BNP activists and leaders are facing great difficulties in getting asylum in Canada as its Immigration Department believes that the Bangladeshi political party has constituted terrorist acts.
In the last two years, judgements of at least of six judicial review cases were delivered by the Immigration Court and in all the cases, BNP leaders were denied to stay in Canada as the immigration officers believed that BNP is a terrorist organization.
In Alam vs Canada (Citizenship and Immigration) case, the verdict of which was delivered on Sept 21, the judge said in his observation, “The immigration officer found there were reasonable grounds to believe the BNP is an organization that engages, has engaged, or will engage in acts of terrorism or subversion.”
Citing the view of the National Security Screening Division, the judge said, “The BNP has engaged in activities that constitute acts of terrorism such as violent protests, rallies, bombings and beatings.”
The findings of immigration officers were more or less similar in five other cases namely - Kamal vs Canada (2018), AK vs Canada (2018), SA vs Canada (2017), Chowdhury vs Canada (2017) and Gazi vs Canada (2017)
In the Kamal vs Canada case, the Canadian minister of public safety and emergency preparedness sad in his submission “... alleged there are reasonable grounds to believe that the applicant is a member of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party [BNP]. The Minister also alleges that the BNP is an organization that engages in terrorism and engaged in, or instigated the subversion.”
Former Bangladesh envoy to Canada Yakub Ali said, “In my period, we didn’t have such type of thing.”
It might have evolved over time, said Yakub who came back to Dhaka from Ottawa in 2012.