Bangladesh joins the world in observing Human Rights Day today with continued incidents of arbitrary detention, disappearance, intimidation, torture and targeted arrest of political opponents as well as suppression of dissent.
Civil society members and rights groups termed the situation an ‘existential crisis’ for human rights defenders alleging that the state machineries keep trying to criminalise human rights activism.
Rights defenders observed that extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances decreased after the United States imposed sanctions on the Rapid Action Battalion and seven of its past commanders on December 10, 2021, but the victim families got hardly any justice.
The United States in Counter-Terrorism Report 2022 on Bangladesh, released on December 2, 2023, said that apart from the RAB, the Special Weapons and Tactics Division of the Dhaka Metropolitan Police ‘is also ineligible for any assistance owing to human rights violations.’
In its latest report, the Human Rights Watch said on November 26 that it found evidence that security forces were responsible for using excessive force, mass arbitrary arrest, enforced disappearance, torture and extrajudicial killings in a recent spate of election-related violence.
The main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party alleged that more than 20,000 of its leaders and activists were arrested between October 20 and December 8 while the government claimed that on an average 1,965 people were being arrested daily.
Law minister Anisul Huq in mid-November told a United Nations Universal Periodic Review in Geneva that Bangladesh ratified all core UN human rights treaties except for the Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance.
A number of UN member states called on the government to ensure voting rights so that the people could elect their leaders in a peaceful manner, investigate rights abuses, including extrajudicial killing and disappearance, and uphold the independence of the judiciary.
In the 44th session of the UPR Working Group on Bangladesh in Geneva, a large number of UN member states also urged the government to ratify the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, abolish the death penalty, and amend the Cyber Security Act in line with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights to uphold freedom of expression.
Home minister Asaduzzaman Khan told New Age on December 7 that the people were traditionally sensitised to human rights as the government promoted the rights of the citizens.
He also claimed that the law enforcement agencies were performing their duties with utmost sincerity and doing well.
The rights defenders, however, rejected the minister’s claim.
A Centre for Governance Studies survey, published in late July, found that intelligence and law enforcement agencies, political parties, including the opposition, and non-state actors were key players in obstructing human rights activism.
The overall condition of the rights activism is ‘deeply disturbing’ and ‘worsening’, it found the survey carried out between May 24 and June 25 on 50 human rights defenders in 36 districts.
The survey said that judicial harassment and arrests, government repression, enforced disappearance, physical attacks, restriction on activities and threats of harms aggravated rights activism.
Manabadhikar Shongskriti Foundation founding president Sultana Kamal said that the culture of rights activism was being criminalised and any criticism was being dubbed as ‘anti-state’ activities.
She described the situation as ‘existential crises’ for the rights defenders who were working at ‘serious risks’.
The rights defender said that the state should respect the commitment it made with the United Nations and consider the freedom of expression as essential for functional democracy.
The CIVICUS Monitor, a global alliance of civil society organisations and activists, downgraded Bangladesh’s civic space to its worst rating marked as ‘closed’ as a result of a massive crackdown on opposition politicians and independent critics in the run-up to the January 2024 national election.
The report titled People Power Under Attack 2023, which detailed civic space conditions in 198 countries and territories, stated that the ruling Awami League continued onslaught on dissents in 2023 ahead of the election.
It said that the authorities targeted rights defenders, journalists, protesters and other critics using intimidation, violence, arrest and torture, while security forces detained thousands of opposition members on fabricated charges.
Sultana Kamal said that the human rights activism was also being discouraged while receiving funds by non-government organisations.
In December 2022, Mohammad Nur Khan was the executive director at Ain o Salish Kendra and he resigned one year later amid fund crisis.
He found no ‘worst’ word to describe the current human rights situation.
He said that democracy and human rights should walk together, but situation aggravated so much that many had to leave the country for survival or in the face of fund crisis.
He found serious crisis of rule of law in the country while leaders and activists of ‘real’ opposition political parties were facing arbitrary detention, attacks.
Sanjida Islam Tulee, cofounder of Maayer Daak which campaigns for the justice of enforced disappearance victims, said that ahead of elections human rights abuse increased as cases of arbitrary arrest, disappearance and killing continued.
Critics said that the National Human Rights Commission was overlooking the situation.
The commission chairman Kamal Uddin Ahmed, however, said that the commission was working ‘independently’.
No statement came since October 28, when the media reported arbitrary detention, attacks, over two dozens of masked attacks, torture and arrest of a physically challenged political leader.
The commission in its December 6 statement said complained about ‘attempts to disrupt daily life of the people’ in the name of realising political rights.
In November, the Asian NGO Network on National Human Rights Institutions in its latest report found Bangladesh’s National Human Right Commission far behind its actual mandate. According to the report, the commission scored only 3.5 out of 10 points in achieving its mandate.
The commission has scored only four out of 10 points in maintaining independence.
The report stated that the human rights in Bangladesh remained ‘suppressed’ as the authoritarian government systematically politicised important state institutions, including the Election Commission, the Anti-Corruption Commission, and the National Human Rights Commission.
The judiciary’s independence has eroded and legal experts have alleged that the government heavily interferes in the judiciary as the law ministry still controls the promotions, postings, and transfers of the subordinate court judges and takes disciplinary actions against them, the report said.
At least 156 of the 169 targets set by the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals are related to human rights but the rights groups said that the country consistently kept witnessing rights violations over the years.
Australia-based Capital Punishment Justice Project documented 675 cases of disappearance between January 2009 and September 2023 after the Awami League assumed power with a commitment of establishing the rule of law.
An Asian Human Rights Commission report said that of the disappeared it documented until June 2022, 153 still remained untraced while 84 were found dead, 383 resurfaced and no updates were found about 3 cases.
The Capital Punishment Justice Project stated that 2,687 people were killed in the name of ‘gunfight’ or ‘crossfire’ between January 2009 and September 2023.
The number was, however, seen dropping after the US sanctions.
Mohammad Ashrafuzzaman, a consultant at the Capital Punishment Justice Project, said that when the country saw decrease in extrajudicial killings after the US sanction, it showed that a chain of command was followed within the government system.
He said it was important to see whether the government bring the perpetrators to justice.
New Age
