By Golam Mahmud Jafar
A fierce political firestorm has engulfed Bangladesh after a now-deleted post from the verified X account of Jamaat-e-Islami Ameer Dr. Shafiqur Rahman branded women entering the workforce “in the name of modernity” as facing exploitation, moral decay, and insecurity—explicitly equating it to “another form of prostitution.” The January 31, 2026, post, which appeared around 4:37 pm, further declared that women cannot hold leadership roles in the party because “Allah did not permit this,” framing the party’s stance as “principled” and unapologetic. It tied these views to broader condemnations of social media vulgarity, workplace harassment, and the commodification of women as evidence of societal “moral collapse.”
The post ignited immediate nationwide outrage, spreading rapidly via screenshots across Bangladesh, West Bengal, Tripura, and international circles. Protests erupted on Sunday, February 1, at Dhaka University (DU) and Jagannath University (JnU), led by Jatiyatabadi Chhatra Dal (JCD, the student wing of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party or BNP). Demonstrators chanted slogans including “Women are not prostitutes, Shafiq must apologise,” “Do you know, Shafique, half the strength of the nation is women,” and “You called them prostitutes and now claim your ID was hacked.” Speakers accused Jamaat of finally unmasking its true contempt for women’s education, economic participation, and rights in Bangladesh’s evolving post-upheaval landscape.
Major political forces piled on with scathing condemnations: the BNP (Jamaat’s former ally and now leading election rival), Jatiyo Party, Communist Party of Bangladesh, and arch-rival Bangladesh Awami League (party of exiled Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina) all issued blistering statements. Millions of social media users joined the fray, branding the remarks regressive, misogynistic, and deeply insulting to women’s dignity and contributions.
Hours after the backlash exploded, Jamaat-e-Islami hastily deleted the post, held an emergency press conference, and claimed the Ameer’s X account (@Drsr_Official) had been hit by a “highly sophisticated and coordinated cyberattack.” The party’s cyber team alleged phishing emails—some purportedly disguised as official documents from the President’s Office (Bangabhaban) and dated as far back as January 10, 2025—delivered malware. They filed a General Diary (GD) at Hatirjheel Police Station around 3:30 am on February 1, claiming awareness of the hack by 4:55 pm on January 31. Jamaat insisted the content was “objectionable” and completely inconsistent with Dr. Shafiqur Rahman’s views, portraying the incident as a “deep conspiracy” to sabotage the party and alienate female voters just days before key elections. They noted similar attempted breaches on other senior leaders’ accounts.
BNP Election Management Committee spokesperson Mahdi Amin tore into the hacking narrative during a press conference at the party’s Gulshan office. He highlighted that the denial only surfaced nearly nine hours after the post went viral and triggered massive public fury—far from the standard immediate alert issued for verified account compromises. Amin noted no early warning appeared on the Ameer’s active Facebook page during that critical window. He further slammed the GD filing delay (nearly 12 hours after claimed awareness) and questioned how the account was supposedly recovered so swiftly. Critics across social media and reports echoed these inconsistencies: Why would a hacker sit on a phishing email for over three weeks before acting? Why selectively target only the X account without wider compromise of devices, emails, or other platforms?
Adding fuel to skepticism, senior Jamaat leader Shafiqul Islam Masud initially appeared to endorse the views in a now-deleted social media post before retracting it without explanation.
This incident drags Jamaat-e-Islami’s record on women back into the spotlight with brutal clarity. In a recent Al Jazeera interview, Dr. Shafiqur Rahman explicitly stated women cannot lead the country or the party due to “God-given differences.” Just days earlier, senior leader Mohammad Shamim Ahsan described Dhaka University’s DUCSU as a former “brothel” reformed by Islami Chhatra Shibir (Jamaat’s student wing). Back in October 2025, the Ameer called for reducing women’s working hours—a proposal widely slammed as a patriarchal ploy to confine women domestically, with no retraction ever issued. In May 2025, allied Islamist group Hefazat-e-Islam viciously attacked the newly formed Women’s Affairs Reform Commission, branding it a “prostitute commission” and demanding the elimination of equal rights for women. Shibir and Jamaat-linked elements have repeatedly faced accusations of harassing female students, enforcing dress codes (hijab/scarf pressure), and campus violence at universities, including DU and Chattogram University. Prominent 2024 uprising figure Sanjida Ahmed Tonni—whose bloodied image went viral during the protests—accused Shibir of blatant interference in personal lives.
Historically, the party’s record is even darker. Revered leader Delwar Hossain Sayeedi (died 2023), convicted (later commuted) for 1971 Liberation War crimes, was implicated in aiding rapes, abductions, and persecution of women and Hindus. As a preacher, he enforced strict fatwa-based rules on women’s dress, roles, and behavior—mandatory hijab, condemnation of “immodest” conduct. Jamaat itself stands accused of direct involvement in the mass rape of 200,000–400,000 women during the 1971 war crimes, for which the party has never issued remorse, apology, or accountability.
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As street protests rage, opposition parties hammer the issue, and questions mount over the hacking claim’s timeline, delays, and technical holes, one glaring question refuses to fade: Was this truly a sophisticated enemy hack, or do the suspiciously convenient timing, response patterns, and perfect alignment with Jamaat’s long-documented views on women point to something far less convincing?
(Golam Mahmud Jafar is a writer and journalist based in the Netherlands.)
