Please Contact the Special Parliamentary Committee

Dear friends and family,

The Special Parliamentary Committee in Bangladesh, formed to consult and produce a report to finalize a bill to amend the country's constitution as per the July Charter, is currently meeting once a week under the leadership of the Chairman of the Committee and Home Minister, Mr. Salauddin Ahmed. The goal is to have a final report by the end of the year.

I am humbly requesting friends in Bangladesh, those in the diaspora community, and our dear international friends to write to the Committee, preferably more than once between now and the end of the year.

To email, the address will be: secretary@parliament.gov.bd

Subject: Proposal/Submission for the Special Committee on Constitutional Reform

Top of the email body:

The Chairman
Special Committee on Constitutional Reform
Legislative Support Wing
Bangladesh Parliament Secretariat
Dhaka

Body of email:

Dear Mr. Salauddin Ahmed,

I would like to lend my support to having "sexual orientation" and "gender identity" included in the list of criteria against which the state of Bangladesh will not be able to discriminate against its citizens.

I humbly request that, as per the 9th proposal of the July Charter, Article 28 of Bangladesh's Constitution be amended to include all criteria recommended by the National Consensus Commission, along with the explicit addition of "sexual orientation" and "gender identity" to the list of non-discriminatory criteria.

The social, personal, and scientific rationale for including these two non-discriminatory criteria in the Constitution has been described in the online petition found at the URL: https://c.org/CyxxNbJRGr

I hope the Committee, under your leadership, will be able to arrive at a consensus to have these two criteria included. This is a vital prayer of the LGBTQIA+ community of Bangladesh.

Kind regards

[Voluntary details of yourself]
------------------

Many in Bangladesh may not wish to use a personal email address out of security concerns and may wish to send a postal letter anonymously.

Here is the full postal address for their use:

The Chairman
Special Committee on Constitutional Reform
Legislative Support Wing
Bangladesh Parliament Secretariat
Jatiya Sangsad Complex
Sher-e-Bangla Nagar
Dhaka-1207
Bangladesh

The body of the letter will be as per the body of the email.

Thank you all from the bottom of my heart.

Riaz Osmani