Hundreds attend downtown rally for blinded UBC student
Posted Jun 27, 2011 12:10 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – Hundreds of people attended a rally at the Vancouver Art Gallery Sunday afternoon in support of blinded UBC grad student Rumana Manzur.
Manzur was savagely attacked by her husband on a recent trip home to her native Bangladesh to visit her five-year-old daughter. Her friend and rally organizer Mohsen Seddigh says Manzur remains in hospital and is fearful for her safety and that of her family.
“We decided to make it a rally about justice for Rumana, and also a rally to send a more general message to the whole world that we want it and we want domestic violence to stop,” he told News1130 in a live interview after the rally.
“We ask for support from the authorities here, and in Bangladesh, for Rumana, and also hope for an end to violence against women.”
Seddigh read a statement written by Manzur to the crowd, in which she expressed her gratitude to all her supporters and her hopes of finishing her education at UBC.
Meanwhile, her husband has been arrested in Bangladesh. The masters of political science student and her family are concerned that justice will not be served.
“She is not doing well and that’s why we’re trying to bring as much support as we can to her, make her happy,” said Seddigh, “because I know she loves us a lot, she belongs to this community, and what we do here, the messages that we send her, the personal messages, the rally that we hold, all the things that we do, the gifts that we try to send her and her daughter, they mean the whole world to her,” Seddigh said.
Donations are being collected by UBC to help fund Manzur’s treatment and legal expenses.
