For the last many years, although former US diplomats William B Milam and Jon Danilowicz have been working as lobbyists for ultra-Islamist Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) along with few more individuals in the United States, none of them have registered themselves as lobbyists thus violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA).
The US Department of Justice says, “penalty for a willful violation of FARA is imprisonment for not more than five years, a fine of up to US$250,000, or both. Certain violations are considered misdemeanors, with penalties of imprisonment of not more than six months, a fine of not more than US$5,000, or both”.
According to law firm Burnham & Gorokhov, “Violation of FARA can carry criminal penalties. Under 18 U.S.C. § 618 violation of FARA can be either a felony carrying up to five years in prison or a misdemeanor carrying up to six months, depending on which particular provision of FARA is violated. Violation of the act can also result in civil penalties or, in the case of non-citizens, deportation from the United States”.
In the cases of William B Milam and Jon Danilowicz in particular as well as Mushfiqul Fazal Ansarey (a British national), they are violating FARA by hiding their lobbyist assignments under the garb of so-called news site and organization, although in reality, all of these entities are nakedly working as lobbyists for ultra-Islamist Bangladesh Nationalist Party.
According to the US Department of Justice (DoJ), the “Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) was enacted in 1938. FARA requires certain agents of foreign principals who are engaged in political activities or other activities specified under the statute to make periodic public disclosure of their relationship with the foreign principal, as well as activities, receipts and disbursements in support of those activities. Disclosure of the required information facilitates evaluation by the government and the American people of the activities of such persons in light of their function as foreign agents. The FARA Unit of the Counterintelligence and Export Control Section (CES) in the National Security Division (NSD) is responsible for the administration and enforcement of FARA”.
But William B Milam, Jon Danilowicz, Mushfiqul Fazal Ansarey and others are skipping the legal obligation of declaring themselves as foreign agents and or lobbyists as under FARA it is mentioned that the term “agent of a foreign principal” does not include any news or press service or association organized under the laws of the United States or of any State or other place subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, or any newspaper, magazine, periodical, or other publication for which there is on file with the United States Postal Service information in compliance with section 3611 of Title 39, published in the United States, solely by virtue of any bona fide news or journalistic activities, including the solicitation or acceptance of advertisements, subscriptions, or other compensation therefor, so long as it is at least 80 per centum beneficially owned by, and its officers and directors, if any, are citizens of the United States, and such news or press service or association, newspaper, magazine, periodical, or other publication, is not owned, directed, supervised, controlled, subsidized, or financed, and none of its policies are determined by any foreign principal defined in subsection (b) of this section, or by any agent of a foreign principal required to register under this subchapter.
But in reality, these former US diplomats are directly working in favor of ultra-Islamist Bangladesh Nationalist Party, which has been termed as Tier-III terrorist organization by a number of courts in the United States, while BNP’s acting chairman Tarique Rahman is a convicted terrorist.
Jon Danilowicz, a former Deputy Chief of Mission at the US Embassy in Bangladesh has become a propagandist in favor of Islamists and jihadists in Bangladesh by joining a vicious group named ‘Right to Freedom’, which is jointly funded by Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI). Within the diplomatic and media circle in Bangladesh, Jon Danilowicz was known as an influential diplomat who made frantic bids in sabotaging the January 5, 2014 general elections in Bangladesh.
As Jon Danilowicz failed to unseat Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s government by sabotaging the election, then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton turned furious at him. As a result, he was abruptly withdrawn from Dhaka and transferred to Islamabad as Consulate General – just within 17 months of his stay in Bangladesh. In his previous two postings in Bangladesh, Jon Danilowicz completed three years of the tenures – each time. Meaning, totally he has served at the US Embassy in Bangladesh for a total period of 89 months.
According to his Twitter handle, Jon Danilowicz has been dedicatedly working against Bangladesh and ruling Awami League, proving, it is now his full-time job to spread nefarious propaganda against Bangladesh. In addition to such nefarious propaganda, Jon Danilowics has recently written a derogatory content against Bangladesh, which is published in his own website named ‘South Asia Perspectives’.
Interestingly, address of the ‘South Asia Perspectives’ website is 1015 15th St NW, Suite 600, Washington DC, 20005, whereas according to the website of ‘Right to Freedom’ its office also is at the same address, proving this website also is funded by BNP-Jamaat nexus.
According to ‘About Us’ page of the ‘South Asia Perspectives’, this website is run by the same gang of BNP-Jamaat nexus such as William B Milam, Mushfiqul Fazal Ansarey, Jon Danilowicz and Sultan Muhammed Zakaria.
William B Milam, an influential figure of the Democratic Party and paid agent of Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) runs an organization named ‘Right to Freedom’ jointly with Jon Danilowicz and another individual named Mushfiqul Fazal Ansarey. Ansarey was one of the key figures in Tarique Rahman’s infamous Hawa BhabanI and has worked as the Assistant Press Secretary to then Prime Minister Khaleda Zia.
Mushfiqul Fazal Ansarey has been working as the “Permanent Correspondent” of an illegal website named ‘Just News’, with active collaboration of William Bryant Milam (William B Milam), an American diplomat, who is known as the Senior Policy Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington DC., has been making desperate bids both in the Capitol in Washington DC and the UN Headquarters in New York City, with the agenda of misleading key policymakers in Washington and the UN against Bangladesh and ruling Awami League and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. It may be mentioned here that ‘Just News’ does not have any existence in Bangladesh.
William B Milam, Jon Danilowicz and Mushfiqul Fazal Ansarey are under monthly payroll of Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and several family members of war criminals. According to a credible source, Ansarey spends thousands of dollars every week in socializing with key individuals in the US, while he also is seen having lunch and dinner with those individuals, where most of the times he is accompanied by William B Milam.
