Big news from bangladesh today: they have executed someone! (link to BBC News article).

Abdul Kader Mullah was a senior leader in the Jamaat-e-islami party which back at the time of independence in fought for unity against independence... and lost. For context, tThe current PM calls the guy who led the independence movement daddy (and the former PM and leader of the opposition calls the man who executed him daddy).

Either way, there was never any process to reconcile the different factions in Bangladesh following independence, and everything was sort of hoofed away as there were many immediate issues to deal with straight away followed by many political upheavals and political coups.

In one of the coups, the founding father and all his family were executed. The only survivors being those abroad at the time (either one or two daughters).

Then they sort of forgot about everything as it was considered a hornets next best not stirred because there would be much acrimination and many power people and groups would be found culpable of crimes and it was probably considered good for unity to reconcile the opposing factions. Or they simply never got around to it. (I read a piece a few years ago which suggested that political memory in Bangladesh was very short and the war of independence had mostly left the public consciousness as most of the young population were born afterwards or very young at the time.)

When the daughter came to power she started a process to punish people guilty of crimes during independence.

The jamaat-e-islami party was anti independence and the current government considered it culpable of some crimes. The current leaders would have been younger at the time and potentially on the front line of any crimes.

The governing party considers the current court process to be necessarily while the opposition considers it political and human rights organisations have found the process flawed (but then again, that is there job).

The religious parties such of Jamaat-e-islami have considered it as a which hunt and an attack on Islam itself (though such rhetoric could easily be used to hide their crimes and try to avoid justice...)

New elections were due in a few months and I expected the current Defendants to survive until then, and then their fate would have been decided based on the political fortunes of the parties involved.

Instead, hours after the appeal against the conviction and punishment failed, a senior leader of Jamaat-e-islami has been executed.

That is a big thing. I have no idea about his guilt or the fairness of his trial, but the deed is done and he may have deserved what he got or it may have been political revenge of the highest order.

Some will want this process to continue, others will be outraged.

Opinions? Views?