April 1, 2003	Tuesday	Muharram 28, 1424

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ISLAMABAD, March 31: The All Pakistan Traders’ Association on Monday announced a boycott of American and British products in protest against the war on Iraq.

“It has been unanimously decided to boycott American and British products and traders would neither buy nor sell any product till further decision,” the chairman of the association, Khawaja Mohammad Shafiq, told reporters after a convention in Bahawalpur.

The decision came a day after an impressive anti-war demonstration of some 300,000 people in Peshawar demanded an economic boycott of the United States to punish it for attacking a fellow Muslim state.

The decision was the first by a major traders body in the country, which has seen anti-war demonstrations daily since the US-led attacks on Iraq.

Protests continued on Monday with rallies by a Peshawar traders’ association, students in Gilgit and lawyers in Lahore.

BANGLADESHI GROUPS: Meanwhile, Bangladeshi anti-war protesters on Monday also called for a boycott of consumer goods from the United States and Britain as demonstrations continued.

The Bangladesh Teachers Association also urged the teachers to boycott goods made in the US and the UK, because it said the Anglo-American forces should be condemned for killing civilians, including children and women.

The left-wing Bangladesh Workers Party also echoed the demand, saying: “Revenue earned by selling their goods to the Third World countries are being used against Iraq.”

Several hundred members of the Dhaka University Teachers-Students Anti-War Alliance staged a mock trial of Bush and Blair on campus for alleged “war crimes,” and sentenced them to death, witnesses said.

An anti-war demonstration was held on Sunday by 5,000 supporters of the main opposition party, Awami League of Sheikh Hasina Wajed, who had also demanded an end to hostilities.

Meanwhile, 210 leading Bangladeshis, from the “Civil Society Against Imperialist War,” flayed the Western media for dishing out, what they termed inappropriate news in favour of the imperialist Anglo-American alliance.—AFP