It is the mass extermination of a whole group of people, an attempt to destroy an entire group and wipe them out of existence.

But at the heart of this simple idea is a complicated tangle of legal definitions.

This has led to conflicting views on when a mass killing, or forced movement, of people can be called genocide.

There are people who say that there was only one genocide during the last century.

Others say there were at least three, possibly more.

What is genocide and when can that term be applied?

A war crimes tribunal set up in Bangladesh to try those responsible for atrocities during the country’s 1971 liberation war with Pakistan is facing increased scrutiny by the international community. While the International Crimes Tribunal has been widely welcomed in Bangladesh as a response to the longstanding need to address the issue of impunity for alleged war crimes and other crimes under international law, serious concerns have been raised, particularly regarding its statute, which contains several provisions that are incompatible with international law and international fair trial standards. In July, Rules of Procedure were adopted, which are also highly problematic in terms of international human rights law.

NEW DELHI — The numbers are in dispute, but the story they tell has remained the same for four decades: 200,000 women (or 300,000, or 400,000, depending on the source) raped during the 1971 war in which East Pakistan broke with West Pakistan to becomeBangladesh.
The American feminist Susan Brownmiller, quoting all three sets of statistics in her 1975 book “Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape,” compared the rapes of Bangladesh with the rapes of Chinese women by Japanese soldiers at Nanjing in 1937-38.
Accepting even the lowest set of figures …

In a stately colonial building in central Dhaka, on 26 July 2010 Bangladesh’s International Crimes Tribunal granted the prosecutors’ request to issue arrest warrants for four individual suspects on charges of committing genocide, crimes against humanity and crimes against peace. A further case against a fifth individual was also opened by the court.
By Caitlin Reiger
The International Crimes Tribunal is a landmark effort to deal with the legacy of the atrocities that occurred during the conflict that accompanied Bangladesh’s independence from Pakistan, atrocities which remain largely unknown outside the region.
The long …

The numbers are in dispute, but the story they tell has remained the same for four decades: 200,000 women (or 300,000, or 400,000, depending on the source) raped during the 1971 war in which East Pakistan broke with West Pakistan to become Bangladesh.

The American feminist Susan Brownmiller, quoting all three sets of statistics in her 1975 book “Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape,” compared the rapes of Bangladesh with the rapes of Chinese women by Japanese soldiers at Nanjing in 1937-38.

Accepting even the lowest set of figures for Bangladesh forces a horrifying comparison — the 1992-95 Bosnian war saw one-tenth the number of rapes as did the Bangladesh war. The rapes of Bosnian women forced the world to recognize rape as “an instrument of terror,” as a crime against humanity. But so far no one has been held to account for the sexual violence against Bangladeshi women in 1971.

As the 40th anniversary of the 1971 war approaches, the Bangladeshi government has set up an International Crimes Tribunal to investigate the atrocities of that era. But human rights advocates and lawyers fear that the mass rapes and killings of women will not be adequately addressed. They hope to ensure they are.

মুক্তিযুদ্ধের চেতনার জন্য খুব প্রতিকূল একটি সময়ে এ দেশের সবচেয়ে গৌরবের সময়টিকে চিরদিনের জন্য ধরে রাখতে উদ্যোগী হয়েছিল একদল স্বাপ্নিক। তাঁদেরই অক্লান্ত পরিশ্রমের ফসল মুক্তিযুদ্ধ জাদুঘর। এই কয়জন বিশিষ্ট ব্যক্তির শুভ উদ্যোগে সাধ্যমতো সহায়তার হাত বাড়িয়েছিলেন বিভিন্ন স্তরের মানুষ।
প্রায় দেড় দশকের সফল পথ চলার পর মুক্তিযুদ্ধ জাদুঘর হাতে নিয়েছে আরেকটি বড় কাজ। প্রতিষ্ঠানটি এখন তার নিজস্ব ভবন নির্মাণের উদ্যোগ নিয়েছে। এ জন্য দরকার বেশ বড় অঙ্কের অর্থ। জাদুঘর কর্তৃপক্ষ চাইছে শুরুর মতো এই মহতি উদ্যোগেও সব স্তরের মানুষের অবদান থাকুক।
মুক্তিযুদ্ধ জাদুঘর কর্তৃপক্ষ সহযোগিতার জন্য অনুদানের কয়েকটি ব্যবস্থা রেখেছে। ১০ হাজার …

On 17th August last Prime Minister Shaikh Hasina had impressed upon the paramountcy of eradicating militancy from our body-politic for good. The same day the Director General of Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), the prime unit engaged in fighting militancy, informs us that the so-called religious extremists in Bangladesh are not a spent force and that we must exercise constant vigil so that the enemy does not catch us unaware as on previous occasions.

শুভ কর্ম বা শুভ উদ্যোগ বিলম্বে হলেও ভালো। ইংরেজিতে একটি কথা আছে, ‘Beter late than never’. আমি কথাটাকে খুব মূল্য দেই। সম্প্রতি প্রধানমন্ত্রী শেখ হাসিনা ও তার সরকার আমাদের একাত্তরের বন্ধুদের প্রতি সম্মান প্রদর্শনের যে উদ্যোগ ও তাদের স্বীকৃতি জানানোর যে সিদ্ধান্ত নিয়েছেন দীর্ঘ প্রায় চার দশক পর হলেও এই উদ্যোগ ও সিদ্ধান্তকে একটি মহতী প্রয়াস রূপে অভিহিত করতে চাই। কারণ এর মধ্য দিয়ে বাঙালি জাতির কৃতজ্ঞতাবোধ ও উদার মনেরই পরিচয় মেলে। বাঙালি জাতি বন্ধুত্বের মূল্য দিতে ও উপকারীর উপকার স্বীকার করতে জানে তাও আরেকবার বিশ্বের কাছে প্রমাণিত হলো। এই সিদ্ধান্ত ও উদ্যোগের জন্য শেখ হাসিনা ও তার সরকার নিঃসন্দেহেই অভিনন্দন পাওয়ার যোগ্য।

For the man right at the very back of the room in the dark suit and the expensive grey tie, the appearance of Naomi Campbell in court in The Hague yesterday must have been a welcome relief. For the past three years the focus in the courtroom has been fairly unremittingly on him. He is Charles Taylor, the man accused of war crimes in Sierra Leone.

Amendments to the country’s constitution since 1973 contributed little to fortify it, rather many changes made with ulterior motives largely destroyed its basic features.

The most fundamental, and in some cases nefarious, of those changes were brought through the fourth, fifth, seventh, and eighth amendments.

Charles Taylor may be a former warlord but he also has a reputation as a flamboyant showman.

He was once asked in a BBC interview why some people thought he was little better than a murderer.

He shot back: “Jesus Christ was accused of being a murderer in his time.”

…[Far from the protective, lackey-patrolled confines of his offices, Mojaheed and three other prominent Jamaat leaders (including the party's leader Maulana Motiur Rahman Nizami) are under arrest, appearing for the first time in a war-crimes court to face charges of genocide, crimes against humanity and against peace — the last of which has not been invoked since the trials at Nuremberg. They rank among the topmost figures implicated in the systematic murder of as many as 3 million people in 1971 as the Pakistani army and ethnic Bengali collaborators attempted to quash a Bengali-nationalist rebellion.]…