Graffiti over Bangabandhu's portrait: Civil rights activists call for withdrawing suspension of JU students
Civil rights advocates held a rally this afternoon in solidarity with the two student leaders who were suspended from Jahangirnagar University (JU) for one year over the vandalism of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman's portrait and replacing it with graffiti on campus walls.
Around 4:00pm today (26 February), at the capital's Shahbagh area, speakers at the rally demanded their suspension be withdrawn.
On 7 February , a faction of JU Chhatra Union members removed Bangabandhu's portrait from the Faculty of Arts and Humanities building and replaced it with graffiti with the text "freedom from rape and tyranny."
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The expelled leaders – Amartya Roy, president of Chhatra Union, and Riddha Anindya Ganguly, general secretary, both from the university's 47th batch of the archaeology department – argued that this act was a protest against a recent rape incident.
At the rally, the speakers said this civic movement will continue on a larger scale.
2 JU Chhatra Union leaders suspended for drawing anti-rape graffiti over Bangabandhu's portrait
"The expulsion of the two JU students over the graffiti has proved that the university administration has become a bully and a guardian of dictatorship," the speakers said in a statement.
The statement further said, "A graffiti was painted during the protest against Jahangirnagar University's former VC Farzana Islam. Graffiti painting in any movement is a regular and accepted cultural practice in Jahangirnagar University. The anti-VC movement graffiti was removed and replaced with Bangabandhu's portrait.
"Now, a graffiti titled 'freedom from rape and tyranny' was painted in Jahangirnagar University, maintaining the previous cultural practice… The administration unethically and in an undemocratic manner issued suspension orders to the two student leaders and issued an office order to file a case."
"If the suspension orders of Anindya and Amarta for painting the graffiti are not cancelled and the preparation of the case is not suspended, the civic movement will continue on a larger scale," said the speakers.
