Sikder Haseeb Khan is a freelance columnist. His writings are focused mostly on political and regional issues, and have appeared in local and international media.

Articles by Sikder Haseeb Khan

How to Engineer Elections: A Quick Guide
1 July 2008

"It is great that Bangladesh's emergency government has emphasized its commitment to hold elections by the end of 2008. But if you think the elections are going to be free and fair, think again. A fully free and fair election will almost certainly result in an outcome that the current regime has reason to distrust. So the engineering of elections has already begun, and it will win the approval of international observers who won't understand the subtleties."

Has US Policy Failed in Muslim South Asia?
7 January 2008 

"For two years the US continued to ignore more democratic possibilities and kept on shoring up the general in Pakistan. And despite the growing signs of failure in that policy, the US administration has been replicating it in Bangladesh, supporting another group of generals and their large-scale political purging there. Has the time not come for US policy to become transparent and consistent, along the lines of its own founding principles?"

The Condemned Cartoonist (with Mridul Chowdhury)
30 October 2007

"We waited, but no newspaper ran a supportive editorial, no lawyer defended the freedom of speech, and cartoonist Arifur Rahman remains jailed. If the government fails to free him and moderates continue to stay quiet, it will only fan the fire of extremism, threating ultimately the very fabric of the nation. What the government decides to do should be based on the common thread that created Bangladesh and initiated Islam: tolerance and justice."