AN OPEN LETTER TO THE MAYOR OF TORONTO

As a resident of Toronto I would like to bring an issue of my deep concern to your kind notice. An organization in the name of MUSLIM UMMAH OF NORTH AMERICA has organized a seminar on 'Analysis of The Holy Quran' to be held on August 28 and 29, 2004 at Salahuddin Mosque, 741, Kennedy Road, Toronto. The main speaker of this seminar is Mr. Delwar Hussain Sayeedi, a Bangladeshi national and the presidium member of the Jamaat-E-Islami of Bangladesh. He is a very controversial person for his political past and present activities. A brief testimony of Mr. Sayeedi is given below -

- A convicted war criminal of 1971 liberation war in Bangladesh

- A firebrand leader of Jamat-E-Islami which believes in barbaric form of SHARIA or Islamic political and legal code. Their form of Sharia denies political pluralism, denies freedom or minimum human rights of women and denies existence of religious minorities.

- His political party Jamaat believes in violence and annihilation of political opposition and as a result the party has been banned in many Islamic countries like Egypt, Algeria and Kuwait. It was even banned in Bangladesh from 1971 to 1975.

- Recently, in Bangladesh Mr. Sayeedi publicly admonished and threatened Dr. Humayun Azad, a leading progressive writer and intellectual of Bangladesh, for his writing against Islamic fundamentalism. His public threat was followed by a vicious attack by unknown assailants on Dr. Azad in the last week of February, 2004 inflicting fatal injury on him. Though Dr. Azad apparently survived that assassination bid, but he had to leave Bangladesh for Germany after receiving continuous threat on his life and finally succumbed to his injury two days after his arrival in Munich on August 10.

Mr. Sayeedi, taking the advantage of freedom of speech of Canadian system, will certainly preach against tolerance of opposition, freedom of women and sow hatred in the heart of Canadian Muslims against cultural inter-mingling. Mr. Sayeedi, if truthful, will call for seclusion of Muslim men and women in Canada from the liberal, modern mainstream which is definitely contrary to Canadian social values and political mission.

Finally, if Mr. Sayeedi is allowed to conduct his religious and political propaganda in Toronto, it will be again a very sad defeat for thousands of progressive, secular Bangladeshis like me who were tortured, prosecuted and forced to leave own homeland due to terror of these fundamentalist zealots.

Mr. Miller, I love this city more than the city I was born in. In all fairness, the ideology of Mr. Sayeedi does not fit into this society and dangerous for free world.

Please stop his hate mission.

Regards,
Mani Islam
Toronto, Canada