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ICT asks Bergman to explain questioning martyrs figure

Staff Correspondent
The International Crimes Tribunal-2 yesterday asked Dhaka-based British journalist David Bergman to explain his comments questioning the three million figure of the Liberation War martyrs.
Hearing a petition, the tribunal asked Bergman to come up with an explanation in person or through his lawyer on March 6.
The petitioner's counsel told the court that the journalist in two writeups made contemptuous comments by trying to prove the death toll incorrect.
Bergman posted the articles in his personal blog on November 11, 2011, and January 28, 2013, focusing on the
indictment order of Delawar Hossain Sayedee and the verdict on Abul Kalam Azad.
The indictment order and the verdict said three million people were killed, more than 2,00,000 women raped, about 10 million people deported to India as refugees, and million others were internally displaced as a result of the action of the Pakistani military and the role of the collaborators.
Taking unsupportive, inconsistence and contradictory sources as reference, Bergman made relentless efforts throughout the articles to establish that the tribunal was absolutely wrong about the figure of martyrs and rape victims, the counsel said.
According to the petition, Bergman
in the post on Sayedee wrote: “The Tribunal in its order does not provide or refer to any evidence or material on record to support the figure of three million, treating it as a historical fact.
"This statement by the Tribunal provides an opportunity to look at the question of how many people died as a result of the 1971 war - a controversial issue within Bangladesh. In certain nationalistic circles, to raise what I consider to be legitimate questions about the 3 million figure can draw strong emotions."
The petition also cited from Bergman's analysis on the Azad verdict. “It is simply to point out that if the tribunal is supposed to be an adjudicator of truth, it would have been
FROM PAGE 2 appropriate for it to have dealt with the issue of the number of dead in a more judicial manner - rather than repeating a mantra that has little or no factual basis."
Filed by Supreme Court lawyer Abul Kalam Azad, the petition sought contempt of court proceedings or any necessary step for the write-ups.
Petitioner's counsel Mizan Sayeed told the tribunal that the way Bergman was making and circulating derogatory comments through the articles cannot be taken as "fair criticism”; rather these amount to "high grade of contempt".
During the hearing, the three-member tribunal, led by Justice Obaidul Hassan, said the number of three million deaths is a fact and common knowledge. Yet, attempts were on to call it into question.
Bergman, special correspondent of English daily New Age, was seriously cautioned by the Tribunal-1 in 2011 for one of his reports. He was, however, exonerated from contempt of court proceedings.
In the blog bangladeshwarcrimes.blogspot.com, the journalist yesterday posted an article titled "Ten key things to know about the contempt application".
He claimed that in the post on Sayedee, there is simply nothing, which could by any reasonable interpretation be deemed contemptuous of the tribunal.
Regarding his analysis on the Azad verdict, he said the posts contain fair, accurate and constructive comments on the tribunal judgment.
In its maiden judgment on January 21 last year, the International Crimes Tribunal-2 sentenced Abul Kalam Azad to death for genocide and crimes against humanity during the war.
On February 28 that year, the Tribunal-1 handed down Sayedee the capital punishment for murder, abduction, confinement, torture, rape, persecution, and abetment of torture, looting, forceful religious conversions and setting homes ablaze in rural areas of Pirojpur in 1971.