Gabe Oppenheim | Without our help, a beacon of freedom faces death

Our country's most important ally in the war on terror is about to be killed, and most Americans don't even know it.

His name is Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury, and he's a Bangladeshi newspaper publisher, editor and writer. On Oct. 12, his government will try him for sedition, which carries a penalty of death. There will be no jury - only a judge, in a case that has been fixed from the very beginning.

You see, Bangladesh is currently a secular democracy of 147 million people (83 percent of whom practice Islam). But several fundamentalist groups within the country want to replace its secular system with sharia, or strict Islamic law.

In order to do so, these groups have turned to terrorism. On Aug. 17, 2005, 430 bombs exploded across the country, killing two and injuring dozens. Three months later, Bangladesh suffered its first suicide bombings when at least three people detonated themselves in front of and inside two court buildings. That caught Osama bin Laden's attention.

At least two arrested terrorists in Bangladesh have admitted to being sent by bin Laden. Saudi Arabia, too, has recognized Bangladesh as a potential tipping point, sending millions of dollars to the 64,000 Bangladeshi madrassas, or religious schools, that preach extremist Islam.

Against this backdrop, Choudhury has published his newspaper, Weekly Blitz. It features a mix of world and local news and strong editorials against violence in the name of religion.

The paper also calls for dialogue between Muslims and Jews as the first step on the road to peace - which upsets extremist clerics, of course.

So in November 2003, those clerics had the government arrest Choudhury as he tried to board a plane in Dhaka, the capital. Choudhury was on his way to Israel to attend a conference in Tel Aviv called "Bridges Through Culture," where he was to lecture on the media's role in promoting peace.

But before he could board the plane, the government charged Choudhury with passport violations. It was a bogus charge, brought by a government whose ruling coalition contains two parties that openly support al Qaeda.

The government then sent Choudhury to a maximum-security prison, where, as I wrote in a previous column, "he was tortured with electric shocks and beaten with field hockey sticks" until his legs broke.

The government also denied him care for his severe glaucoma and refused to let him attend his mother's funeral after she died of a heart attack. Eventually, the government dropped the passport charges in favor of the sedition charges leveled in February 2004.

That's where our University comes into the picture. For before Choudhury was imprisoned, he had sent e-mails to a few freelance journalists whose work he had read online, asking them to contribute to Weekly Blitz.

One of those journalists was Penn alumnus Richard Benkin, who agreed to write for Choudhury's newspaper. When Choudhury was arrested, Benkin took action, lobbying his local congressman for help.

Rep. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) was able to secure Choudhury's release by essentially threatening to withhold $100 million in U.S. aid to Bangladesh.

But the charges were never dropped. And police continued to allow radical muftis to threaten and harass Choudhury, his wife and their two children. In July, two bombs exploded in Choudhury's office, and the police took no action, claiming to have "misplaced" the necessary report.

Meanwhile, Bangladesh repeatedly postponed Choudhury's trial, keeping him in a state of continuous fear. Then, last week, Oct. 12 was set as the trial's start date. Now Choudhury faces death - and we must act.

Americans often use the "war on terror" catchphrase for political gain. But any candidate who's really strong against terror, regardless of party, must help Choudhury.

Obviously, not all Muslims support extremism or violence. But few Muslim leaders have the will to speak out against violence. And it's not so easy to blame them. Choudhury, after all, is facing death, and his office has been bombed.

Now that we've found a man willing to advocate for peace and denounce extremism, we must seize the opportunity. No one else will speak out if we allow those who already have spoken to die.

So please write your representatives. It worked once to save Choudhury's life, and it can again. Because you are not helpless in, or removed from, some distant, guerilla war on terror.

This is the war on terror.

Gabe Oppenheim is a College sophomore from Scarsdale, N.Y. His e-mail address is oppenheim@dailypennsylvanian.com. Opp-Ed appears on Wednesdays.

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