By Mizan Rahman/Dhaka

The Bangladesh Nationalist Party, headed by former prime minister Khaleda Zia, yesterday returned to the streets after nearly seven months’ pause but this time holding black flags protesting against Israeli attacks in Gaza.
The Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) authority earlier gave the BNP permission for the protest in the capital on condition that it would end before 6pm.
Dhaka City BNP convener Mirza Abbas said: “We are not holding the rally against the government; it is only a protest against the killings in Gaza.”
The BNP leader also urged party activists not to chant slogans against the government during the rally.
The silent procession started from the party’s Nayapaltan office around
4pm.
BNP acting secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir urged the United Nations, the Organisation of Islamic Co-operation (OIC) and the Arab League to play a greater role in the issue.
The party also held protest rallies in all other 63 districts of the country.
But a group of young men in Jhenidah town snatched the black-flags meant for a BNP march yesterday and burnt them.
Local BNP leaders said that a group of young men in front of the local Awami League office snatched the flags while they were being brought to the venue, and burnt them down.
The procession, however, continued without the flags.
Meanwhile, the local Awami League also took out a procession in the town raising slogans to prevent any conspiracy to destabilise the country.
It is still not known whether the police will allow the BNP to hold pro-democracy rallies planned later this month and in September.
The BNP is also set to hold a rally on August 19 in protest against the recently approved National Broadcasting Policy.
The party called for the new policy to be scrapped, and claimed the move to introduce the policy was part of a conspiracy to establish one-party rule.
Meanwhile, BNP acting secretary general Alamgir said the government is now ‘regulating’ democracy.
“The government controls the administration and judiciary. In its latest move they made the broadcast policy to control the media. The sole objective is to establish a regulated democracy,” he told a meeting yesterday.
Referring to the police cordoning off the BNP Naya Paltan headquarters on Friday, Alagir said: “Around 1,500 police personnel were deployed around the Naya Paltan office. They did it as they knew a major political party will celebrate its chairperson’s birthday at its office.



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