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Bangladesh revokes licenses of 3,000 charities

05 April 2010 19:32 (UTC +04:00)

Baku â€“ APA. Bangladeshi authorities have shut down nearly 3,000 charities, including a number of organizations that were allegedly "spreading militancy" in the Muslim-majority nation, an official said Monday, APA reports quoting â€œABS CBN Newsâ€.
Bangladesh’s secular Awami League government has made tackling militancy a top priority after the country was hit in 2005 by a series of deadly bombings by Islamic groups seeking to impose Sharia law in the country.
Arshad Hossain, director of the social services department, said licences for 2,931 nongovernment organizations were cancelled this month after they were found to be breaching government guidelines.
"They were given licences to run social welfare projects in healthcare, education and nutrition but many were involved in unrelated work, including spreading militancy," he told AFP.
This was the first time the government has taken such significant steps against allegedly bogus charities, he said, adding that the licences of another 3,000 groups will likely be cancelled soon.
Bangladesh has been seeking to crack down on groups often bankrolled by donors in wealthy Muslim countries that it says use aid projects as a way to spread radical Islamic ideas in the South Asian country of 144 million.
In April last year police charged a Bangladeshi-born British charity chief accused of using an Islamic school on a remote southern Bangladeshi island as a cover to store weapons and explosives.
The same month authorities deported a Sudanese national after he was accused of using the local branch of Kuwait-based charity, the Revival of Islamic Heritage Society, to train Islamic militants.
Tens of thousands of charities operate in Bangladesh, where 40 percent of the 144 million population live below the poverty level.
The social welfare ministry alone has approved licences for 55,000 charities.