Bangladeshi Women Rally Against Clerics

Thousands of women rallied at the capital Monday to protest Islamic clerics’ attacks on female education and employment.

Arriving by train, bus and hitchhiked rides, a crowd estimated at 100,000 converged on a tree-lined street overlooking Parliament. Protesters waved placards demanding equal rights and denouncing Islamic fundamentalists.

“Until now, the fundamentalists have been targeting us, the women,” peasant Fatema Sumi told the crowd. “It’s time we target them.”

The rally was sponsored by the Association of Development Agencies in Bangladesh, an alliance of about 800 non-government organizations promoting jobs, literacy, health care and family planning for women.

Some Islamic leaders say female education and other projects of the agencies violate religious law. At least 1,400 schools for girls were vandalized in the predominantly Muslim country in 1994 after clerics launched a campaign against the agencies’ work.