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| ICNA president Naeem Baig (left), Jamaat-e-Islami leader Ghulam Azam |
(Clarion Project) The Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) is again showing its affection for the radical Jamaat-e-Islami group of Pakistan and Bangladesh, a group that it derived from. ICNA was the first to publicly mourn the death of a Jamaat-e-Islami leader and to defend his record, eliciting harsh criticism from some Muslims online.
Jamaat-e-Islami is essentially a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. Both are Islamist groups with a history of support for terrorism and who intend to use electoral means to implement Sharia governance. Bangladesh is prosecuting Jamaat-e-Islami leaders for war crimes committed during the country’s 1971 war for independence from Pakistan. [...]
It mourns the death of Ghulam Azam, who led the Jamaat-e-Islami party in Bangladesh from 1991 to 2000. He was in prison after being convicted by a Bangladeshi tribunal on 61 war crimes charges.
Azam was the Ameer of the East Pakistan Jamaat-e-Islami during Bangladesh’s war for independence from Pakistan in 1971. He is accused of working with the Pakistani military in its offensives that killed an estimated 3 million people and resulted in the rapes of about a quarter-million women, according to various press accounts.
The Daily Star recounts his role in the atrocities as the Jamaat-e-Islami and its student wing formed pro-Pakistan militias. Its account includes a picture of Azam with Pakistani general known as “Butcher of Baluchistan.”
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