working vile marketing campaign towards me – with true and unfaithful information – principally unfaithful or twisted – with the agenda of destroying my completely. Google search was saying – I’m a pretend or unfathomable pal of the West and Israel – others mentioned, I’m a conman or con-artist. Their cruelty was so profound – anybody studying these would begin believing – I used to be solely residing on monetary assist from the Jewish group. Even some newspaper or information outlet homeowners didn’t contemplate a primary truth – how a lot of cash is required for working a newspaper only for a yr. All of them had been floating right into a whimsical tsunami of lies and falsehood.
As Blitz has crossed twenty years of publication, might I humbly inform my critics – it is a self-funded newspaper that homes greater than a dozen of journalists in addition to extra technical staffs at our digital part. We don’t get even one greenback from anybody both as grant or by any means. Month-to-month expenditure of Blitz exceeds an quantity equal to US$25-30 thousand. Please now calculate, how a lot now we have already spent previously twenty years. Nonetheless you assume, we’re con-artists or unfathomable pal of Israel and the West? Are you able to please discover even a single article that went towards Israel or Judaism in our newspaper? No! As a result of, we don’t uphold our ideology for any materials achieve. We do it out of self-commitment.
Earlier than concluding, I wish to say – Winston Churchill was one of the vital unpopular politicians within the late ’30s and by the mid-’40s he was thought of one the best statesmen, presumably of all time. I’m not evaluating myself. I’m simply saying that controversies come and go, however the necessary factor is sticking to your ideas and persevering by means of these controversies. I shall hold persevering by means of controversies – till someday, everybody together with my critics and people who even hate me as we speak would notice, by demonizing or trying character assassination of mine, they could have really ignored an individual – who risked his life – remained in condemned cell of jail for seven years – and after getting launched, when he noticed, for these he had endured such unimaginable sufferings had been both ignoring or making enjoyable of – he simply accepted every part with a silent smile.