The International Federation of Communities in Istanbul held a symposium and workshop on the present situation in Bangladesh at the union's headquarters in Istanbul.
As part of its campaign to support communities, the International Federation hosted a one-day seminar in Istanbul. Media personality Muhammad Zakir Hussain, an editor at Daily Sabah, reviewed Bangladesh's journey from its establishment to its current state, highlighting issues such as instability, marginalization, and lack of democracy.
Hussain also discussed the transitional phase led by Nobel Peace Prize winner Dr. Muhammad Yunus. Federation members engaged in discussions about future scenarios and offered crucial advice for the leaders of the revolution and the interim government to ensure the revolution effectively shapes Bangladesh's future.
High officials of the Federation, including Dr. Abdus Salam al-Sabbar, Dr. Khedr al-Sotari, and Dr. Mostafa Özdemir, also attended the seminar.
Bangladesh is a country in South Asia. It is the eighth-most populous country in the world. It is among the most densely populated countries, with a population of nearly 170 million in an area of 148,460 square kilometers (57,320 square miles).
Bangladesh shares land borders with India to the north, west, and east and Myanmar to the southeast. Bangladesh forms the sovereign part of the historic and ethnolinguistic region of Bengal, which was divided during the Partition of British India in 1947 as the eastern enclave of the Dominion of Pakistan, which it separated from in an independence war in 1971.
The country has a Bengali Muslim majority. Muslim conquests after 1204 heralded the sultanate and Mughal periods, during which an independent Bengal Sultanate and a wealthy Mughal Bengal transformed the region into an important center of regional affairs, trade and diplomacy.
A middle power in the Indo-Pacific, Bangladesh is home to the fifth-most spoken native language in the world, the third-largest Muslim-majority population in the world and the second-largest economy in South Asia. It maintains the third-largest military in the region and is the largest contributor of personnel to U.N. peacekeeping operations. Bangladesh is a unitary parliamentary republic based on the Westminster system. Bengalis make up almost 99% of the total population.
It hosts one of the largest refugee populations in the world due to the Rohingya genocide. Bangladesh faces many challenges, particularly political instability, overpopulation and the effects of climate change. Bangladesh has been a leader in the Climate Vulnerable Forum.
It hosts the headquarters of the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC). It is a founding member of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), as well as a member of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and the Commonwealth of Nations.
In another development, at the end of the seminar, the brothers of the federation presented an idea about the legal situation in Türkiye, listened to some of the problems and promised to convey the demands to the officials through their channel with the Immigration Department.
They spoke about the federation, its establishment, values, and strategic project as a link between communities and the Turkish government. It is a licensed, independent, nonpolitical civil organization that accepts all communities in Türkiye as members. Many representatives of communities from Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, Iraq, Libya, Türkiye and the head of the Syrian-Turkish Forum attended the workshop.