The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is considering setting up a human rights cell under its DG (UN) wing to better analyse the country’s human rights situation and rightly present it to the international community, said Foreign Secretary Masud Bin Momen today.
“We are considering a human rights cell with a director working for it under the DG (UN) wing of the ministry so that we can give more importance on the human rights issues,” he told journalists at the ministry today.
The move comes following the December 10 US sanctions on Rapid Action Battalion and seven of its current and former officials on the grounds of extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances.
Besides, 12 international human rights organisations in November wrote to the UN, calling for banning Rab from the UN peacekeeping missions.
Bangladesh is one of the highest troop-sending countries to the UN missions.
European Parliament Member Ivan Stefanec in a letter to Josep Borrell, high representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, on January 20 asked for imposing sanctions against Rab, saying it has been involved in numerous extrajudicial killings and disappearances.
Foreign Secretary Masud Bin Momen said many a time “the way the human rights situation of Bangladesh was presented to the UN or other international bodies was not the whole fact”.
“We want to present the whole truth to the international community, especially those who work on human rights in Geneva and New York,” he said.
“Bangladesh has many achievements in the areas of human rights and those also will be presented to them,” he added.
“In that case, if we need to appoint lobbyists, we will also do it,” Masud Bin Momen said.
“The government, meanwhile, was also trying to hold a minister-level meeting with the US in person if the US side does not have trouble with the Covid-19 situation,” he also said.
“Bangladesh embassy in New York is also working at different levels on the issue of sanctions on Rab,” noted the foreign secretary.
