Notes from a Prison

NOTES FROM A PRISON: BANGLADESH by Dr. Muhiuddin Khan Alamgir is a profound chronicle of an epic struggle to obtain justice within a corrupt system. Unjustly imprisoned on false charges for 22 months from 2007 to 2008, Dr. Alamgir, the former Minister of Planning was promised freedom if he would publicly support the military junta that had seized power, and continued imprisonment on false charges if he refused. He refused, but was finally able to triumph in the end. As he stated in the "Background" to his arrest and imprisonment, "For people loving and yearning for freedom everywhere, this journal will provide telltale signs of an undemocratic government and the institutions such a government is bent to manipulate or destroy. The moral of the story and the tale is that it is only through raising universal consciousness against persecution and tyranny that we humankind can give a better account of ourselves as agents and beneficiaries of civilization. It is by fighting injustice anywhere that we can establish justice everywhere."

"Gives No Quarter"

["Notes from a Prison: Bangladesh"] is an important book, one of the most important books published about Bangladesh in the past several decades. It is not a work of scholarship. It is not a novel. It is not a book about high politics. It is not a book telling us how Bangladesh should be run. Rather it is the testimony of an individual swept into the security apparatus of a rogue army, describing his response and ultimate triumph. Every Bangladeshi interested in how his society works should read this. Any one concerned with identifying with those that place truth above self can learn from "Notes from a Prison." --Dr. Forrest Cookson, American-Bangladesh Chamber of Commerce