Source: UPI Asia Online
Rater Jonaki
Februrary 25, 2008
HONG KONG, China, The chief of the Bangladesh army, General Moeen U Ahmed, has been calling for the country to have its "own brand of democracy" for a long time. The concept, reiterated in the general's recently published book, is a burning topic in the country.
The general has not publicly clarified exactly what he means by his "own brand of democracy" theory; thus people are both curious and suspicious about what it would entail. Would this be another militarized brand of democracy?
In some of his recent media appearances Moeen has emphasized this undisclosed type of democracy in order to criticize current practices of the government of Bangladesh, as well as that of Britain, by calling them "Westminster democracy." In Moeen's view, there are only two political parties in Britain, which do not represent the whole range of public opinion. On the other hand, Bangladesh had been ruled by an extraordinarily powerful prime minister, who has always been supported by the ruling party and opposed by the opposition.
The reality of democracy in Bangladesh is basically that the government is formed through an election in which many voters are deprived of the right to cast their vote, and others are forced to vote a certain way, by the musclemen who control different areas of the country. It is almost more a feudal society than a democratic one.
Sometimes candidates have felt they were defeated as a result of vote-rigging or other malpractice and have lodged complaints with the Election Commission. In some such instances, the commission has failed to reach a judgment until after the current session of Parliament was over. By that time, the person who was elected -- legally or illegally -- has already enjoyed all the perks and privileges of being a member of Parliament, including participating in making legislation.
From the local government to the national elections, the use of excessive muscle power is more or less the same. It does not represent the opinion of the electors.
In decision making, whether in Parliament or at various levels of government, might is right! For instance, according to section 70 (1) of the Constitution of Bangladesh, a member of Parliament will be deemed absent if he votes against his party's position, even if the proposed bill is unrealistic or controversial or contradicts fundamental rights provided in the Constitution. Nothing more is necessary to show how arbitrary is the Constitution in supporting party politics, especially the ruling party. This cannot be called democracy in any sense.
The question is how democracy is perceived and practiced and participated in by society. Democracy requires the rule of law, not the rule of bureaucrats or politicians or the police.
What happens in Bangladesh if someone's civil rights are violated? Can the person lodge a complaint without paying a bribe at the police station? Is there any acceptable institution working to monitor what the police are doing and undoing? Will there be any impartial and honest investigation by the police unless both parties bribe the investigating officer as well as the concerned officials?
Is there any guarantee that there will be no interference by any of the influential groups, including public representatives and public servants, if any of the parties are in a position to involve them? Is there any guarantee that prosecution will take place without any bias or exploitation, by extracting money or delaying the matter if it doesn't serve the interest of the related professionals to resolve it?
Is there any guarantee that the judge or magistrate will be honest during the trial? Is there any guarantee that the order of the court will be implemented, if it requires intervention from any other government institution? Is there any guarantee that authorities will be held responsible for ignoring their jobs or failing to prove their accountability to the citizens?
Unfortunately, the answers to all the above questions will be a frustrated "No." That's why democracy does not work and people do not get the real benefits of it; rather the Bangladeshis are forced to learn how to suffer more and more.
If anyone truly wishes to benefit the people, he or she must make a credible attempt to change the existing system that runs the country. Bangladesh does not need to give birth to any "mule" type of democracy.
Democracy has its own qualities and characteristics, and these include accountability on the part of elected officials. Militarization of all sectors of the country should be avoided. Rather than discussing "reformation" in mocking tones, truly concerned leaders should throw out the repressive systems of government and replace them with effective and functioning institutions that accord with the laws of the land and serve the real needs of the people.
Bangladesh is overwhelmed by the black hands and arbitrary attitudes of the rulers and their associates. This rubbish needs to be removed from the nation forever.
(Rater Zonaki is the pseudonym of a human rights defender based in Hong Kong working at the Asian Human Rights Commission. He is a Bangladeshi national with a degree in literature from a university in Dhaka. He began his career as a journalist in 1990 and engaged in human rights activism at the grassroots level in his country for more than a decade. He also worked as an editor for publications on human rights and socio-cultural issues and contributed to other similar publications.)
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Tasneem Khalil's Interview at VOA
Source: Voice of America
Date: February 23, 2008
In an exclusive interview with VOA Bangla Service, Tasneem Khalil, a journalist from Bangladesh alleges that the Defense Intelligence in Bangladesh has a link with the extremist Islamic Terrorists in the country.
He thought that one of the reasons why he was picked up from his home without any official allegations against him was his investigations on their links with the terrorist. A reporter for the respected English language newspaper The Daily Star, Tasneem Khalil also worked on projects for Human Rights Watch and was CNN’s news representative in Bangladesh.
On May 11, 2007, the Directorate General of Forces Intelligence (DGFI) arrested Khalil, apparently for his outspoken criticism of the military’s role in extrajudicial killings, torture, arbitrary arrests, and other abuses. Khalil had also publicly expressed concern through his blog and in newspaper interviews that the military was using the interim government as a cover for de facto army rule. A recently published report of the Human Rights Watch gives a detailed account of the way Tasneem Khalil was tortured in custody.
Listen his interview here at VOA:
Date: February 23, 2008
In an exclusive interview with VOA Bangla Service, Tasneem Khalil, a journalist from Bangladesh alleges that the Defense Intelligence in Bangladesh has a link with the extremist Islamic Terrorists in the country.
He thought that one of the reasons why he was picked up from his home without any official allegations against him was his investigations on their links with the terrorist. A reporter for the respected English language newspaper The Daily Star, Tasneem Khalil also worked on projects for Human Rights Watch and was CNN’s news representative in Bangladesh.
On May 11, 2007, the Directorate General of Forces Intelligence (DGFI) arrested Khalil, apparently for his outspoken criticism of the military’s role in extrajudicial killings, torture, arbitrary arrests, and other abuses. Khalil had also publicly expressed concern through his blog and in newspaper interviews that the military was using the interim government as a cover for de facto army rule. A recently published report of the Human Rights Watch gives a detailed account of the way Tasneem Khalil was tortured in custody.
Listen his interview here at VOA:
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Tuesday, February 26, 2008
The Roadmap to Parliamentary Elections?
Press Release from London:
February 25, 2008
Bangladesh reminded of its obligation to hold a free and fair election
A seminar attended by distinguished speakers on Bangladesh titled ‘The Roadmap to Parliamentary Elections? was held today (Monday 25 Feb 2008) in The Moses Room
at the Houses of Lords, organised by the International Bangladesh Foundation and chaired by Lord Avebury, the Vice Chair of All Party Parliamentary Human Rights Group and Chairman of International Bangladesh Foundation. The seminar was attended by MPs, MEP, Peers, Councillors and representatives of human rights organisations including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Global Human Rights Defence, Jumma Peoples Network, Nirmul Committee and the Bangladesh Hindu Buddhist Christian Unity Council.
Lord Avebury in his opening remarks said, we are concentrating on the conditions that will enable free and fair elections to be held as scheduled before the end of the year. He reminded that according to the electoral roadmap published by the caretaker government, talks with political parties were to be completed by the end of 2007, and the reforms to the laws on elections were to be passed by March. These targets have slipped. It would surely be useful if a revised roadmap were to be published with new deadlines for the remaining stages of the process.
Saida Muna Tasneem, Counsellor of the Bangladesh High Commission in London, gave a presentation and an overview of the caretaker government’s commitment to the roadmap to parliamentary elections by Dec 2008 & progress in vote registration and various reforms it has already implemented including the separation of the judiciary and the formation of independent election commission, anti corruption commission and an independent national human rights commission. Ms Tasneem called for continued support from international partners to successful completion of the caretaker government’s roadmap and reforms which was followed by respondents from Baroness Pola Uddin, Chairman, Britain-Bangladesh All Party Parliamentary Group, Anne Main MP, Chairman, Conservative Friends of Bangladesh, Jeremy Corbyn MP, Britain-Bangladesh All-Party Parliamentary Group & Vice-Chair, All-Party Parliamentary Human Rights Group, Robert Evans MEP, Chair of the European Parliament’s South Asia Delegation, Dr Charles Tannock MEP, Conservative Friends of Bangladesh. Vice-President, European Parliament's Human Rights subcommittee, Tim Parritt, Deputy Asia Programme Director, Amnesty International, Brad Adams, Asia Director, Human Rights Watch, Sultan Shariff, Awami League
Joshna Miah, BNP, M A Rauf, Gano Forum and Dr Ahmed Ziauddin, Bangladesh Centre for Genocide Studies, Belgium. Ms. Sally Kebble MP also attended the seminar.
In the general discussion that followed contributors from the floor included Cllr Ayub Korom Ali, former Cllr M A Rohim, BNP President Md Kamar Uddin, Communist Party of Bangladesh representative Dr Rafiqul Hasan Khan, Westminster Cllr Mustaq Qureshi, Jenny Lundstrom of Global Human Rights Defence, Lord Bew, Koysor Syed of Mukti Joddha Sangsad, Murad Qureshi, Member London Assembly, Sally Keeble MP and Simon Lever from the Foreign Office.
Speakers expressed their deep concern at the human rights abuses under the country’s state of emergency and the caretaker government’s failure to restrain the security forces. Other speakers raised the issue of the trial of war criminals and the failure to bring the perpetrators that has led to culture of impunity. Speakers also appreciated the various steps taken by the present government against corruption, terrorism and welcomed Dr. Fakhruddin Ahmed's recent comments against the war criminals but stated that it is the duty of the government to initiate the cases and take initiatives against the alleged war criminals.
All the UK and the European parliamentarians reminded Bangladesh government as friends of a free and democratic Bangladesh, the caretaker Government should live up to its political obligation by lifting emergency rule to allow political activities and political reform. Human rights violations, lifting of emergency rule must be placed on the reform agenda as a top priority and the government must respect human rights of its citizens and ensure no torture takes place.
Lord Avebury in his concluding remarks said, “There has to be freedom of expression and of assembly if elections, are to be free and fair. Elections aren’t only about having the right laws, an accurate register and impartial officials. They depend on the preconditions in the months before polling day, and crucially, on the maintenance of a peaceful environment during election campaign
February 25, 2008
Bangladesh reminded of its obligation to hold a free and fair election
A seminar attended by distinguished speakers on Bangladesh titled ‘The Roadmap to Parliamentary Elections? was held today (Monday 25 Feb 2008) in The Moses Room
at the Houses of Lords, organised by the International Bangladesh Foundation and chaired by Lord Avebury, the Vice Chair of All Party Parliamentary Human Rights Group and Chairman of International Bangladesh Foundation. The seminar was attended by MPs, MEP, Peers, Councillors and representatives of human rights organisations including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Global Human Rights Defence, Jumma Peoples Network, Nirmul Committee and the Bangladesh Hindu Buddhist Christian Unity Council.
Lord Avebury in his opening remarks said, we are concentrating on the conditions that will enable free and fair elections to be held as scheduled before the end of the year. He reminded that according to the electoral roadmap published by the caretaker government, talks with political parties were to be completed by the end of 2007, and the reforms to the laws on elections were to be passed by March. These targets have slipped. It would surely be useful if a revised roadmap were to be published with new deadlines for the remaining stages of the process.
Saida Muna Tasneem, Counsellor of the Bangladesh High Commission in London, gave a presentation and an overview of the caretaker government’s commitment to the roadmap to parliamentary elections by Dec 2008 & progress in vote registration and various reforms it has already implemented including the separation of the judiciary and the formation of independent election commission, anti corruption commission and an independent national human rights commission. Ms Tasneem called for continued support from international partners to successful completion of the caretaker government’s roadmap and reforms which was followed by respondents from Baroness Pola Uddin, Chairman, Britain-Bangladesh All Party Parliamentary Group, Anne Main MP, Chairman, Conservative Friends of Bangladesh, Jeremy Corbyn MP, Britain-Bangladesh All-Party Parliamentary Group & Vice-Chair, All-Party Parliamentary Human Rights Group, Robert Evans MEP, Chair of the European Parliament’s South Asia Delegation, Dr Charles Tannock MEP, Conservative Friends of Bangladesh. Vice-President, European Parliament's Human Rights subcommittee, Tim Parritt, Deputy Asia Programme Director, Amnesty International, Brad Adams, Asia Director, Human Rights Watch, Sultan Shariff, Awami League
Joshna Miah, BNP, M A Rauf, Gano Forum and Dr Ahmed Ziauddin, Bangladesh Centre for Genocide Studies, Belgium. Ms. Sally Kebble MP also attended the seminar.
In the general discussion that followed contributors from the floor included Cllr Ayub Korom Ali, former Cllr M A Rohim, BNP President Md Kamar Uddin, Communist Party of Bangladesh representative Dr Rafiqul Hasan Khan, Westminster Cllr Mustaq Qureshi, Jenny Lundstrom of Global Human Rights Defence, Lord Bew, Koysor Syed of Mukti Joddha Sangsad, Murad Qureshi, Member London Assembly, Sally Keeble MP and Simon Lever from the Foreign Office.
Speakers expressed their deep concern at the human rights abuses under the country’s state of emergency and the caretaker government’s failure to restrain the security forces. Other speakers raised the issue of the trial of war criminals and the failure to bring the perpetrators that has led to culture of impunity. Speakers also appreciated the various steps taken by the present government against corruption, terrorism and welcomed Dr. Fakhruddin Ahmed's recent comments against the war criminals but stated that it is the duty of the government to initiate the cases and take initiatives against the alleged war criminals.
All the UK and the European parliamentarians reminded Bangladesh government as friends of a free and democratic Bangladesh, the caretaker Government should live up to its political obligation by lifting emergency rule to allow political activities and political reform. Human rights violations, lifting of emergency rule must be placed on the reform agenda as a top priority and the government must respect human rights of its citizens and ensure no torture takes place.
Lord Avebury in his concluding remarks said, “There has to be freedom of expression and of assembly if elections, are to be free and fair. Elections aren’t only about having the right laws, an accurate register and impartial officials. They depend on the preconditions in the months before polling day, and crucially, on the maintenance of a peaceful environment during election campaign
Politics: keeping things in the family
Source: The News
Date: February 26, 2008
By Jean-Michel C, adiot
PARIS: Family dynasties, most recently highlighted by the Castro clan in Cuba after Raul was selected to replace his ailing brother Fidel, are alive and kicking across a broad spectrum of world politics.
Be it democratically as in the United States or Argentina, or in a more or less authoritarian way as in Syria or the Democratic Republic of Congo, sons often replace fathers, spouses swap places and siblings take over each other’s posts.
In the United States, the Republican George W Bush was elected in 2000 and then again in 2004, eight years after his father left the White House where he served from 1988 to 1992. The current president’s brother Jeb, meanwhile, has served as governor of the state of Florida.
In Argentina, Cristina Kirchner won last year’s presidential election, replacing her husband Nestor. On a less democratic note, North Korea’s Supreme People’s Assembly in September 1998 confirmed Kim Jong-il as successor to his father Kim il-Sung, the communist state’s founding father.
In Syria Bashar al-Assad, 34, was elected by plebiscite in July 2000 on the death of his father Hafez al-Assad who had led the country for 30 years. The current president of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Joseph Kabila, became president in 2001, aged just 29 after the assassination of his father Laurent Desire Kabila.
Also in Africa, 39-year-old Faure Gnassingbe was proclaimed head of state of Togo in 2005, the day after the death of his long-ruling father Gnassingbe Eyadema. A similar transition took place in the Caucasus state of Azerbaijan, when in October 2003, Ilham Aliyev, 41, took over the reins of power occupied for a long time by his father Heydar, who died shortly afterwards.
Family dynasties are also a prominent fixture on the Indian subcontinent, often amid tragedy. Indira Gandhi, the daughter of Jawaharlal Nehru, post-independence India’s first prime minister, was twice prime minister herself before being assassinated in 1984.
Her son Rajiv succeeded her, but was also assassinated in 1991. Rajiv’s widow, the Italian-born Sonia Gandhi, is currently head of the ruling Congress party. In Pakistan, Benazir Bhutto, twice prime minister and the first woman to lead a Muslim country, was assassinated on 27th December 2007. Her father Ali Bhutto, had been executed in 1979 by a military regime.
In Bangladesh, Hasina Wajed and Khaleda Zia, respectively daughter of the country’s founding father Mujibur Rahman, assassinated in 1975 and widow of the former prime minister Ziaur Rahman, killed in 1981, have both of them headed governments. Both are today in prison.
In Sri Lanka, Sirimavo Bandaranaike was the first woman in the modern era to head a government, from 1960 to 1965, succeeding her husband Salomon, who was assassinated in 1959. Their daughter Chandrika Kumaratunga, whose husband Vijaya had been assassinated in 1988, led the government for several months starting in 1994, then held the post of president for 12 years.
A dynasty can also involve siblings. In Poland Lech Kaczynski, the president, who is still in office, and his identical twin brother Jaroslaw, formerly prime minister, ran their country side by side for two years from the end of 2005 to end of 2007.
In Lebanon in 1982, Amin Gemayel was elected president after the assassination of his brother Bashir. They were the sons of a prominent Lebanese politician. Other potential dynasties were nipped in the bud.
In the United States Robert Kennedy, had launched a bid for the presidency when he was gunned down 1968, five years after his elder brother, president John Fitzgerald Kennedy.
Hillary Clinton, the wife of former US president Bill Clinton, is currently hoping to win the presidency in her turn, although her campaign has run into trouble, in part because of the shadow cast by her spouse.
In a completely different context, Uday Hussein had been promised that he would lead Iraq in the footsteps of his father, Saddam. After the latter was overthrown by a US-led invasion, Uday was killed in July 2003, and his captured father was executed at the end of 2006.
Date: February 26, 2008
By Jean-Michel C, adiot
PARIS: Family dynasties, most recently highlighted by the Castro clan in Cuba after Raul was selected to replace his ailing brother Fidel, are alive and kicking across a broad spectrum of world politics.
Be it democratically as in the United States or Argentina, or in a more or less authoritarian way as in Syria or the Democratic Republic of Congo, sons often replace fathers, spouses swap places and siblings take over each other’s posts.
In the United States, the Republican George W Bush was elected in 2000 and then again in 2004, eight years after his father left the White House where he served from 1988 to 1992. The current president’s brother Jeb, meanwhile, has served as governor of the state of Florida.
In Argentina, Cristina Kirchner won last year’s presidential election, replacing her husband Nestor. On a less democratic note, North Korea’s Supreme People’s Assembly in September 1998 confirmed Kim Jong-il as successor to his father Kim il-Sung, the communist state’s founding father.
In Syria Bashar al-Assad, 34, was elected by plebiscite in July 2000 on the death of his father Hafez al-Assad who had led the country for 30 years. The current president of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Joseph Kabila, became president in 2001, aged just 29 after the assassination of his father Laurent Desire Kabila.
Also in Africa, 39-year-old Faure Gnassingbe was proclaimed head of state of Togo in 2005, the day after the death of his long-ruling father Gnassingbe Eyadema. A similar transition took place in the Caucasus state of Azerbaijan, when in October 2003, Ilham Aliyev, 41, took over the reins of power occupied for a long time by his father Heydar, who died shortly afterwards.
Family dynasties are also a prominent fixture on the Indian subcontinent, often amid tragedy. Indira Gandhi, the daughter of Jawaharlal Nehru, post-independence India’s first prime minister, was twice prime minister herself before being assassinated in 1984.
Her son Rajiv succeeded her, but was also assassinated in 1991. Rajiv’s widow, the Italian-born Sonia Gandhi, is currently head of the ruling Congress party. In Pakistan, Benazir Bhutto, twice prime minister and the first woman to lead a Muslim country, was assassinated on 27th December 2007. Her father Ali Bhutto, had been executed in 1979 by a military regime.
In Bangladesh, Hasina Wajed and Khaleda Zia, respectively daughter of the country’s founding father Mujibur Rahman, assassinated in 1975 and widow of the former prime minister Ziaur Rahman, killed in 1981, have both of them headed governments. Both are today in prison.
In Sri Lanka, Sirimavo Bandaranaike was the first woman in the modern era to head a government, from 1960 to 1965, succeeding her husband Salomon, who was assassinated in 1959. Their daughter Chandrika Kumaratunga, whose husband Vijaya had been assassinated in 1988, led the government for several months starting in 1994, then held the post of president for 12 years.
A dynasty can also involve siblings. In Poland Lech Kaczynski, the president, who is still in office, and his identical twin brother Jaroslaw, formerly prime minister, ran their country side by side for two years from the end of 2005 to end of 2007.
In Lebanon in 1982, Amin Gemayel was elected president after the assassination of his brother Bashir. They were the sons of a prominent Lebanese politician. Other potential dynasties were nipped in the bud.
In the United States Robert Kennedy, had launched a bid for the presidency when he was gunned down 1968, five years after his elder brother, president John Fitzgerald Kennedy.
Hillary Clinton, the wife of former US president Bill Clinton, is currently hoping to win the presidency in her turn, although her campaign has run into trouble, in part because of the shadow cast by her spouse.
In a completely different context, Uday Hussein had been promised that he would lead Iraq in the footsteps of his father, Saddam. After the latter was overthrown by a US-led invasion, Uday was killed in July 2003, and his captured father was executed at the end of 2006.
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Human rights group accuses Bangladesh of torture
Human rights group accuses Bangladesh of torture
Randeep Ramesh, south Asia correspondent guardian.co.uk,
Source: Guardian
Thursday February 14 2008
Human Rights Watch today accused Bangladesh of beating and torturing a reporter employed by the New York-based group, forcing him and his family to flee the country.
Tasneem Khalil, a 27-year-old reporter who worked as a consultant for Human Rights Watch, was picked up last May by the intelligence services after a series of reports accusing the Bangladeshi military of carrying out extrajudicial executions and persecuting minority groups in the country.
He says he was taken at gunpoint from his family home at night, blindfolded, bound and bundled into a waiting car before being beaten with batons in a cell designed for "torture".
After "confessing" during 22 hours of imprisonment, and after pressure from western diplomats, Khalil was released and went into hiding. He and his family were granted asylum in Sweden last June.
Recounting his experiences, Khalil said he had been taken to a small room that had no windows and was soundproofed. In the room was a table on which rested plastic batons, which delivered electric shocks, and a metal bed frame fitted with straps.
"I was beaten, tortured and made to record a video confessing that I had, in the guise of working for CNN and Human Rights Watch, actually passed on national security information to them," Khalil told the Guardian.
The intelligence officers had been incensed with Khalil's work with Human Rights Watch, where he had worked as a consultant since 2006. Khalil said.
"I worked on a report about extrajudicial killings. That suddenly infuriated them so much that all of them started hitting the table with hands and sticks and started shouting at me. Someone came around the table and started punching me on my head again ... I was beaten from all possible directions with hands and batons and kicks. I pleaded with them to give me one last chance. I said I would not do those things again."
Bangladesh has been effectively under the rule of army generals since the military intervened a year ago after protracted political violence. The army installed a caretaker government but has yet to lift the state of emergency and declare a date for parliamentary elections promised by the end of 2008.
Khalill said: "The military has polluted the political system in Bangladesh, and they have cleverly put the blame on the politicians. But they are the problem, not the solution."
Human Rights Watch, which still employs Khalil, accused the international community of ignoring Bangladesh's clandestine detention and torture system, which it said was "well known to Dhaka's donors and the diplomatic community".
"Rampant illegal detention and torture are clear evidence of Bangladesh's security forces running amok", said Brad Adams, the organisation's Asia director.
Last month, Human Rights Watch said: "Bangladesh's interim government used the pretext of emergency rule to continue a historic pattern of impunity, with widespread allegations of security forces arresting, detaining, even killing civilians."
Tens of thousands of people were arrested in the weeks that followed the declaration of a state of emergency, and security forces have been accused of flouting standard arrest and detention procedures.
Khalil said there was now a culture of "self-censorship" in the country, and people were afraid of the consequences of speaking out.
"I am taking a calculated risk in speaking out because I still have family in Bangladesh," he said. "But I feel it is important that people know what is really going on in my country."
Randeep Ramesh, south Asia correspondent guardian.co.uk,
Source: Guardian
Thursday February 14 2008
Human Rights Watch today accused Bangladesh of beating and torturing a reporter employed by the New York-based group, forcing him and his family to flee the country.
Tasneem Khalil, a 27-year-old reporter who worked as a consultant for Human Rights Watch, was picked up last May by the intelligence services after a series of reports accusing the Bangladeshi military of carrying out extrajudicial executions and persecuting minority groups in the country.
He says he was taken at gunpoint from his family home at night, blindfolded, bound and bundled into a waiting car before being beaten with batons in a cell designed for "torture".
After "confessing" during 22 hours of imprisonment, and after pressure from western diplomats, Khalil was released and went into hiding. He and his family were granted asylum in Sweden last June.
Recounting his experiences, Khalil said he had been taken to a small room that had no windows and was soundproofed. In the room was a table on which rested plastic batons, which delivered electric shocks, and a metal bed frame fitted with straps.
"I was beaten, tortured and made to record a video confessing that I had, in the guise of working for CNN and Human Rights Watch, actually passed on national security information to them," Khalil told the Guardian.
The intelligence officers had been incensed with Khalil's work with Human Rights Watch, where he had worked as a consultant since 2006. Khalil said.
"I worked on a report about extrajudicial killings. That suddenly infuriated them so much that all of them started hitting the table with hands and sticks and started shouting at me. Someone came around the table and started punching me on my head again ... I was beaten from all possible directions with hands and batons and kicks. I pleaded with them to give me one last chance. I said I would not do those things again."
Bangladesh has been effectively under the rule of army generals since the military intervened a year ago after protracted political violence. The army installed a caretaker government but has yet to lift the state of emergency and declare a date for parliamentary elections promised by the end of 2008.
Khalill said: "The military has polluted the political system in Bangladesh, and they have cleverly put the blame on the politicians. But they are the problem, not the solution."
Human Rights Watch, which still employs Khalil, accused the international community of ignoring Bangladesh's clandestine detention and torture system, which it said was "well known to Dhaka's donors and the diplomatic community".
"Rampant illegal detention and torture are clear evidence of Bangladesh's security forces running amok", said Brad Adams, the organisation's Asia director.
Last month, Human Rights Watch said: "Bangladesh's interim government used the pretext of emergency rule to continue a historic pattern of impunity, with widespread allegations of security forces arresting, detaining, even killing civilians."
Tens of thousands of people were arrested in the weeks that followed the declaration of a state of emergency, and security forces have been accused of flouting standard arrest and detention procedures.
Khalil said there was now a culture of "self-censorship" in the country, and people were afraid of the consequences of speaking out.
"I am taking a calculated risk in speaking out because I still have family in Bangladesh," he said. "But I feel it is important that people know what is really going on in my country."
Bangladesh: Tortured Journalist Describes Torture
Bangladesh: Tortured Journalist Describes Surviving Military Beatings
Source: Human Rights Watch
February 14, 2008
‘Reform-Minded’ Government Not Addressing Arbitrary Detention and Torture
(New York, February 14, 2008) – The arbitrary arrest and torture of journalist Tasneem Khalil by Bangladesh’s notorious military intelligence agency highlights abuses under the country’s state of emergency and the interim government’s failure to restrain the security forces, Human Rights Watch said in a new report today. Human Rights Watch called upon the Bangladeshi government, as well as the country’s donors, to urgently tackle the endemic problem of torture.
The 39-page report, "The Torture of Tasneem Khalil: How the Bangladesh Military Abuses Its Power Under the State of Emergency," graphically details Khalil’s 22-hour ordeal in May 2007 in Bangladesh’s clandestine detention and torture system – a setup well known to the government, ordinary Bangladeshis, Dhaka’s donors and diplomatic community.
“Rampant illegal detention and torture are clear evidence of Bangladesh’s security forces running amok,” said Brad Adams, Asia director of Human Rights Watch. “Tasneem Khalil’s prominence as a critical journalist may have prompted his arrest, but it also may have saved his life. Ordinary Bangladeshis held by the security forces under the emergency rules have no such protections.”
At a detention center operated by the Directorate General of Forces Intelligence (DGFI), the military intelligence agency, officers brutally beat and threatened Khalil, a journalist for the English-language Daily Star, part-time consultant for Human Rights Watch, and a news representative for CNN. Demonstrating just how confident they are that they will not be held accountable, DGFI officials even brought Khalil to meet the editor of his paper before returning him to the detention center for further beatings.
After his release and a month in hiding, Khalil fled Bangladesh for safety in Sweden, which granted asylum to him and his family. This report represents the first time that Khalil has spoken publicly of his experiences.
Late one night in May 2007, armed men presenting themselves as belonging to the “joint forces” came to Khalil’s apartment in central Dhaka. In front of his wife and infant, they pressed a gun against his lips, blindfolded him and brought him to a waiting car. He was taken to an interrogation center run by the DGFI, where he was held in a cell specially designed for torture. Khalil was threatened with execution and repeatedly kicked and beaten with batons on the head, arms, abdomen and other parts of the body. He was forced to confess to – and implicate friends and colleagues in – anti-state and anti-military activity, and to smuggling of sensitive national security information to foreign organizations.
Khalil was punished for his criticism of the security forces’ role in extrajudicial killings, torture, arbitrary arrests, and other abuses.
After tremendous international and national pressure, Khalil was released after 22 hours in custody. He then had to go into hiding for a month, before international pressure compelled the authorities to allow him to leave Bangladesh safely for asylum in Sweden.
Human Rights Watch said that tens of thousands of people have been arbitrarily detained by security forces since January 2007, when the current government came to power on a reform agenda. Many of these individuals were tortured in custody. In its popular public campaign against corruption and abuse of political power, the government has routinely used torture to extract confessions or to gain information. Torture has also been used to punish and intimidate peaceful critics of the government and army’s role as the de facto rulers of the country.
Human Rights Watch urged the interim government in Bangladesh to make the protection of human rights as much of a priority as its fight against corruption. It should discipline or prosecute, as appropriate, members of the security forces, including the DGFI, the army and paramilitary forces such as the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), police and other government officials, regardless of rank, who have been responsible for arbitrary arrests and torture or other mistreatment of persons in detention.
“While few would dispute that corruption, organized crime, politicization of the bureaucracy and political violence had to be addressed in Bangladesh, the interim government must realize that reform cannot be built on midnight knocks on the door and torture,” said Adams. “A peaceful democratic society requires respect for basic rights.”
International human rights law permits limitations on some rights during an officially proclaimed state of emergency to “the extent strictly required by the exigencies of the situation.” However, certain basic rights, such as the right to life and the prohibition on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, may never be restricted. Bangladesh is not only obligated to prohibit torture, but to actively adopt measures to end the practice, bring those responsible to justice, and provide redress for the victims.
“The security forces have been arbitrarily detaining and torturing people, but there have been no serious attempts at holding those responsible for these criminal acts to account,” said Adams. “Why hasn’t the government made the protection of Bangladeshis from this scourge a priority? Are they reformers, or do they just say they are reformers?”
Human Rights Watch expressed its appreciation for the efforts by members of the international community to gain the release of Khalil from custody and secure his ability to leave the country afterward. But it called on donors, who have significant influence, to place a higher priority and to act with greater urgency to press the government to address torture and arbitrary detentions. Human Rights Watch noted that the government and donors know who was responsible for Khalil’s illegal detention and torture and where the facility is located, but no action has been taken.
“Bangladesh’s international friends need to make the eradication of torture a top priority in their relations with Bangladesh,” said Adams. “And they should press for the prosecution of the senior military and law enforcement officials responsible for running Bangladesh’s torture industry.”
Excerpts from Tasneem Khalil’s statement:
“[A member of the arresting party] jumped up from the chair, pulled out a revolver from his holster, pushed it against my lips, and started shouting, ‘You are under arrest.’ I started shouting back, telling them that what they were doing was illegal. Then all of them started shouting abusive words at me, telling me to shut up, otherwise there would be problems for my wife and child. Throughout, my wife Shuchi and son Tiyash were watching the whole thing.
“Then they asked me about my connections with Human Rights Watch. I told them I work as their consultant. When they inquired further, I told them I had worked with Human Rights Watch since 2006. I worked with Human Rights Watch on a report about extrajudicial killings by RAB. That suddenly infuriated them so much that all of them started hitting the table with hands and sticks and started shouting at me. ‘How dare you write against our brothers in RAB? You are a burden on society. You are an immoral, unethical insect, an anti-state criminal.’ Someone came around the table and started punching me on my head again.
“The Forum article made my interrogators furious. They started beating me again mercilessly, from all possible directions with hands and batons and kicks. I pleaded with them to give me one last chance. I said I would not do those things again. But one person said I had already ‘made the blunder.’ I think this was a reference to my lunch with the diplomats.
“The beating continued for some time. Then another person said, ‘We will think about giving you a chance, but you have to do as we say.’ He said I had to write a confession to the AIG [Additional Inspector General] of police, saying what they wanted me to say. Then I had to beg for his mercy.
“They dictated some points I should include, such as admitting that I was engaged in anti-state, anti-military, anti-RAB activity, and that I smuggled out sensitive national security information to foreign organizations. That I keep close ties with the opposition Awami League party [I am friends with many in the Awami League, but I was not a member and was not involved in party politics]. That I am engaged in propaganda against the current caretaker government. That I want to destabilize Bangladesh, that I am immoral and unethical, a yellow journalist. That whatever I write, I write for name and fame and money.
“With my blindfold off, I could finally see where I was. The room I was in was a torture cell. It was a small room with no windows, one doorway with a wooden door, and a second grill, like in a prison. The room was soundproofed with a wooden wall covered with small holes, like in an old recording studio. There were two CCTV cameras in the corners attached to the ceiling. There was a fan. I was sitting in front of a table and three batons were on the table, along with some stationery. One was a wooden baton, about a meter long. The other two were covered with black plastic. Poking out of the end of these two were metal wires which appeared to fill the plastic covers. The plastic and wire batons were a little shorter than the wooden one. I assume these were the batons they tortured me with. When one guy saw that I was looking at them, he put them aside. I’m not sure if they used electricity on me. The pain often came like shocks, but they were hitting me so hard that I’m not sure whether it was just the force that hurt like this or if it was electricity.
“Then I glanced behind me and I saw what looked like a metal bed frame. It was the same size as a normal single bed, but it was placed on a platform with steps up to it. The bed had straps fitted at the top and bottom, presumably for tying people on to it. There was a wheel to change the angle of the bed to lift it up or down. There were spikes at the top of the bed. Right beside that there were ropes fitted to the ceilings with rubber loops for wrists to go through.”
Source: Human Rights Watch
February 14, 2008
‘Reform-Minded’ Government Not Addressing Arbitrary Detention and Torture
(New York, February 14, 2008) – The arbitrary arrest and torture of journalist Tasneem Khalil by Bangladesh’s notorious military intelligence agency highlights abuses under the country’s state of emergency and the interim government’s failure to restrain the security forces, Human Rights Watch said in a new report today. Human Rights Watch called upon the Bangladeshi government, as well as the country’s donors, to urgently tackle the endemic problem of torture.
The 39-page report, "The Torture of Tasneem Khalil: How the Bangladesh Military Abuses Its Power Under the State of Emergency," graphically details Khalil’s 22-hour ordeal in May 2007 in Bangladesh’s clandestine detention and torture system – a setup well known to the government, ordinary Bangladeshis, Dhaka’s donors and diplomatic community.
“Rampant illegal detention and torture are clear evidence of Bangladesh’s security forces running amok,” said Brad Adams, Asia director of Human Rights Watch. “Tasneem Khalil’s prominence as a critical journalist may have prompted his arrest, but it also may have saved his life. Ordinary Bangladeshis held by the security forces under the emergency rules have no such protections.”
At a detention center operated by the Directorate General of Forces Intelligence (DGFI), the military intelligence agency, officers brutally beat and threatened Khalil, a journalist for the English-language Daily Star, part-time consultant for Human Rights Watch, and a news representative for CNN. Demonstrating just how confident they are that they will not be held accountable, DGFI officials even brought Khalil to meet the editor of his paper before returning him to the detention center for further beatings.
After his release and a month in hiding, Khalil fled Bangladesh for safety in Sweden, which granted asylum to him and his family. This report represents the first time that Khalil has spoken publicly of his experiences.
Late one night in May 2007, armed men presenting themselves as belonging to the “joint forces” came to Khalil’s apartment in central Dhaka. In front of his wife and infant, they pressed a gun against his lips, blindfolded him and brought him to a waiting car. He was taken to an interrogation center run by the DGFI, where he was held in a cell specially designed for torture. Khalil was threatened with execution and repeatedly kicked and beaten with batons on the head, arms, abdomen and other parts of the body. He was forced to confess to – and implicate friends and colleagues in – anti-state and anti-military activity, and to smuggling of sensitive national security information to foreign organizations.
Khalil was punished for his criticism of the security forces’ role in extrajudicial killings, torture, arbitrary arrests, and other abuses.
After tremendous international and national pressure, Khalil was released after 22 hours in custody. He then had to go into hiding for a month, before international pressure compelled the authorities to allow him to leave Bangladesh safely for asylum in Sweden.
Human Rights Watch said that tens of thousands of people have been arbitrarily detained by security forces since January 2007, when the current government came to power on a reform agenda. Many of these individuals were tortured in custody. In its popular public campaign against corruption and abuse of political power, the government has routinely used torture to extract confessions or to gain information. Torture has also been used to punish and intimidate peaceful critics of the government and army’s role as the de facto rulers of the country.
Human Rights Watch urged the interim government in Bangladesh to make the protection of human rights as much of a priority as its fight against corruption. It should discipline or prosecute, as appropriate, members of the security forces, including the DGFI, the army and paramilitary forces such as the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), police and other government officials, regardless of rank, who have been responsible for arbitrary arrests and torture or other mistreatment of persons in detention.
“While few would dispute that corruption, organized crime, politicization of the bureaucracy and political violence had to be addressed in Bangladesh, the interim government must realize that reform cannot be built on midnight knocks on the door and torture,” said Adams. “A peaceful democratic society requires respect for basic rights.”
International human rights law permits limitations on some rights during an officially proclaimed state of emergency to “the extent strictly required by the exigencies of the situation.” However, certain basic rights, such as the right to life and the prohibition on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, may never be restricted. Bangladesh is not only obligated to prohibit torture, but to actively adopt measures to end the practice, bring those responsible to justice, and provide redress for the victims.
“The security forces have been arbitrarily detaining and torturing people, but there have been no serious attempts at holding those responsible for these criminal acts to account,” said Adams. “Why hasn’t the government made the protection of Bangladeshis from this scourge a priority? Are they reformers, or do they just say they are reformers?”
Human Rights Watch expressed its appreciation for the efforts by members of the international community to gain the release of Khalil from custody and secure his ability to leave the country afterward. But it called on donors, who have significant influence, to place a higher priority and to act with greater urgency to press the government to address torture and arbitrary detentions. Human Rights Watch noted that the government and donors know who was responsible for Khalil’s illegal detention and torture and where the facility is located, but no action has been taken.
“Bangladesh’s international friends need to make the eradication of torture a top priority in their relations with Bangladesh,” said Adams. “And they should press for the prosecution of the senior military and law enforcement officials responsible for running Bangladesh’s torture industry.”
Excerpts from Tasneem Khalil’s statement:
“[A member of the arresting party] jumped up from the chair, pulled out a revolver from his holster, pushed it against my lips, and started shouting, ‘You are under arrest.’ I started shouting back, telling them that what they were doing was illegal. Then all of them started shouting abusive words at me, telling me to shut up, otherwise there would be problems for my wife and child. Throughout, my wife Shuchi and son Tiyash were watching the whole thing.
“Then they asked me about my connections with Human Rights Watch. I told them I work as their consultant. When they inquired further, I told them I had worked with Human Rights Watch since 2006. I worked with Human Rights Watch on a report about extrajudicial killings by RAB. That suddenly infuriated them so much that all of them started hitting the table with hands and sticks and started shouting at me. ‘How dare you write against our brothers in RAB? You are a burden on society. You are an immoral, unethical insect, an anti-state criminal.’ Someone came around the table and started punching me on my head again.
“The Forum article made my interrogators furious. They started beating me again mercilessly, from all possible directions with hands and batons and kicks. I pleaded with them to give me one last chance. I said I would not do those things again. But one person said I had already ‘made the blunder.’ I think this was a reference to my lunch with the diplomats.
“The beating continued for some time. Then another person said, ‘We will think about giving you a chance, but you have to do as we say.’ He said I had to write a confession to the AIG [Additional Inspector General] of police, saying what they wanted me to say. Then I had to beg for his mercy.
“They dictated some points I should include, such as admitting that I was engaged in anti-state, anti-military, anti-RAB activity, and that I smuggled out sensitive national security information to foreign organizations. That I keep close ties with the opposition Awami League party [I am friends with many in the Awami League, but I was not a member and was not involved in party politics]. That I am engaged in propaganda against the current caretaker government. That I want to destabilize Bangladesh, that I am immoral and unethical, a yellow journalist. That whatever I write, I write for name and fame and money.
“With my blindfold off, I could finally see where I was. The room I was in was a torture cell. It was a small room with no windows, one doorway with a wooden door, and a second grill, like in a prison. The room was soundproofed with a wooden wall covered with small holes, like in an old recording studio. There were two CCTV cameras in the corners attached to the ceiling. There was a fan. I was sitting in front of a table and three batons were on the table, along with some stationery. One was a wooden baton, about a meter long. The other two were covered with black plastic. Poking out of the end of these two were metal wires which appeared to fill the plastic covers. The plastic and wire batons were a little shorter than the wooden one. I assume these were the batons they tortured me with. When one guy saw that I was looking at them, he put them aside. I’m not sure if they used electricity on me. The pain often came like shocks, but they were hitting me so hard that I’m not sure whether it was just the force that hurt like this or if it was electricity.
“Then I glanced behind me and I saw what looked like a metal bed frame. It was the same size as a normal single bed, but it was placed on a platform with steps up to it. The bed had straps fitted at the top and bottom, presumably for tying people on to it. There was a wheel to change the angle of the bed to lift it up or down. There were spikes at the top of the bed. Right beside that there were ropes fitted to the ceilings with rubber loops for wrists to go through.”
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Prosecution Drama in Bangladesh
Prosecutors' ploy to release politicians
RATER ZONAKI
Source: UPI Asia Online
February 12, 2008
The people of Bangladesh are keeping an eye on court proceedings regarding corruption charges against former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. The High Court ruled last week that the trial against her is illegal, since she is charged under the Emergency Powers Rules, yet her alleged crimes were committed years before the emergency rules went into effect.
She is one of a number of politicians -- including another former prime minister and dozens of former parliamentarians and Cabinet ministers -- facing corruption charges since the military-backed caretaker government took power a year ago, after imposing a state of emergency.
The politicians have not lost their claws and teeth, and are continuing to fight the charges in court, despite facing detention under the Special Powers Act of 1974 and the Emergency Powers Ordinance-2007, which has been supplemented by the Emergency Powers Rules-2007.
The latest surprise in Sheikh Hasina's trial is that the government has asked that a decision on the case be speeded up because of her "high social status." The attorney general's office reportedly made the request of the High Court Bench as the case was considered a matter of public importance. While the Constitution of Bangladesh declares in Article 27, "All citizens are equal before the law and are entitled to equal protection under the law," the attorney requested special treatment based on social status.
It is not surprising that a military-backed government, by default, will be repressive as the present government of Bangladesh has been since taking power. But when an official from the attorney general's office makes a ridiculous argument before the top court, it raises questions. How did he invent the theory of social status to determine legal proceedings? What sort of credibility can he have as an upholder of the Constitution, when it appears he lacks basic knowledge of the Constitution?
This newly invented "theory of social status" from the attorney general's office reveals the poor state of the country's legal institutions. First of all, it is the Home Ministry that decides which charges should be included under speedy tribunal proceedings. Why? Why doesn't the law itself determine which cases should be tried under which laws and tribunals, rather than ministry bureaucrats, when the government itself does not seem to know what it should or should not do? Does this mean the judiciary is subject to the bureaucracy? What criteria do they follow to determine issues and cases?
Secondly, the attorney general's department and the prosecution apparatus are disposable; whichever party comes to power appoints its own people to allow them to make some money and do them political favors when necessary. There are no specific and credible recruiting procedures. In fact, the country has no recruitment policy for prosecutors except Article 64 of the Constitution.
It is unbelievable that politicians who hold government power in Bangladesh are "innocent" as far as corruption is concerned. But the appointment of attorneys and prosecutors without proper qualifications is a great debacle for the national justice system.
No one in the government has, so far, asked the attorneys to explain their "theory of social status," although it has paved the way for those accused of corruption to walk free. The state institutions will lose their moral strength to try those people, thanks to the substandard professionals within the attorney general's office and the prosecution branch of the judiciary.
Can the government foresee the consequences of failing to prove the corruption charges against the country's political giants? It may ultimately open the prison gates for key members of the present government. It may bring back destructive politics very soon, unfortunately.
The people of Bangladesh understand that a demoralized institutional system cannot bring about any miraculous change in the country. They want to know where the judiciary is headed now that its moral and legal deficiencies have been clearly exposed in public.
(Rater Zonaki is the pseudonym of a human rights defender based in Hong Kong working at the Asian Human Rights Commission. He is a Bangladeshi national with a degree in literature from a university in Dhaka. He began his career as a journalist in 1990 and engaged in human rights activism at the grassroots level in his country for more than a decade. He also worked as an editor for publications on human rights and socio-cultural issues and contributed to other similar publications.)
RATER ZONAKI
Source: UPI Asia Online
February 12, 2008
The people of Bangladesh are keeping an eye on court proceedings regarding corruption charges against former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. The High Court ruled last week that the trial against her is illegal, since she is charged under the Emergency Powers Rules, yet her alleged crimes were committed years before the emergency rules went into effect.
She is one of a number of politicians -- including another former prime minister and dozens of former parliamentarians and Cabinet ministers -- facing corruption charges since the military-backed caretaker government took power a year ago, after imposing a state of emergency.
The politicians have not lost their claws and teeth, and are continuing to fight the charges in court, despite facing detention under the Special Powers Act of 1974 and the Emergency Powers Ordinance-2007, which has been supplemented by the Emergency Powers Rules-2007.
The latest surprise in Sheikh Hasina's trial is that the government has asked that a decision on the case be speeded up because of her "high social status." The attorney general's office reportedly made the request of the High Court Bench as the case was considered a matter of public importance. While the Constitution of Bangladesh declares in Article 27, "All citizens are equal before the law and are entitled to equal protection under the law," the attorney requested special treatment based on social status.
It is not surprising that a military-backed government, by default, will be repressive as the present government of Bangladesh has been since taking power. But when an official from the attorney general's office makes a ridiculous argument before the top court, it raises questions. How did he invent the theory of social status to determine legal proceedings? What sort of credibility can he have as an upholder of the Constitution, when it appears he lacks basic knowledge of the Constitution?
This newly invented "theory of social status" from the attorney general's office reveals the poor state of the country's legal institutions. First of all, it is the Home Ministry that decides which charges should be included under speedy tribunal proceedings. Why? Why doesn't the law itself determine which cases should be tried under which laws and tribunals, rather than ministry bureaucrats, when the government itself does not seem to know what it should or should not do? Does this mean the judiciary is subject to the bureaucracy? What criteria do they follow to determine issues and cases?
Secondly, the attorney general's department and the prosecution apparatus are disposable; whichever party comes to power appoints its own people to allow them to make some money and do them political favors when necessary. There are no specific and credible recruiting procedures. In fact, the country has no recruitment policy for prosecutors except Article 64 of the Constitution.
It is unbelievable that politicians who hold government power in Bangladesh are "innocent" as far as corruption is concerned. But the appointment of attorneys and prosecutors without proper qualifications is a great debacle for the national justice system.
No one in the government has, so far, asked the attorneys to explain their "theory of social status," although it has paved the way for those accused of corruption to walk free. The state institutions will lose their moral strength to try those people, thanks to the substandard professionals within the attorney general's office and the prosecution branch of the judiciary.
Can the government foresee the consequences of failing to prove the corruption charges against the country's political giants? It may ultimately open the prison gates for key members of the present government. It may bring back destructive politics very soon, unfortunately.
The people of Bangladesh understand that a demoralized institutional system cannot bring about any miraculous change in the country. They want to know where the judiciary is headed now that its moral and legal deficiencies have been clearly exposed in public.
(Rater Zonaki is the pseudonym of a human rights defender based in Hong Kong working at the Asian Human Rights Commission. He is a Bangladeshi national with a degree in literature from a university in Dhaka. He began his career as a journalist in 1990 and engaged in human rights activism at the grassroots level in his country for more than a decade. He also worked as an editor for publications on human rights and socio-cultural issues and contributed to other similar publications.)
Sunday, February 10, 2008
Cloud over Bangladesh caretaker Govt
Source: The Sunday Times
Date: February 10, 2008
Kuldip Nayar
Cloud over Bangladesh caretaker Govt. gets darker and darker
I have no doubt that Bangladesh has been a cesspool of corruption and what was once bazaar gossip has turned out to be true. Both Sheikh Hasina and Khalida Zia, former Prime Ministers, were known for rewarding their kith and kin and suspected of receiving benefits indirectly. As of today, it looks as if both have not been above board, to say the least.
However, I, and many like me, would await the outcome of cases pending in court before we make up our mind. Yet, I was shocked to read about the concocted story on the torturing of Tarique Rahman, run on a TV network in Bangladesh. Corruption cannot be concealed by a false picture of torture. The people are not taken in by such crude attempts to suppress the truth. That the caretaker government has been able to make some of the deals public with evidence so as to pursue them in a court of law is a plus point.
But I presume there is no witch-hunting or vendetta of any type. There is always a suspicion against the rulers that they try the opponents on flimsy grounds to wreak political vendetta. However, the charge against former Law Minister Moudud Ahmed allowing loans on forged documents has shocked me.
I have known him for a fairly long time and considered him an uncertain commodity in Bangladesh politics, but not in matters of money. Never did I imagine that he would be mixed up with bogus transactions. I recall his halcyon days of legal practice which brought Moudud fame and money. He was so defiant of the establishment that he would never mince words against any government in power. He was detained by General Ershad who subsequently appointed him as the Prime Minister.
In fact, I came to know Moudud during his detention when his wife wrote to me that he was picked from home at midnight. Moudud was released after the protest voiced by the Germans. The charge against him is serious. He is alleged to have bent rules to benefit a businessman to get a loan of 15 crore takka (roughly Rs 10 crore) from a local bank which too forged documents to lend money without any collateral.
The name of Sam Pitroda, chairman of World Ten Holdings Limited, has also figured in the case because his signature was reportedly forged to withdraw 35 crore takka (nearly Rs 25 crore) from the National Bank of Pakistan. What was the connection between the Bangladesh bank and that of the one in Pakistan is beyond me. I presume this Pitroda is different from the one we have heading the National Knowledge Commission. Yet it is worth probing.
Moudud's case only underlines something common among most ministers of the three countries in the subcontinent. They can circumvent any rule or norm to benefit themselves, their relations or friends. It is not a one-sided political favour. There is invariably a quid pro quo. Money too changes hands, either visibly or under the table. One act of corruption, as has been seen, requires the assembly of a whole stable of politicians, bureaucrats and criminals. Cleansing process in Bangladesh gives hope that the same type of broom may one day sweep the dirt in India and Pakistan. But we do not want the military to do it. Democracy has enough levers to operate against the corrupt.
However commendable such efforts are in Bangladesh, they come to naught when the caretaker government's basic job to holding elections quickly is still shrouded in doubts. After all, as Dr Akbar Ali Khan, a respected expert, has reminded that elections had to be held within 90 days of the caretaker government taking over powers.
His advice that they should be held at least 90 days after the finalization of voters' list needs to be followed now. It is, however, good to hear from the military-backed government that it will hold the polls this year. But this has been said earlier too.
Since no date has yet been fixed, there are always misgivings about the polls. The example of Pakistan is before us. General Zia-ul Haq assured at the time of military takeover that he would hold elections within 90 days. But he stayed on for nearly nine years until he died in a plane crash.
That the caretaker government has initiated talks with the political parties on the polls is a commendable step. But why doesn't it announce the date first and then work backwards, talking to political parties and providing facilities for holding free and fair elections?
The caretaker government was not convincing when it tried to draw a distinction between the emergency in Bangladesh and the one declared by President Pervez Musharraf in Pakistan. Dakha's plea was that imposition of the emergency in Bangladesh was "within the country's constitution." The emergency in Pakistan is not dissimilar.
Musharraf clamped it as the Army Chief. It was not martial law but similar to the one the caretaker government in Bangladesh has done. The European Union, the main donor to Bangladesh, says that Dhaka has managed the emergency "in a pragmatic way." I do not know how far it is correct.
True, Article 141A of the constitution of Bangladesh says that whenever a grave emergency exists in which the security or economic life of Bangladesh or any part thereof is threatened by war or external aggression or internal disturbance, the president may proclaim a state of emergency."
But it is also stated that the emergency "shall cease to operate at the expiration of one hundred twenty days, unless before the expiration of that period it had been approved by a resolution of parliament." Bangladesh's state of emergency should, by this reckoning, have ended in April 2007. There is no explanation given for the blatant breach of the constitution.
The ongoing routine of secret detention, extra-judicial executions and deaths by "cross-fire" has in no way lessened. Odhikar, a Dhaka-based organization, has said that there were 153 extra-judicial executions in the 10 months of the emergency. It observed that the actions of the current government were being "dictated less and less by the law" and called on the government to follow the due process of law.
Still the most important thing is to have elections in the next few months, preferably before the monsoon. When the electoral rolls are complete, what is the hitch? The armed forces owe it to the nation to revive the democratic system which it took over on the promise to make the people of Bangladesh sovereign.
Date: February 10, 2008
Kuldip Nayar
Cloud over Bangladesh caretaker Govt. gets darker and darker
I have no doubt that Bangladesh has been a cesspool of corruption and what was once bazaar gossip has turned out to be true. Both Sheikh Hasina and Khalida Zia, former Prime Ministers, were known for rewarding their kith and kin and suspected of receiving benefits indirectly. As of today, it looks as if both have not been above board, to say the least.
However, I, and many like me, would await the outcome of cases pending in court before we make up our mind. Yet, I was shocked to read about the concocted story on the torturing of Tarique Rahman, run on a TV network in Bangladesh. Corruption cannot be concealed by a false picture of torture. The people are not taken in by such crude attempts to suppress the truth. That the caretaker government has been able to make some of the deals public with evidence so as to pursue them in a court of law is a plus point.
But I presume there is no witch-hunting or vendetta of any type. There is always a suspicion against the rulers that they try the opponents on flimsy grounds to wreak political vendetta. However, the charge against former Law Minister Moudud Ahmed allowing loans on forged documents has shocked me.
I have known him for a fairly long time and considered him an uncertain commodity in Bangladesh politics, but not in matters of money. Never did I imagine that he would be mixed up with bogus transactions. I recall his halcyon days of legal practice which brought Moudud fame and money. He was so defiant of the establishment that he would never mince words against any government in power. He was detained by General Ershad who subsequently appointed him as the Prime Minister.
In fact, I came to know Moudud during his detention when his wife wrote to me that he was picked from home at midnight. Moudud was released after the protest voiced by the Germans. The charge against him is serious. He is alleged to have bent rules to benefit a businessman to get a loan of 15 crore takka (roughly Rs 10 crore) from a local bank which too forged documents to lend money without any collateral.
The name of Sam Pitroda, chairman of World Ten Holdings Limited, has also figured in the case because his signature was reportedly forged to withdraw 35 crore takka (nearly Rs 25 crore) from the National Bank of Pakistan. What was the connection between the Bangladesh bank and that of the one in Pakistan is beyond me. I presume this Pitroda is different from the one we have heading the National Knowledge Commission. Yet it is worth probing.
Moudud's case only underlines something common among most ministers of the three countries in the subcontinent. They can circumvent any rule or norm to benefit themselves, their relations or friends. It is not a one-sided political favour. There is invariably a quid pro quo. Money too changes hands, either visibly or under the table. One act of corruption, as has been seen, requires the assembly of a whole stable of politicians, bureaucrats and criminals. Cleansing process in Bangladesh gives hope that the same type of broom may one day sweep the dirt in India and Pakistan. But we do not want the military to do it. Democracy has enough levers to operate against the corrupt.
However commendable such efforts are in Bangladesh, they come to naught when the caretaker government's basic job to holding elections quickly is still shrouded in doubts. After all, as Dr Akbar Ali Khan, a respected expert, has reminded that elections had to be held within 90 days of the caretaker government taking over powers.
His advice that they should be held at least 90 days after the finalization of voters' list needs to be followed now. It is, however, good to hear from the military-backed government that it will hold the polls this year. But this has been said earlier too.
Since no date has yet been fixed, there are always misgivings about the polls. The example of Pakistan is before us. General Zia-ul Haq assured at the time of military takeover that he would hold elections within 90 days. But he stayed on for nearly nine years until he died in a plane crash.
That the caretaker government has initiated talks with the political parties on the polls is a commendable step. But why doesn't it announce the date first and then work backwards, talking to political parties and providing facilities for holding free and fair elections?
The caretaker government was not convincing when it tried to draw a distinction between the emergency in Bangladesh and the one declared by President Pervez Musharraf in Pakistan. Dakha's plea was that imposition of the emergency in Bangladesh was "within the country's constitution." The emergency in Pakistan is not dissimilar.
Musharraf clamped it as the Army Chief. It was not martial law but similar to the one the caretaker government in Bangladesh has done. The European Union, the main donor to Bangladesh, says that Dhaka has managed the emergency "in a pragmatic way." I do not know how far it is correct.
True, Article 141A of the constitution of Bangladesh says that whenever a grave emergency exists in which the security or economic life of Bangladesh or any part thereof is threatened by war or external aggression or internal disturbance, the president may proclaim a state of emergency."
But it is also stated that the emergency "shall cease to operate at the expiration of one hundred twenty days, unless before the expiration of that period it had been approved by a resolution of parliament." Bangladesh's state of emergency should, by this reckoning, have ended in April 2007. There is no explanation given for the blatant breach of the constitution.
The ongoing routine of secret detention, extra-judicial executions and deaths by "cross-fire" has in no way lessened. Odhikar, a Dhaka-based organization, has said that there were 153 extra-judicial executions in the 10 months of the emergency. It observed that the actions of the current government were being "dictated less and less by the law" and called on the government to follow the due process of law.
Still the most important thing is to have elections in the next few months, preferably before the monsoon. When the electoral rolls are complete, what is the hitch? The armed forces owe it to the nation to revive the democratic system which it took over on the promise to make the people of Bangladesh sovereign.
Friday, February 8, 2008
Looking for the exit
Source: The Economist
Date: February 7, 2008
It is hard to find, leading to fears that the army might overstay its welcome
MORE than a year after Bangladesh's generals intervened in the country's failing democracy, they have yet to lift the state of emergency and declare a date for the parliamentary election they have promised by the end of 2008. This week the political parties, the election commission and foreign powers stepped up the pressure on the generals to leave politics.
The two big political parties, the Awami League and the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), called for the poll to be held by June. But the election commission said some 50m voters (out of an estimated 80m) were yet to be registered. The election date would not be set until September. More important, the parties are calling for the release of their detained leaders, Sheikh Hasina Wajed and Khaleda Zia, both former prime ministers, known as the two “begums”. Corruption allegations against these feuding heads of competing kleptocracies seem to have done little to dent their popular appeal.
This complicates the generals' plans. The begums have won at least 70% of the popular vote in every election since the end of the last military regime in 1990. After failing to send them into exile last year, or to convince the parties to ditch them, the army must now trust that judges will convict them both. Under new electoral rules, this would bar them from the next election. But the legal cases seem ill-prepared and credible convictions unlikely. This week the first of four cases filed against Sheikh Hasina appeared close to collapse. The trial against Khaleda Zia, prime minister till October 2006, is yet to begin. Her party, the BNP, is a shambles. It has split but its reformist faction is too weak to challenge the League.
It seems certain that the calls to release the two women will intensify. In the absence of other leaders, this gives the army a choice: democracy and the two begums or no begums and no democracy. Determined not to let them back, the generals, it is feared, may choose the latter course.
One way out would be the creation of a national government of all the parties. The idea has been around since before the army intervened to install a civilian interim government in January 2007. But, if freed, the former prime ministers are more likely to pursue revenge than co-operation. The same goes for the 200-odd other politicians and businessmen locked up in the anti-corruption drive.
The interim government has worked hard and effectively to repair the country's battered institutions and prepare the ground for elections. But doubts remain about what real power a new parliament would have. Talk about the creation of a National Security Council to formalise the army's role in politics, as in Pakistan, has not died down.
The longer the emergency persists, the less likely a graceful, timely exit by the army becomes. Its dilemma is increasingly bothering Western governments and donors. Both supported the army's intervention and anti-corruption drive. But the muzzling of the press and continuing human-rights abuses have strained their patience. Unlike Pakistan, however, which has nuclear weapons, a terrorist network and dangerous ethnic divisions, Bangladesh, for all its frightening troubles, does not seem to provoke a real sense of urgency among foreign governments.
Date: February 7, 2008
It is hard to find, leading to fears that the army might overstay its welcome
MORE than a year after Bangladesh's generals intervened in the country's failing democracy, they have yet to lift the state of emergency and declare a date for the parliamentary election they have promised by the end of 2008. This week the political parties, the election commission and foreign powers stepped up the pressure on the generals to leave politics.
The two big political parties, the Awami League and the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), called for the poll to be held by June. But the election commission said some 50m voters (out of an estimated 80m) were yet to be registered. The election date would not be set until September. More important, the parties are calling for the release of their detained leaders, Sheikh Hasina Wajed and Khaleda Zia, both former prime ministers, known as the two “begums”. Corruption allegations against these feuding heads of competing kleptocracies seem to have done little to dent their popular appeal.
This complicates the generals' plans. The begums have won at least 70% of the popular vote in every election since the end of the last military regime in 1990. After failing to send them into exile last year, or to convince the parties to ditch them, the army must now trust that judges will convict them both. Under new electoral rules, this would bar them from the next election. But the legal cases seem ill-prepared and credible convictions unlikely. This week the first of four cases filed against Sheikh Hasina appeared close to collapse. The trial against Khaleda Zia, prime minister till October 2006, is yet to begin. Her party, the BNP, is a shambles. It has split but its reformist faction is too weak to challenge the League.
It seems certain that the calls to release the two women will intensify. In the absence of other leaders, this gives the army a choice: democracy and the two begums or no begums and no democracy. Determined not to let them back, the generals, it is feared, may choose the latter course.
One way out would be the creation of a national government of all the parties. The idea has been around since before the army intervened to install a civilian interim government in January 2007. But, if freed, the former prime ministers are more likely to pursue revenge than co-operation. The same goes for the 200-odd other politicians and businessmen locked up in the anti-corruption drive.
The interim government has worked hard and effectively to repair the country's battered institutions and prepare the ground for elections. But doubts remain about what real power a new parliament would have. Talk about the creation of a National Security Council to formalise the army's role in politics, as in Pakistan, has not died down.
The longer the emergency persists, the less likely a graceful, timely exit by the army becomes. Its dilemma is increasingly bothering Western governments and donors. Both supported the army's intervention and anti-corruption drive. But the muzzling of the press and continuing human-rights abuses have strained their patience. Unlike Pakistan, however, which has nuclear weapons, a terrorist network and dangerous ethnic divisions, Bangladesh, for all its frightening troubles, does not seem to provoke a real sense of urgency among foreign governments.
Diplomatic Pressures up on the CTG
The army backed Caretaker government is facing increased international pressure to expedite democratic transition and to protect human rights in Bangladesh. Western envoys are visiting Bangladesh and diplomats are keenly observing the political progress to weigh the compliance with the election timeframe outlined by the government. US Charge D'Affairs Geeta Pasi has reiterated Washigton's demands for timely election and fruitful dialogs with the political parties. Read the rest from the Independent Bangladesh:
The US chargé d’affaires in Dhaka, Geeta Pasi, has said Washington would like to see the general elections in Bangladesh to be held in keeping with the electoral roadmap.
She disclosed her government’s stand on the national elections in Bangladesh as she talked with the special assistant to the chief adviser on the Chittagong Hill Tracts affairs, Debashis Roy, at the secretariat on Wednesday.
‘They [US government] want that the elections should be held on time,’ Debashis told reporters after the meeting. He said she had assured the government of continuous support for Bangladesh in various sectors.
‘The government should ensure that the elections are held in keeping with the roadmap,’ Debashis quoted the US diplomat as saying. The chief adviser Fakhruddin Ahmed, earlier announced that the parliamentary elections, originally scheduled for January 22, 2007, would be held before the end of 2008.
During the talks with the special assistant, Pasi urged the government to protect human rights. She also touched on the ongoing development activities in the Chittagong Hill Tracts and expressed her interests in more projects related to environment and forests.
Earlier on the day, Pasi also called on the housing and public works adviser, Ghulam Quader, and the special assistant to the chief adviser on the energy and mineral resources division, M Tamim, in their offices at the secretariat.
Quader told Pasi the Bangladesh government had agreed to hold dialogues with political parties. Pasi said the dialogue with political parties should be fruitful, an official source said.
‘We had a general discussion on possible developments related to forests and environment. The United States is interested in coffee cultivation in hill districts,’ Debashis, also responsible for the environment and forests ministry, said. He stressed the need for establishing a link with the ethnic groups in the United States through visit exchanges.
‘A similar team of ethnic leaders led a joint secretary will soon visit Philippines to establish such links.’ Pasi told reporters that they were concerned about environmental issues in the Chittagong Hill Tracts.
She said her government would support Bangladesh in development activities in the areas. Asked about the meeting, Tamim said, ‘It was a courtesy call which dealt with matters of mutual interests.’
Ruling on the Writ Petition
Listen to this news commentary from the BBC's Bangla program Probaho broadcast on February 6th about the High Court's ruling on Sheikh Hasina's writ petition.
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Thursday, February 7, 2008
Tale of a little Casanova
প্রচলিত প্রথার শেকল ভেঙে বের হওয়া খুব সহজ নয়। সব সময়েই চেষ্টা করেছি একুশে বইমেলায় একটি করে বই যেন উপহার দিতে পারি আমার পাঠক-ভক্তদের। সেই ধারাবাহিকতায় গতবছর 'পরাজিত মেঘদল' প্রকাশিত হয়েছে জনান্তিক থেকে। এবার শেকল ভাঙার ক্ষুদ্র চেষ্টা। আমার বাংলাভাষী পাঠক-ভক্ত-বন্ধুদের তালিকার সঙ্গে এবার কতোগুলো ভিন্নভাষা বলা মুখ জুড়ে দিলাম।
শেকল ভাঙার এই প্রয়াসেই জনান্তিক থেকে বের হচ্ছে আমার ইংরেজী বই Monga Caravan। নিচের গল্পটি Monga Caravan থেকেই উদ্বৃত করলাম আমার বন্ধুদের জন্য। প্রথা কেটে বেরিয়ে আসার এই চেষ্টায় আপনাদের মূল্যবান উদ্বৃতি / সমালোচনা আমার একান্ত পাথেয়।
সবাইকে আগাম আন্তরিক ধন্যবাদ।
Tale of a little Casanova
I came to Dhaka at the age of 18 to see, to live and to love it. The desire to discover the wonders of a cosmopolitan city and to wear the warmth of generous neon lights took me up skyscrapers. As a child I believed that I would have a better view of the sky from a high-rise apartment. My earlier visits to Dhaka had attracted me with a fascinating kids' park, its colorful rides and the zoo with its caged Royal Bengal Tiger and comic monkeys. Every trip would end in tears as every memorable moment would be dashed to oblivion by the impending journey home. At that age nothing was more boring than home and hometown. Back from every dream-visit to Dhaka, I would sit at my cruel study table and peep through the window above it. Staring at the sky I would dream of riding the clouds all the way to Dhaka.
This school-boy narration of Dhaka must come as a surprise to you. I am at an age neither to write such a paragraph nor to sketch an autobiography. I am writing this because, in contrast, little boy Midrah considers his grandfather's small town of Ishwardi as his heaven. I often wonder how he could realize at the age of seven what I could only perceive at 27. Midrah was born in Dhaka but started to dislike the city the moment he learnt to walk. Out-letting this dislike by wailing, shouting and disapproving of plastic guests in the living room, he easily discovered that urbaners were not at all attentive to a child, whereas a small town like Ishwardi covered up for all the lack of attention. Even an unknown rickshaw-puller had time for Midrah. He was obviously too young to have read the theories of alienation but surprisingly enough he could readily identify patients of alienation in Dhaka.
Life can be cruel. It kept him in Dhaka, handing him only sprinkled moments to bond with and inhale the intensity of his dream town. Thus started his search for warm people who would pay attention to his loneliness. People like drivers, gate-keepers and domestic assistants. He preferred to be with the proletariats hanging around his apartment block. It was an uncomfortable alliance for the Dhaka bourgeois, who were fearful of this strange kid getting declassed and bringing some unknown skin disease into their elite apartments. There must be something wrong with this child, they would think loudly. The civil society would summon roundtable discussions on the sub-altern behavior of the boy who refused to eat, sit or smile, like other urban English medium kids. This rowdy child showed no signs of growing up to be a polished, measured, urban humpty dumpty; one who would sit on a sofa like a robot, watch cartoon channels and have kitkat or strawberry ice-cream with the explicit permission of his patrons.
Midrah didn't have the freedom of choice. So he had to accompany his parents to Europe at the age of two-and-a-half years. At the Bonn-Koln Airport he seemed happy and surprised; repeatedly asking, "Where is Midrah going?" Quite a philosophical question, one a saint would ask of life. It's no doubt a difficult question to answer when you come to think of it logically. Midrah was happy to leave the city of melancholy, Dhaka. He was definitely not at an age to enjoy the colours of Koln but perhaps if he couldn't get his beloved Ishwardi, any other place was better than Dhaka. His father's friends came to greet him at the airport with a huge balloon. He was too small to hold the extra-large puffed-up mickey mouse. Nevertheless, he held on to it tightly. Passing by the Koln Sud railway station he asked if a passing train would take him to Ishwardi. "I have seen such trains in Ishwardi," he cried out. One of his father's friends could not resist but say, "We, a bunch of clowns, are so happy to be in Koln, whereas this little master is missing Ishwardy." Midrah is like master film-maker Satyajit's hero Apu, they all thought, who could relate only trains to his existence. After a while Midrah started to cry as if he had been abducted from his roots. We had to lie, a never-ending lie.
"Where are my grandparents, my dada, dida."
"Out of the city. They will be back soon."
The car stopped near an unknown apartment, 99 Bruler Strasse. Reluctantly, Midrah got down tightly holding the string of his balloon. Suddenly, he released the string, letting the balloon fly back to his grandparents' land. Gone with the wind, someone murmured. He entered a strange flat, a strange life of melancholy. Jet-lagged, he immediately slept, only to rise to an equally unknown morning with nothing but a wide window to look at the sky, the clouds and his would-be chariot to Ishwardi. A reverse journey, some would think. I had the same fascination for clouds but my dream destination was different.
Midrah was taken to new-market, the city center of Koln, as an introduction to the grandeur of
Europe. Clever beyond age, he refused to show any interest. His parents took him to McDonalds to pique his curiosity, a capitalist trick to fish a child. It worked. Music, chicken nuggets and small gift toys brought a smile to his face. But that too ended soon like the charm of a quickie. There was non-stop bargaining for a deal to go back to Ishwardi, more specifically not to go to Dhaka at all. He turned into a scary and stubborn bargainer, his parents at a loss to handle this strange little man.
I tried to introduce him to a few kids. For some unknown historical reason most of them didn't welcome him. A few were friendly but Midrah was unhappy by the refusal of a scar-faced boy his age. The boy's mother apologized for her son's rudeness, casually mentioning that he probably took after his boring and racist father. So hurt was Midrah by the scar-faced boy's behavior that he became indifferent to the approaches of other friendly boys.
He was no doubt, troubled by the German language. He did manage to settle to a comfortable routine in his English-medium kindergarten with friends like Peter, Sophia and Daniel… and a crush on his teacher, Yasmin. He would imagine and make drawings of Yasmin and himself going on long drives in a sports car. Once Yasmin came to know of this, she arranged for such a ride for him. Unfortunately, there was no space at the back to accommodate me. Midrah soon polished his penchant for dating Aunts for their cars. He and his opera-singer Sunanda would sing together during those rides, even though Sunanda frequently objected to his flirtatious looks. Truly fascinated by his musical talent, she put up with the little casanova's smiles.
Casanova he was; finally snatched away my best friend Munazza. They regularly went out for movies and ice-skating, to McDonalds and playgrounds. For someone so young, Midrah seemed proficient in the use of game theory. Lobbying with his Munazza 'Khalamunni', he managed to arrange for his twice-a-year trips to Ishwardi. Every trip would be full of complaints against Emirates for not taking him directly to Ishwardi. He found it hazardous to get down in Dhaka and proceed by train, invariably being forced to spend a few days in the city he disliked so intensely. Dhaka bourgeois were more unbearable than German elites and Ishwardi dandies. For him there was never any difference between Koln Station or Ishwardi Junction, Niagra Falls or River Padma, Dusseldorf or Iswardi Airport, Safari Park near Toronto or the greenery in Paksey Harding. The one place he couldn't tolerate was Dhaka. I don't know why or perhaps I do.
His Dhaka well-wishers suggested disciplining Midrah in their elite dogma. The experiment went on and he was sent to London to check out his former colonial masters. He liked the down town but preferred the countryside. They looked like Ishwadri or Paksey with their dotting of British buildings. He liked the place so he liked little British girls. Why not? They helped him with his English. On the bank of River Thames facing the London Eye he didn't forget to kiss the pink cheeks of the little Briton in ponytails who held his hand and danced along the river.
I decided to discipline this mischievous Casanova, but my father burst into laughter upon hearing his escapades. "Your grandpa was fascinated with the mujras of Lucknow, I used to chat with girls in Calcatta. I don't know much about the colours of your life but Midra definitely has the spirit to conquer," he said, obviously enjoying my discomfort.
I gave up any hope of bringing order into his life. Once back in Dhaka he refused to be around, went on hunger strikes for study strikes. All my plans to settle him down in Dhaka failed. No bribe worked, neither Fantasy Kingdom nor Star Cine Complex. At the age of seven he was equipped with the charms of the west and the deep-rooted fascination for his small-town ancestors. We tried to handle this little charmer with the help of my friend's dazzling Dhaka daughter, an English-medium, six-year-old ulala star, Rodushi. We should have known better. Midra preferred either his wheat-skinned girlfriend Sadia from Ishwardi or the pink-cheeked Margaret. His bold declaration of Independence: "I want to stay in Ishwardi, then I will go to London and quite often visit my grandparents. But no Dhaka, not Dhaka, Dhaka, no way."
(end)
শেকল ভাঙার এই প্রয়াসেই জনান্তিক থেকে বের হচ্ছে আমার ইংরেজী বই Monga Caravan। নিচের গল্পটি Monga Caravan থেকেই উদ্বৃত করলাম আমার বন্ধুদের জন্য। প্রথা কেটে বেরিয়ে আসার এই চেষ্টায় আপনাদের মূল্যবান উদ্বৃতি / সমালোচনা আমার একান্ত পাথেয়।
সবাইকে আগাম আন্তরিক ধন্যবাদ।
Tale of a little Casanova
I came to Dhaka at the age of 18 to see, to live and to love it. The desire to discover the wonders of a cosmopolitan city and to wear the warmth of generous neon lights took me up skyscrapers. As a child I believed that I would have a better view of the sky from a high-rise apartment. My earlier visits to Dhaka had attracted me with a fascinating kids' park, its colorful rides and the zoo with its caged Royal Bengal Tiger and comic monkeys. Every trip would end in tears as every memorable moment would be dashed to oblivion by the impending journey home. At that age nothing was more boring than home and hometown. Back from every dream-visit to Dhaka, I would sit at my cruel study table and peep through the window above it. Staring at the sky I would dream of riding the clouds all the way to Dhaka.
This school-boy narration of Dhaka must come as a surprise to you. I am at an age neither to write such a paragraph nor to sketch an autobiography. I am writing this because, in contrast, little boy Midrah considers his grandfather's small town of Ishwardi as his heaven. I often wonder how he could realize at the age of seven what I could only perceive at 27. Midrah was born in Dhaka but started to dislike the city the moment he learnt to walk. Out-letting this dislike by wailing, shouting and disapproving of plastic guests in the living room, he easily discovered that urbaners were not at all attentive to a child, whereas a small town like Ishwardi covered up for all the lack of attention. Even an unknown rickshaw-puller had time for Midrah. He was obviously too young to have read the theories of alienation but surprisingly enough he could readily identify patients of alienation in Dhaka.
Life can be cruel. It kept him in Dhaka, handing him only sprinkled moments to bond with and inhale the intensity of his dream town. Thus started his search for warm people who would pay attention to his loneliness. People like drivers, gate-keepers and domestic assistants. He preferred to be with the proletariats hanging around his apartment block. It was an uncomfortable alliance for the Dhaka bourgeois, who were fearful of this strange kid getting declassed and bringing some unknown skin disease into their elite apartments. There must be something wrong with this child, they would think loudly. The civil society would summon roundtable discussions on the sub-altern behavior of the boy who refused to eat, sit or smile, like other urban English medium kids. This rowdy child showed no signs of growing up to be a polished, measured, urban humpty dumpty; one who would sit on a sofa like a robot, watch cartoon channels and have kitkat or strawberry ice-cream with the explicit permission of his patrons.
Midrah didn't have the freedom of choice. So he had to accompany his parents to Europe at the age of two-and-a-half years. At the Bonn-Koln Airport he seemed happy and surprised; repeatedly asking, "Where is Midrah going?" Quite a philosophical question, one a saint would ask of life. It's no doubt a difficult question to answer when you come to think of it logically. Midrah was happy to leave the city of melancholy, Dhaka. He was definitely not at an age to enjoy the colours of Koln but perhaps if he couldn't get his beloved Ishwardi, any other place was better than Dhaka. His father's friends came to greet him at the airport with a huge balloon. He was too small to hold the extra-large puffed-up mickey mouse. Nevertheless, he held on to it tightly. Passing by the Koln Sud railway station he asked if a passing train would take him to Ishwardi. "I have seen such trains in Ishwardi," he cried out. One of his father's friends could not resist but say, "We, a bunch of clowns, are so happy to be in Koln, whereas this little master is missing Ishwardy." Midrah is like master film-maker Satyajit's hero Apu, they all thought, who could relate only trains to his existence. After a while Midrah started to cry as if he had been abducted from his roots. We had to lie, a never-ending lie.
"Where are my grandparents, my dada, dida."
"Out of the city. They will be back soon."
The car stopped near an unknown apartment, 99 Bruler Strasse. Reluctantly, Midrah got down tightly holding the string of his balloon. Suddenly, he released the string, letting the balloon fly back to his grandparents' land. Gone with the wind, someone murmured. He entered a strange flat, a strange life of melancholy. Jet-lagged, he immediately slept, only to rise to an equally unknown morning with nothing but a wide window to look at the sky, the clouds and his would-be chariot to Ishwardi. A reverse journey, some would think. I had the same fascination for clouds but my dream destination was different.
Midrah was taken to new-market, the city center of Koln, as an introduction to the grandeur of
Europe. Clever beyond age, he refused to show any interest. His parents took him to McDonalds to pique his curiosity, a capitalist trick to fish a child. It worked. Music, chicken nuggets and small gift toys brought a smile to his face. But that too ended soon like the charm of a quickie. There was non-stop bargaining for a deal to go back to Ishwardi, more specifically not to go to Dhaka at all. He turned into a scary and stubborn bargainer, his parents at a loss to handle this strange little man.
I tried to introduce him to a few kids. For some unknown historical reason most of them didn't welcome him. A few were friendly but Midrah was unhappy by the refusal of a scar-faced boy his age. The boy's mother apologized for her son's rudeness, casually mentioning that he probably took after his boring and racist father. So hurt was Midrah by the scar-faced boy's behavior that he became indifferent to the approaches of other friendly boys.
He was no doubt, troubled by the German language. He did manage to settle to a comfortable routine in his English-medium kindergarten with friends like Peter, Sophia and Daniel… and a crush on his teacher, Yasmin. He would imagine and make drawings of Yasmin and himself going on long drives in a sports car. Once Yasmin came to know of this, she arranged for such a ride for him. Unfortunately, there was no space at the back to accommodate me. Midrah soon polished his penchant for dating Aunts for their cars. He and his opera-singer Sunanda would sing together during those rides, even though Sunanda frequently objected to his flirtatious looks. Truly fascinated by his musical talent, she put up with the little casanova's smiles.
Casanova he was; finally snatched away my best friend Munazza. They regularly went out for movies and ice-skating, to McDonalds and playgrounds. For someone so young, Midrah seemed proficient in the use of game theory. Lobbying with his Munazza 'Khalamunni', he managed to arrange for his twice-a-year trips to Ishwardi. Every trip would be full of complaints against Emirates for not taking him directly to Ishwardi. He found it hazardous to get down in Dhaka and proceed by train, invariably being forced to spend a few days in the city he disliked so intensely. Dhaka bourgeois were more unbearable than German elites and Ishwardi dandies. For him there was never any difference between Koln Station or Ishwardi Junction, Niagra Falls or River Padma, Dusseldorf or Iswardi Airport, Safari Park near Toronto or the greenery in Paksey Harding. The one place he couldn't tolerate was Dhaka. I don't know why or perhaps I do.
His Dhaka well-wishers suggested disciplining Midrah in their elite dogma. The experiment went on and he was sent to London to check out his former colonial masters. He liked the down town but preferred the countryside. They looked like Ishwadri or Paksey with their dotting of British buildings. He liked the place so he liked little British girls. Why not? They helped him with his English. On the bank of River Thames facing the London Eye he didn't forget to kiss the pink cheeks of the little Briton in ponytails who held his hand and danced along the river.
I decided to discipline this mischievous Casanova, but my father burst into laughter upon hearing his escapades. "Your grandpa was fascinated with the mujras of Lucknow, I used to chat with girls in Calcatta. I don't know much about the colours of your life but Midra definitely has the spirit to conquer," he said, obviously enjoying my discomfort.
I gave up any hope of bringing order into his life. Once back in Dhaka he refused to be around, went on hunger strikes for study strikes. All my plans to settle him down in Dhaka failed. No bribe worked, neither Fantasy Kingdom nor Star Cine Complex. At the age of seven he was equipped with the charms of the west and the deep-rooted fascination for his small-town ancestors. We tried to handle this little charmer with the help of my friend's dazzling Dhaka daughter, an English-medium, six-year-old ulala star, Rodushi. We should have known better. Midra preferred either his wheat-skinned girlfriend Sadia from Ishwardi or the pink-cheeked Margaret. His bold declaration of Independence: "I want to stay in Ishwardi, then I will go to London and quite often visit my grandparents. But no Dhaka, not Dhaka, Dhaka, no way."
(end)
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
Sheikh Hasina wins victory against corruption trial
Ex-Bangladesh PM wins victory against corruption trial
February 6, 2008
DHAKA (AFP) — Detained former Bangladeshi premier Sheikh Hasina Wajed scored a victory against the army-backed government Wednesday with a court ruling that she could not be tried for corruption under emergency laws.
The former premier, who led the country from 1996 to 2001, is one of around 150 high-profile figures arrested as part of an anti-graft drive by the emergency government, which took office in January 2007.
She is being tried by a special fast-track court, but the High Court in Dhaka said this was illegal -- effectively throwing into doubt all other completed or pending corruption cases pushed by the authorities.
"The High Court has also quashed the case against Hasina. The judgement has established the rule of law, supremacy of the constitution and the supremacy of the human rights in the country," her chief lawyer Rafiq-ul-Haque said.
"It's a historic judgement. It will benefit hundreds of thousands of victims put to jail under the emergency laws," he said.
But Kamrul Islam, her other lawyer, said the victory would be short-lived, with the government set to take the matter to the Supreme Court -- a body that has in the past sided with the authorities.
"We will fight in the Supreme Court, although we have very dim hope for a positive verdict. In the past, the Supreme Court's appellate division has overturned all the High Court verdicts in favour of the government," he said.
Sheikh Hasina, the leader of the Awami League party, went on trial for corruption late last month, facing accusations that she extorted 435,000 dollars from a power company owner.
She has denied the charges, arguing that the military-backed emergency government was merely trying to destroy her political career.
Hasina faces a maximum 14 years in jail if convicted. The trial is expected to be concluded within the next two months, as stipulated by the country's emergency rules.
Khaleda Zia, the country's last elected premier, is also in detention on graft charges. She and Sheikh Hasina are bitter rivals, and have been blamed for 16 years of misrule and rampant corruption.
The country has been under emergency rule since January 11 last year, when polls were cancelled after months of violence over vote-rigging allegations made by the Awami League against Zia's Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP).
February 6, 2008
DHAKA (AFP) — Detained former Bangladeshi premier Sheikh Hasina Wajed scored a victory against the army-backed government Wednesday with a court ruling that she could not be tried for corruption under emergency laws.
The former premier, who led the country from 1996 to 2001, is one of around 150 high-profile figures arrested as part of an anti-graft drive by the emergency government, which took office in January 2007.
She is being tried by a special fast-track court, but the High Court in Dhaka said this was illegal -- effectively throwing into doubt all other completed or pending corruption cases pushed by the authorities.
"The High Court has also quashed the case against Hasina. The judgement has established the rule of law, supremacy of the constitution and the supremacy of the human rights in the country," her chief lawyer Rafiq-ul-Haque said.
"It's a historic judgement. It will benefit hundreds of thousands of victims put to jail under the emergency laws," he said.
But Kamrul Islam, her other lawyer, said the victory would be short-lived, with the government set to take the matter to the Supreme Court -- a body that has in the past sided with the authorities.
"We will fight in the Supreme Court, although we have very dim hope for a positive verdict. In the past, the Supreme Court's appellate division has overturned all the High Court verdicts in favour of the government," he said.
Sheikh Hasina, the leader of the Awami League party, went on trial for corruption late last month, facing accusations that she extorted 435,000 dollars from a power company owner.
She has denied the charges, arguing that the military-backed emergency government was merely trying to destroy her political career.
Hasina faces a maximum 14 years in jail if convicted. The trial is expected to be concluded within the next two months, as stipulated by the country's emergency rules.
Khaleda Zia, the country's last elected premier, is also in detention on graft charges. She and Sheikh Hasina are bitter rivals, and have been blamed for 16 years of misrule and rampant corruption.
The country has been under emergency rule since January 11 last year, when polls were cancelled after months of violence over vote-rigging allegations made by the Awami League against Zia's Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP).
Press Freedom in Bangladesh
Bangladesh - Annual report 2008
Source: Reporters Without Borders
February 8, 2008
There was a sharp decrease in the number of journalists physically attacked or receiving death threats from political militants and criminals. On the other hand, arrests increased markedly, with almost 40 cases in 2007. And the army, the real power in the country, committed serious press freedom violations aimed at silencing independent journalists. The government constantly stated that the media had a role to play in the fight against corruption and social injustice, but these good intentions were confounded and, in a new development, self-censorship began gradually to be applied to political issues. “Some asserted that the media was becoming the parliament in the absence of a government formed by elections. Others welcomed the emergence of a fourth estate. But one thing in the media was missing: critical articles on the current administration, clearly demonstrating the existence of censorship and self-censorship”, the Bangladesh Centre for Development, Journalism and Communication (BCDJC), a Reporters Without Borders partner organisation, said in one of its recent reports.
Censorship imposed at every political convulsion
A state of emergency was declared on 11 January and the country’s TV and radio were ordered to stop broadcasting their news programmes for two days. When the government faced student demonstrations at the end of August, it banned stations from broadcasting talk shows and political programmes. Army intelligence services officers summoned editorial heads and threatened them with draconian criminal proceeding, including under Article 5 of the State of Emergency Regulations. CSB News and Ekushey TV were ordered by the Press Information Department not to broadcast “provocative” reports and commentaries. A management figure at ATN Bangla told Reporters Without Borders, “The ban on talk shows is a disaster. While there is no parliament, political broadcasts are the best way for citizens to comment on the government’s decisions.”
Privately-owned television stations, which enjoy growing popularity in the country, were the main target of crackdowns. The government in September ordered the suspension of CSB News whose management had allegedly forged a document to obtain a frequency in October 2006, and police closed the station, but the decision was probably linked to the broadcast of footage of opposition demonstrations, in defiance of warnings from the authorities. According to the Daily Star, members of the government even accused the station of inciting students to demonstrate in Dhaka.
The written press did its best to resist pressure from the authorities. Mahfuz Anam, editor of the privately-owned Daily Star, said in an editorial in January, “As long as we have not received a written order from the government, we will consider them illegal (...) Friends of democracy never silence the press, it is only done by dictators. The people of Bangladesh will never accept dictators”. But in September, the management of Prothom Alo was forced to apologise and to sack the deputy editor of its humoristic supplement, Aalpin, under pressure from conservative clergy after cartoonist Arifur Rahman drew a sketch which included wordplay on the name Mohammed, gently poking fun at the habit of people in some Muslim countries of putting the name Mohammed before their usual name. Police arrested him and seized all copies of the magazine, which was accused of “hurting the people’s religious sentiment”. The copies were ritually burned in front of one of the capital’s mosques.
During the year, privately-owned dailies, such as Prothom Alo, Inqilab, Amader Shomoy, Jugantor, Daily Star and Shamokal were also victims of judicial harassment. The newspapers had to employ a large number of lawyers to keep their editors and journalist out of prison in the face of around 100 defamation suits.
Journalists tortured by members of the military
Several journalists were tortured for investigating the security forces. Tasneem Khalil, journalist and blogger (tasneemkhalil.com), was detained and tortured in May after openly criticising the army for the spread of extra-judicial killings. The Human Rights Watch consultant and contributor to CNN was forced to flee the country. Jahangir Alam Akash, correspondent for the newspaper Sangbad, and for CSB News and German radio Deutsche Welle in Rajshahi, who had been investigating the ‘execution’ by the army of a student leader, was arrested by soldiers on 24 October. He was released on bail on 19 November and spoke about the hell he had lived through at an army camp. “Officers and soldiers tortured me for several hours: electric shocks, blows to my legs. I couldn’t walk for a week,” he said.
Police, acting under emergency laws, arrested two journalists in March in Moulvibazar in the north-east, after local politicians laid a defamation case against him. A correspondent for the Daily Star, Asduzzaman Tipu, spent one month in prison after being falsely accused of extortion.
No fewer than 15 journalists were arrested on the same evening when a curfew was imposed in August and around 30 others were beaten by police and soldiers deployed in the capital. The chief news editor of the privately-owned Baishakhi TV, Anis Alamgir, was beaten up by soldiers, while a photographer with the daily Dinkal was seriously injured by police. The authorities apologised by nobody was punished for the assaults.
On the other hand, the anti-crime struggle allowed the arrest of suspects in the murders of journalist Gautam Das in 2005 and of Shamsur Rhaman in 2000. And several politicians, including Shahidul Islam, former member of Parliament from the Kushtia region, responsible for attacks on journalists in 2006, were taken into custody.
Although weakened, Jihadist groups continued to threaten journalists. An Islamist group threatened an attack on the Jatiya press club in May and in April extremists sent a letter containing death threats to a journalist on the daily Bhorer Kagoj, in Chittagong in the south-east of the country.
Finally, even though no journalist was killed for their work in 2007, the authorities did not fully clear up the circumstances of the death in March of Jamal Uddin, correspondent for the news agency Abas and local newspaper Dainik Giri Darpan, in Rangamati in the south-east, whom the authorities said had committed suicide. The president of the Rangamati press club said the journalist’s body bore marks of blows all over his body, which had been found lying at the foot of a tree, with a rope around his neck.
Source: Reporters Without Borders
February 8, 2008
There was a sharp decrease in the number of journalists physically attacked or receiving death threats from political militants and criminals. On the other hand, arrests increased markedly, with almost 40 cases in 2007. And the army, the real power in the country, committed serious press freedom violations aimed at silencing independent journalists. The government constantly stated that the media had a role to play in the fight against corruption and social injustice, but these good intentions were confounded and, in a new development, self-censorship began gradually to be applied to political issues. “Some asserted that the media was becoming the parliament in the absence of a government formed by elections. Others welcomed the emergence of a fourth estate. But one thing in the media was missing: critical articles on the current administration, clearly demonstrating the existence of censorship and self-censorship”, the Bangladesh Centre for Development, Journalism and Communication (BCDJC), a Reporters Without Borders partner organisation, said in one of its recent reports.
Censorship imposed at every political convulsion
A state of emergency was declared on 11 January and the country’s TV and radio were ordered to stop broadcasting their news programmes for two days. When the government faced student demonstrations at the end of August, it banned stations from broadcasting talk shows and political programmes. Army intelligence services officers summoned editorial heads and threatened them with draconian criminal proceeding, including under Article 5 of the State of Emergency Regulations. CSB News and Ekushey TV were ordered by the Press Information Department not to broadcast “provocative” reports and commentaries. A management figure at ATN Bangla told Reporters Without Borders, “The ban on talk shows is a disaster. While there is no parliament, political broadcasts are the best way for citizens to comment on the government’s decisions.”
Privately-owned television stations, which enjoy growing popularity in the country, were the main target of crackdowns. The government in September ordered the suspension of CSB News whose management had allegedly forged a document to obtain a frequency in October 2006, and police closed the station, but the decision was probably linked to the broadcast of footage of opposition demonstrations, in defiance of warnings from the authorities. According to the Daily Star, members of the government even accused the station of inciting students to demonstrate in Dhaka.
The written press did its best to resist pressure from the authorities. Mahfuz Anam, editor of the privately-owned Daily Star, said in an editorial in January, “As long as we have not received a written order from the government, we will consider them illegal (...) Friends of democracy never silence the press, it is only done by dictators. The people of Bangladesh will never accept dictators”. But in September, the management of Prothom Alo was forced to apologise and to sack the deputy editor of its humoristic supplement, Aalpin, under pressure from conservative clergy after cartoonist Arifur Rahman drew a sketch which included wordplay on the name Mohammed, gently poking fun at the habit of people in some Muslim countries of putting the name Mohammed before their usual name. Police arrested him and seized all copies of the magazine, which was accused of “hurting the people’s religious sentiment”. The copies were ritually burned in front of one of the capital’s mosques.
During the year, privately-owned dailies, such as Prothom Alo, Inqilab, Amader Shomoy, Jugantor, Daily Star and Shamokal were also victims of judicial harassment. The newspapers had to employ a large number of lawyers to keep their editors and journalist out of prison in the face of around 100 defamation suits.
Journalists tortured by members of the military
Several journalists were tortured for investigating the security forces. Tasneem Khalil, journalist and blogger (tasneemkhalil.com), was detained and tortured in May after openly criticising the army for the spread of extra-judicial killings. The Human Rights Watch consultant and contributor to CNN was forced to flee the country. Jahangir Alam Akash, correspondent for the newspaper Sangbad, and for CSB News and German radio Deutsche Welle in Rajshahi, who had been investigating the ‘execution’ by the army of a student leader, was arrested by soldiers on 24 October. He was released on bail on 19 November and spoke about the hell he had lived through at an army camp. “Officers and soldiers tortured me for several hours: electric shocks, blows to my legs. I couldn’t walk for a week,” he said.
Police, acting under emergency laws, arrested two journalists in March in Moulvibazar in the north-east, after local politicians laid a defamation case against him. A correspondent for the Daily Star, Asduzzaman Tipu, spent one month in prison after being falsely accused of extortion.
No fewer than 15 journalists were arrested on the same evening when a curfew was imposed in August and around 30 others were beaten by police and soldiers deployed in the capital. The chief news editor of the privately-owned Baishakhi TV, Anis Alamgir, was beaten up by soldiers, while a photographer with the daily Dinkal was seriously injured by police. The authorities apologised by nobody was punished for the assaults.
On the other hand, the anti-crime struggle allowed the arrest of suspects in the murders of journalist Gautam Das in 2005 and of Shamsur Rhaman in 2000. And several politicians, including Shahidul Islam, former member of Parliament from the Kushtia region, responsible for attacks on journalists in 2006, were taken into custody.
Although weakened, Jihadist groups continued to threaten journalists. An Islamist group threatened an attack on the Jatiya press club in May and in April extremists sent a letter containing death threats to a journalist on the daily Bhorer Kagoj, in Chittagong in the south-east of the country.
Finally, even though no journalist was killed for their work in 2007, the authorities did not fully clear up the circumstances of the death in March of Jamal Uddin, correspondent for the news agency Abas and local newspaper Dainik Giri Darpan, in Rangamati in the south-east, whom the authorities said had committed suicide. The president of the Rangamati press club said the journalist’s body bore marks of blows all over his body, which had been found lying at the foot of a tree, with a rope around his neck.
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Attacks on the Press in Bangladesh 2007
Attacks on the Press in 2007
Bangladesh in the World Report
Source: Committee to Protect Journalists
Despite stated commitments to democratic reform and media freedom, Bangladesh’s military-backed government dealt a series of crippling blows to what had been one of the freest presses in Asia. Operating under an official state of emergency and faced with a series of written orders and verbal directives governing media coverage, a famously voluble press corps grew increasingly muted.
On January 11, in response to mounting political violence and unrest, President Iajuddin Ahmed declared a state of emergency, announced an indefinite postponement of the parliamentary elections due later that month, and stepped down as head of the caretaker government charged with administering the polls. The next day, Fakhruddin Ahmed, a former central bank governor and World Bank official, was appointed to head a new interim administration.
The Bangladeshi media generally were circumspect in discussing the precise role of the military in the transition, but the international press was free to be more forthright. In an article headlined “The coup that dare not speak its name,” The Economist noted that, “the army, in the tradition of guardian coups’ from Fiji to Thailand, has stepped in with the usual list of apparently noble goals” ?to ensure credible elections, fight corruption, and hold down food prices. “Although the state of emergency has supporters even among some liberal democrats, it is a high-stakes gamble,” the London-based weekly concluded.
The abrupt transfer of power, which Bangladeshis referred to as the events of 1/11, bore many of the hallmarks of a coup. On orders from the official Press Information Department (PID), private television stations immediately suspended independent news programming and instead carried broadcasts provided by state-run Bangladesh Television. Officials warned senior journalists and editors to exercise caution in their reporting and not to publish any news critical of the government. Journalists received verbal instructions from the PID that they should consult Inter-Service Public Relations—the office that serves the Ministry of Defense, the army, and other security branches—before publishing any news about the armed forces.
Two weeks after the emergency was first announced, the new caretaker government spelled out its intentions in the sweeping Emergency Powers Rules of 2007. The regulations, which remain in effect, are largely aimed at curbing political and trade union activities, but they also allow the government to censor news deemed “provocative,” seize publications, and confiscate printing presses and broadcast equipment. Those violating the restrictions face up to five years in prison.
Over the course of the year, as many as 200,000 people were arrested under the state of emergency, according to local and international human rights organizations. While most of those detained were accused of criminal activities, the arrests were often arbitrary and without adequate judicial oversight. Under the emergency laws, the right to appeal and recourse to bail were routinely denied.
Among those swept up in the anticorruption drive were some of the country’s leading politicians—including two former prime ministers—as well as powerful media executives. Local journalists told CPJ that the arrests of media executives, who often had complex business and political dealings, were generally not considered to be press freedom cases. However, their arrests effectively weakened major media outlets by cutting off their primary source of financial support.
The anticorruption drive did provide the pretext for targeting some influential journalists, most notably in the case of Atiqullah Khan Masud, editor and publisher of the popular Bengali-language daily Janakantha. In a striking show of force, on March 7, more than 200 army and police personnel raided the newspaper’s offices to arrest Khan Masud. Police accused him of corruption, criminal activities, and “tarnishing the country’s image abroad” through his paper’s reporting, according to local news reports. Janakantha was one of the few newspapers to openly question the military’s involvement in the caretaker government.
The broad powers exercised by the security forces also led to serious abuses. On May 11, journalist and human rights activist Tasneem Khalil was taken into custody after midnight by men in plain clothes claiming to be members of Bangladesh’s “joint task force.” The men blindfolded him and took him to an interrogation center later identified as an extension of the military intelligence headquarters in Dhaka, according to Human Rights Watch (HRW). Khalil was tortured and questioned about his work as a journalist, which included reporting for the Daily Star newspaper and CNN, his personal blog, and his research for a 2006 HRW report on torture and extrajudicial killings by members of the security forces. The organization reported that Khalil was forced to make false confessions, both in writing and on video, admitting to acts that could be considered treasonous. At one point, he was photographed with a revolver and some bullets placed before him, suggesting that he was being framed as a criminal and was at risk of being killed in custody, according to HRW. Khalil was released after 22 hours in custody following intense advocacy efforts.
The cases of Atiqullah Khan Masud and Tasneem Khalil were in many ways exceptional, but they provided stark reminders to journalists that they had few protections under the terms of emergency rule. Far more common than arrest or torture were the frequent verbal warnings from officials, including members of military intelligence. “They try to make us understand that they are watching us,” one journalist told CPJ.
Journalists working outside the capital, Dhaka, were even more vulnerable to threats and harassment by members of the local administration and security forces. Daily Star reporter E. A. M. Asaduzzaman Tipu was arrested on March 21 in the northern district of Nilphamari after reporting on the local government’s handling of fertilizer distribution in the area. He was detained for nearly a week on false accusations of extortion. Jahangir Alam Akash, a reporter in the northwestern city of Rajshahi for the television news channel CSB, told CPJ in May that he received death threats from a major with the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) for his reporting on a raid in which the suspect was shot and wounded. In October, Akash was arrested and beaten in custody, according to his wife, after a local political figure believed to be assisting the RAB accused him of extortion. Local journalists told CPJ that Akash was being targeted for his journalistic work and that he had committed no crime.
The national media faced a major crisis in August, when the government and security forces attempted to restrict news coverage of growing student unrest. Security forces assaulted and detained dozens of journalists reporting on the enforcement of a curfew and on clashes between the police and students calling for an end to emergency rule. In a pointed appeal to broadcasters, Information Adviser Mainul Hosein said, “We request channels to stop televising footage of violence until further notice because this might instigate further violence,” according to the BBC. Private television channels in Bangladesh abruptly stopped carrying reports about the street demonstrations and suspended political discussion programs. On August 23, two private television channels—CSB and Ekushey Television—received a written notice from the PID warning them not to broadcast “provocative” news.
Within weeks of that warning, on September 6, authorities took CSB off the air on allegations that the company had forged a document authorizing its frequency allocation. CSB, the country’s first private 24-hour news channel, announced its closure in October.
The government allowed the broadcast media to resume talk shows only in mid-September, after senior journalists repeatedly appealed to authorities to be permitted to air discussions on other matters of crucial public interest—including the devastating floods that submerged half of the country and displaced more than nine million people, according to U.N. estimates. On September 17, Hosein summoned TV executives to his office and handed them “informal guidelines” to govern talk shows. The written guidelines, which were not printed on official letterhead and carried no signature, included detailed rules specifying that talk shows must be edited and could not be aired live, that phone-ins and interactive discussions were banned, and that “statements that can create resentment towards the legitimate government of Bangladesh should also be avoided,” according to a report published by the newspaper New Age.
The government did not directly impose prior censorship of the local print media, but authorities literally ripped out politically sensitive news articles from Himal Southasian, an English-language political monthly published in Kathmandu, and The Economist before the magazines were distributed. In both cases, the articles remained accessible online.
Islamist groups demonstrated their still considerable power in September, when they exploited a controversy surrounding the publication of a cartoon that included a play on the use of the name Muhammad. The cartoon, published in the satirical supplement of the country’s largest-circulation daily, Prothom Alo, featured a small boy referring to his pet as “Muhammad Cat” after being told it was customary to put Muhammad before one’s given name. The newspaper fired the cartoonist and the subeditor of the supplement and apologized repeatedly for causing offense. Dhaka police arrested the cartoonist, Arifur Rahman, on September 17 under the provisions of Section 54 of Bangladesh’s Criminal Procedure Code, according to the Daily Star newspaper. Human rights groups say Section 54 gives the police broad powers to make arrests without a warrant. Islamist groups were not appeased and staged a series of street demonstrations—despite the ban on public protests—calling for the newspaper to be shut down altogether.
While Prothom Alo managed to survive the episode, the fact that the country’s most powerful daily could be brought to its knees sent a sobering message to the secular press. In October, an imam filed a court case in Jessore, about 170 miles (274 kilometers) west of the capital, against Prothom Alo’s publisher, its editor, and the cartoonist Rahman, accusing the three of “sacrilege,” according to the news agency United News of Bangladesh. The magistrate hearing the case authorized Rahman’s arrest and ordered the newspaper’s publisher and editor to appear before the court in early 2008. Rahman remained in prison when CPJ conducted its annual census of imprisoned journalists on December 1.
Bangladesh in the World Report
Source: Committee to Protect Journalists
Despite stated commitments to democratic reform and media freedom, Bangladesh’s military-backed government dealt a series of crippling blows to what had been one of the freest presses in Asia. Operating under an official state of emergency and faced with a series of written orders and verbal directives governing media coverage, a famously voluble press corps grew increasingly muted.
On January 11, in response to mounting political violence and unrest, President Iajuddin Ahmed declared a state of emergency, announced an indefinite postponement of the parliamentary elections due later that month, and stepped down as head of the caretaker government charged with administering the polls. The next day, Fakhruddin Ahmed, a former central bank governor and World Bank official, was appointed to head a new interim administration.
The Bangladeshi media generally were circumspect in discussing the precise role of the military in the transition, but the international press was free to be more forthright. In an article headlined “The coup that dare not speak its name,” The Economist noted that, “the army, in the tradition of guardian coups’ from Fiji to Thailand, has stepped in with the usual list of apparently noble goals” ?to ensure credible elections, fight corruption, and hold down food prices. “Although the state of emergency has supporters even among some liberal democrats, it is a high-stakes gamble,” the London-based weekly concluded.
The abrupt transfer of power, which Bangladeshis referred to as the events of 1/11, bore many of the hallmarks of a coup. On orders from the official Press Information Department (PID), private television stations immediately suspended independent news programming and instead carried broadcasts provided by state-run Bangladesh Television. Officials warned senior journalists and editors to exercise caution in their reporting and not to publish any news critical of the government. Journalists received verbal instructions from the PID that they should consult Inter-Service Public Relations—the office that serves the Ministry of Defense, the army, and other security branches—before publishing any news about the armed forces.
Two weeks after the emergency was first announced, the new caretaker government spelled out its intentions in the sweeping Emergency Powers Rules of 2007. The regulations, which remain in effect, are largely aimed at curbing political and trade union activities, but they also allow the government to censor news deemed “provocative,” seize publications, and confiscate printing presses and broadcast equipment. Those violating the restrictions face up to five years in prison.
Over the course of the year, as many as 200,000 people were arrested under the state of emergency, according to local and international human rights organizations. While most of those detained were accused of criminal activities, the arrests were often arbitrary and without adequate judicial oversight. Under the emergency laws, the right to appeal and recourse to bail were routinely denied.
Among those swept up in the anticorruption drive were some of the country’s leading politicians—including two former prime ministers—as well as powerful media executives. Local journalists told CPJ that the arrests of media executives, who often had complex business and political dealings, were generally not considered to be press freedom cases. However, their arrests effectively weakened major media outlets by cutting off their primary source of financial support.
The anticorruption drive did provide the pretext for targeting some influential journalists, most notably in the case of Atiqullah Khan Masud, editor and publisher of the popular Bengali-language daily Janakantha. In a striking show of force, on March 7, more than 200 army and police personnel raided the newspaper’s offices to arrest Khan Masud. Police accused him of corruption, criminal activities, and “tarnishing the country’s image abroad” through his paper’s reporting, according to local news reports. Janakantha was one of the few newspapers to openly question the military’s involvement in the caretaker government.
The broad powers exercised by the security forces also led to serious abuses. On May 11, journalist and human rights activist Tasneem Khalil was taken into custody after midnight by men in plain clothes claiming to be members of Bangladesh’s “joint task force.” The men blindfolded him and took him to an interrogation center later identified as an extension of the military intelligence headquarters in Dhaka, according to Human Rights Watch (HRW). Khalil was tortured and questioned about his work as a journalist, which included reporting for the Daily Star newspaper and CNN, his personal blog, and his research for a 2006 HRW report on torture and extrajudicial killings by members of the security forces. The organization reported that Khalil was forced to make false confessions, both in writing and on video, admitting to acts that could be considered treasonous. At one point, he was photographed with a revolver and some bullets placed before him, suggesting that he was being framed as a criminal and was at risk of being killed in custody, according to HRW. Khalil was released after 22 hours in custody following intense advocacy efforts.
The cases of Atiqullah Khan Masud and Tasneem Khalil were in many ways exceptional, but they provided stark reminders to journalists that they had few protections under the terms of emergency rule. Far more common than arrest or torture were the frequent verbal warnings from officials, including members of military intelligence. “They try to make us understand that they are watching us,” one journalist told CPJ.
Journalists working outside the capital, Dhaka, were even more vulnerable to threats and harassment by members of the local administration and security forces. Daily Star reporter E. A. M. Asaduzzaman Tipu was arrested on March 21 in the northern district of Nilphamari after reporting on the local government’s handling of fertilizer distribution in the area. He was detained for nearly a week on false accusations of extortion. Jahangir Alam Akash, a reporter in the northwestern city of Rajshahi for the television news channel CSB, told CPJ in May that he received death threats from a major with the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) for his reporting on a raid in which the suspect was shot and wounded. In October, Akash was arrested and beaten in custody, according to his wife, after a local political figure believed to be assisting the RAB accused him of extortion. Local journalists told CPJ that Akash was being targeted for his journalistic work and that he had committed no crime.
The national media faced a major crisis in August, when the government and security forces attempted to restrict news coverage of growing student unrest. Security forces assaulted and detained dozens of journalists reporting on the enforcement of a curfew and on clashes between the police and students calling for an end to emergency rule. In a pointed appeal to broadcasters, Information Adviser Mainul Hosein said, “We request channels to stop televising footage of violence until further notice because this might instigate further violence,” according to the BBC. Private television channels in Bangladesh abruptly stopped carrying reports about the street demonstrations and suspended political discussion programs. On August 23, two private television channels—CSB and Ekushey Television—received a written notice from the PID warning them not to broadcast “provocative” news.
Within weeks of that warning, on September 6, authorities took CSB off the air on allegations that the company had forged a document authorizing its frequency allocation. CSB, the country’s first private 24-hour news channel, announced its closure in October.
The government allowed the broadcast media to resume talk shows only in mid-September, after senior journalists repeatedly appealed to authorities to be permitted to air discussions on other matters of crucial public interest—including the devastating floods that submerged half of the country and displaced more than nine million people, according to U.N. estimates. On September 17, Hosein summoned TV executives to his office and handed them “informal guidelines” to govern talk shows. The written guidelines, which were not printed on official letterhead and carried no signature, included detailed rules specifying that talk shows must be edited and could not be aired live, that phone-ins and interactive discussions were banned, and that “statements that can create resentment towards the legitimate government of Bangladesh should also be avoided,” according to a report published by the newspaper New Age.
The government did not directly impose prior censorship of the local print media, but authorities literally ripped out politically sensitive news articles from Himal Southasian, an English-language political monthly published in Kathmandu, and The Economist before the magazines were distributed. In both cases, the articles remained accessible online.
Islamist groups demonstrated their still considerable power in September, when they exploited a controversy surrounding the publication of a cartoon that included a play on the use of the name Muhammad. The cartoon, published in the satirical supplement of the country’s largest-circulation daily, Prothom Alo, featured a small boy referring to his pet as “Muhammad Cat” after being told it was customary to put Muhammad before one’s given name. The newspaper fired the cartoonist and the subeditor of the supplement and apologized repeatedly for causing offense. Dhaka police arrested the cartoonist, Arifur Rahman, on September 17 under the provisions of Section 54 of Bangladesh’s Criminal Procedure Code, according to the Daily Star newspaper. Human rights groups say Section 54 gives the police broad powers to make arrests without a warrant. Islamist groups were not appeased and staged a series of street demonstrations—despite the ban on public protests—calling for the newspaper to be shut down altogether.
While Prothom Alo managed to survive the episode, the fact that the country’s most powerful daily could be brought to its knees sent a sobering message to the secular press. In October, an imam filed a court case in Jessore, about 170 miles (274 kilometers) west of the capital, against Prothom Alo’s publisher, its editor, and the cartoonist Rahman, accusing the three of “sacrilege,” according to the news agency United News of Bangladesh. The magistrate hearing the case authorized Rahman’s arrest and ordered the newspaper’s publisher and editor to appear before the court in early 2008. Rahman remained in prison when CPJ conducted its annual census of imprisoned journalists on December 1.
Media censorship in Bangladesh
No logic in forcing media self-censorship
RATER ZONAKI
February 04, 2008
Source: UPI Asia Online
Bangladesh's Ministry of Information denies that the government is officially censoring the media, despite reports from some media that they have been ordered to shut down. "The media might have been advised to practice self-censorship, as the country is under a state of emergency," the ministry's secretary, Jamil Osman, was quoted as saying in a national daily newspaper on Jan. 26. Osman denied that the ministry had issued letters ordering two television stations to stop certain programming. Still, he said, "considering the emergency period, I think imposing self-censorship is logical."
The newspaper interviewed Osman after a letter was sent to a private television channel asking it to stop broadcasting its live talk show programs, which allowed viewers to telephone in and voice their opinions on socio-economic and political issues affecting the country.
According to published reports, on Jan. 24 Ekushey Television received by fax a letter on plain paper asking the private satellite channel to stop two of its live talk show programs, called "Ekushey Shomoy" and "Ekusheyer Raat." Both programs included questions and comments from viewers as part of their program format.
On the same day a similar letter was faxed to another private satellite TV station, Channel-1, insisting that it cancel viewers' participation through telephone calls to a talk show called "Nirbachito Khabor." The BBC also reportedly received a letter instructing it to air only recorded talk shows, rather than live ones.
Subsequently, Ekushey TV stopped its two talk show programs and Channel-1 curtailed the phone-in portion of "Nirbachito Khabor," or selected news.
This type of plain-paper directive, sent from a government office but without any letterhead, is a new approach by the military-backed government. Needless to say it is a hypocritical strategy by which the rulers hope to control the media while denying they are doing so.
At the same time, it raises a few questions about the intelligence and the morality of the government. Why would the information secretary pretend to be uninformed about such letters, when three different media reported receiving similar letters from the government? Why does the government object to people's participation in media programs? What's wrong if the people express their views? Why is the government afraid of the people? How does it benefit by suppressing the media?
On one hand, the government has already broken the backbone of the media industry by forcing the closure of newspapers and television channels. It has caused massive unemployment among journalists and those in media-related occupations as well.
On the other hand, the citizens that have been suffering from financial hardships due to inflation above 11 percent in one year, especially those that can barely afford the necessities of life, can hardly contain their frustrations. They need channels to express themselves or there may be a public outburst.
Should not the media provide such channels for the expression of public opinion? Should not the people's pain be known to the nation? Is it logical to suppress these channels?
Military-backed governments are, by nature, detached from the people, as their power is based on arms and ammunition. Yet once again, Bangladesh's present government has clarified that public opinion is stronger than ammunition. That's why it is afraid of the media that reflects and represents the opinions of the common people.
The government should realize that its own deeds are producing an environment of fear and creating threats against itself. Neither the people nor the media are objects to be feared. Imposing self-censorship on the media is a form of repression, as the people of Bangladesh have been experiencing for one year. There is no logic in this at all.
(Rater Zonaki is the pseudonym of a human rights defender based in Hong Kong, working at the Asian Human Rights Commission. He is a Bangladeshi national with a degree in literature from a university in Dhaka. He began his career as a journalist in 1990 and engaged in human rights activism at the grassroots level in his country for more than a decade. He also worked as an editor for publications on human rights and socio-cultural issues and contributed to other similar publications.)
RATER ZONAKI
February 04, 2008
Source: UPI Asia Online
Bangladesh's Ministry of Information denies that the government is officially censoring the media, despite reports from some media that they have been ordered to shut down. "The media might have been advised to practice self-censorship, as the country is under a state of emergency," the ministry's secretary, Jamil Osman, was quoted as saying in a national daily newspaper on Jan. 26. Osman denied that the ministry had issued letters ordering two television stations to stop certain programming. Still, he said, "considering the emergency period, I think imposing self-censorship is logical."
The newspaper interviewed Osman after a letter was sent to a private television channel asking it to stop broadcasting its live talk show programs, which allowed viewers to telephone in and voice their opinions on socio-economic and political issues affecting the country.
According to published reports, on Jan. 24 Ekushey Television received by fax a letter on plain paper asking the private satellite channel to stop two of its live talk show programs, called "Ekushey Shomoy" and "Ekusheyer Raat." Both programs included questions and comments from viewers as part of their program format.
On the same day a similar letter was faxed to another private satellite TV station, Channel-1, insisting that it cancel viewers' participation through telephone calls to a talk show called "Nirbachito Khabor." The BBC also reportedly received a letter instructing it to air only recorded talk shows, rather than live ones.
Subsequently, Ekushey TV stopped its two talk show programs and Channel-1 curtailed the phone-in portion of "Nirbachito Khabor," or selected news.
This type of plain-paper directive, sent from a government office but without any letterhead, is a new approach by the military-backed government. Needless to say it is a hypocritical strategy by which the rulers hope to control the media while denying they are doing so.
At the same time, it raises a few questions about the intelligence and the morality of the government. Why would the information secretary pretend to be uninformed about such letters, when three different media reported receiving similar letters from the government? Why does the government object to people's participation in media programs? What's wrong if the people express their views? Why is the government afraid of the people? How does it benefit by suppressing the media?
On one hand, the government has already broken the backbone of the media industry by forcing the closure of newspapers and television channels. It has caused massive unemployment among journalists and those in media-related occupations as well.
On the other hand, the citizens that have been suffering from financial hardships due to inflation above 11 percent in one year, especially those that can barely afford the necessities of life, can hardly contain their frustrations. They need channels to express themselves or there may be a public outburst.
Should not the media provide such channels for the expression of public opinion? Should not the people's pain be known to the nation? Is it logical to suppress these channels?
Military-backed governments are, by nature, detached from the people, as their power is based on arms and ammunition. Yet once again, Bangladesh's present government has clarified that public opinion is stronger than ammunition. That's why it is afraid of the media that reflects and represents the opinions of the common people.
The government should realize that its own deeds are producing an environment of fear and creating threats against itself. Neither the people nor the media are objects to be feared. Imposing self-censorship on the media is a form of repression, as the people of Bangladesh have been experiencing for one year. There is no logic in this at all.
(Rater Zonaki is the pseudonym of a human rights defender based in Hong Kong, working at the Asian Human Rights Commission. He is a Bangladeshi national with a degree in literature from a university in Dhaka. He began his career as a journalist in 1990 and engaged in human rights activism at the grassroots level in his country for more than a decade. He also worked as an editor for publications on human rights and socio-cultural issues and contributed to other similar publications.)
Monday, February 4, 2008
US asks govt to sit with political parties
US asks govt to sit with political parties
Dhaka, Feb 3 (bdnews24.com) – The United States Sunday urged the caretaker government to have talks with political parties and other stakeholders to hold the parliamentary polls by year-end.
The US also stressed implementation of the election roadmap for holding general elections. "(We) emphasise the importance of dialogue between the government, civil society, political parties, the private sector, and international partners," Donald Camp, the US principal deputy assistant secretary, told journalists after meeting foreign secretary Md Touhid Hossain in the city.
Camp, who came on a two-day visit to Bangladesh Sunday, had bilateral talks for about half an hour.
He is the senior most US official to have visited Bangladesh since the caretaker government assumed office in Jan last year.
"We support the caretaker government and stress the importance of implementation of the electoral roadmap," Camp said at the press briefing.
He was sanguine of the elections taking place on schedule to pave the way for power to be handed over to an elected government.
On whether the government should lift the state of emergency, Camp said, "Already some restrictions on political parties have been lifted. We will welcome if some more are lifted".
Camp is scheduled to hold talks with foreign affairs adviser Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury Monday.
Dhaka, Feb 3 (bdnews24.com) – The United States Sunday urged the caretaker government to have talks with political parties and other stakeholders to hold the parliamentary polls by year-end.
The US also stressed implementation of the election roadmap for holding general elections. "(We) emphasise the importance of dialogue between the government, civil society, political parties, the private sector, and international partners," Donald Camp, the US principal deputy assistant secretary, told journalists after meeting foreign secretary Md Touhid Hossain in the city.
Camp, who came on a two-day visit to Bangladesh Sunday, had bilateral talks for about half an hour.
He is the senior most US official to have visited Bangladesh since the caretaker government assumed office in Jan last year.
"We support the caretaker government and stress the importance of implementation of the electoral roadmap," Camp said at the press briefing.
He was sanguine of the elections taking place on schedule to pave the way for power to be handed over to an elected government.
On whether the government should lift the state of emergency, Camp said, "Already some restrictions on political parties have been lifted. We will welcome if some more are lifted".
Camp is scheduled to hold talks with foreign affairs adviser Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury Monday.
Mehedi Hasan Released
Read this e-mail notification by WRC:
Subject: Mehedi Hasan Released by Bangladesh Government
Dear Colleagues,
I am very happy to report that Mehedi Hasan was released on Sunday afternoon, Dhaka time. We have confirmed it directly with Mehedi himself. We also understand that the pending charges against him have been dropped; this is what the police have told Mehedi’s lawyer. Documents confirming this have not yet been received, however. We hope to know more soon about the government’s official position on the case and their intentions going forward. As you know, we have also been very concerned about how Mehedi was being treated in custody; we are awaiting information on this question.
We want to thank all of you for your efforts on this. Unquestionably, it was the pressure from foreign governments, buyers, and NGOS both in Bangladesh and around the world that secured Mehedi’s release. Your help is deeply appreciated.
As we know you are all aware, there are other labor rights advocates and worker leaders in Bangladesh who have been arrested and/or are facing unfair charges similar to those to which Mehedi was to be subjected. Police and judicial procedures under the state of emergency raise grave doubts about whether any of these cases will be adjudicated justly. There is also the ongoing problem of the government’s broader effort to repress labor rights advocacy and the exercise of associational rights by Bangadeshi workers. It is our hope that the energy mobilized on Mehedi’s behalf, which has been so effective in securing his release, can be maintained and directed toward the broader goal of protecting labor rights advocates and worker representatives throughout Bangladesh . We look forward to working with you toward that goal.
Please contact us if you have questions about this update. We will provide more information about the status of Mehedi’s case as we receive it.
Thank you again for your timely and effective action.
Best,
Scott Nova
Jeremy Blasi
Scott Nova
Worker Rights Consortium
5 Thomas Circle, NW
Washington, DC 20005
(202) 387-4884
nova@workersrights.org
www.workersrights.org
Subject: Mehedi Hasan Released by Bangladesh Government
Dear Colleagues,
I am very happy to report that Mehedi Hasan was released on Sunday afternoon, Dhaka time. We have confirmed it directly with Mehedi himself. We also understand that the pending charges against him have been dropped; this is what the police have told Mehedi’s lawyer. Documents confirming this have not yet been received, however. We hope to know more soon about the government’s official position on the case and their intentions going forward. As you know, we have also been very concerned about how Mehedi was being treated in custody; we are awaiting information on this question.
We want to thank all of you for your efforts on this. Unquestionably, it was the pressure from foreign governments, buyers, and NGOS both in Bangladesh and around the world that secured Mehedi’s release. Your help is deeply appreciated.
As we know you are all aware, there are other labor rights advocates and worker leaders in Bangladesh who have been arrested and/or are facing unfair charges similar to those to which Mehedi was to be subjected. Police and judicial procedures under the state of emergency raise grave doubts about whether any of these cases will be adjudicated justly. There is also the ongoing problem of the government’s broader effort to repress labor rights advocacy and the exercise of associational rights by Bangadeshi workers. It is our hope that the energy mobilized on Mehedi’s behalf, which has been so effective in securing his release, can be maintained and directed toward the broader goal of protecting labor rights advocates and worker representatives throughout Bangladesh . We look forward to working with you toward that goal.
Please contact us if you have questions about this update. We will provide more information about the status of Mehedi’s case as we receive it.
Thank you again for your timely and effective action.
Best,
Scott Nova
Jeremy Blasi
Scott Nova
Worker Rights Consortium
5 Thomas Circle, NW
Washington, DC 20005
(202) 387-4884
nova@workersrights.org
www.workersrights.org
Saturday, February 2, 2008
Bangladesh Protesting HRW Report
Dhaka, Feb 1 (bdnews24.com) - Bangladesh has turned down a human rights situation report published Thursday by a US watchdog.
The World Report 2008 of the Human Rights Watch said that the Bangladesh army-backed government failed to protect rights with security agencies committing serious human rights violations.
Foreign secretary Touhid Hossain rejected the report saying, "It is not true." Contacted by bdnews24.com, the secretary said: "If data on the report are analysed comparing with the home ministry's report of 2006 and 2007, it will be clear that the report on human rights is not true." "It is their job to publish reports on human rights situation," he added.
Elaine Pearson, Deputy Director for Asia of the Human Rights Watch, said, "Sadly, 2007 marked serious setbacks for human rights in Bangladesh." She said that there were widespread allegations against security officials of arresting, detaining and killing civilians. "Bangladesh's interim government used the pretext of emergency rule to continue a historic pattern of impunity," she added.
The Human Rights Report said that tens of thousands people were arrested in a few weeks after the state of emergency was declared. Security agencies did not comply with the emergency rules in detaining people, it added.
The report also said that army and intelligence agencies threatened journalists to stop writing against the government and the army. Pearson said that journalists and political activists were scared of the army.
Therefore, let's read the Bangladesh section of the World Report 2008 produced by Human Rights Watch.
The World Report 2008 of the Human Rights Watch said that the Bangladesh army-backed government failed to protect rights with security agencies committing serious human rights violations.
Foreign secretary Touhid Hossain rejected the report saying, "It is not true." Contacted by bdnews24.com, the secretary said: "If data on the report are analysed comparing with the home ministry's report of 2006 and 2007, it will be clear that the report on human rights is not true." "It is their job to publish reports on human rights situation," he added.
Elaine Pearson, Deputy Director for Asia of the Human Rights Watch, said, "Sadly, 2007 marked serious setbacks for human rights in Bangladesh." She said that there were widespread allegations against security officials of arresting, detaining and killing civilians. "Bangladesh's interim government used the pretext of emergency rule to continue a historic pattern of impunity," she added.
The Human Rights Report said that tens of thousands people were arrested in a few weeks after the state of emergency was declared. Security agencies did not comply with the emergency rules in detaining people, it added.
The report also said that army and intelligence agencies threatened journalists to stop writing against the government and the army. Pearson said that journalists and political activists were scared of the army.
Therefore, let's read the Bangladesh section of the World Report 2008 produced by Human Rights Watch.
A military-backed caretaker government was installed in January 2007 and ruled Bangladesh under a state of emergency for the rest of the year. The caretaker government announced police and judicial reforms and promised to set up a National Human Rights Commission. It was initially welcomed by most Bangladeshis, civil society activists, and the international community in the hope that it would stamp out corruption, build the rule of law, and restore democracy.
However, as the year progressed there was increasing concern in Bangladesh and internationally about the lack of progress on election preparations, the increasingly visible role of the army as the main power in the country, and the large numbers of arbitrary arrests, cases of torture, and custodial killings by security forces acting with impunity under emergency rules.
As part of its “minus two” policy of removing the leaders of the two main parties from the political process, the government arrested former prime ministers Khaleda Zia, leader of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, and Sheikh Hasina, leader of the Awami League, as well as other senior politicians and government officials, and charged them with corruption. In the name of sorting out political gridlock and preparing credible national elections, the government banned all political and trade union activities and imposed new limits on press freedoms.
Political Developments
In December 2006, widespread protests over alleged fraudulent election preparations led to deepening political instability. Several people were killed and hundreds were injured in the violence. On January 11, 2007, after the United Nations and European Union announced that plans for elections were so compromised that they would not send observers, then-President Iajuddin Ahmed announced that elections would be postponed and declared a state of emergency. He also resigned as chief advisor, and on January 12, a new army-backed “caretaker government” headed by Fakhruddin Ahmed was brought in.
(Under Bangladesh’s constitution, a caretaker government is appointed for a period of three months immediately prior to elections to ensure they are carried out in a neutral and impartial manner. Since October 2006, President Iajuddin Ahmed had served as “chief advisor”—in effect, prime minister—of such a caretaker government. On January 11, the old caretaker government was dissolved and a new one established the following day, with Fakhruddin Ahmed as chief advisor.)
Although Fakruddin Ahmed promised reforms and a quick return to democracy, elections were soon put off until December 2008. Immediately upon being installed, the caretaker government issued the Emergency Power Rules, still in effect at this writing, which dramatically dilute constitutional protections for basic rights.
Anti-Corruption
Pervasive corruption has caused widespread disillusionment with the political parties running the country. Bangladesh has for many years ranked at or near the bottom of Transparency International’s index of corruption. On April 18, 2007, the caretaker government announced the Anti-Corruption Commission (Amendment) Ordinance aimed at rooting out high level corruption and stopping the influence of organized crime over politics. It acceded to the UN Convention against Corruption, replaced senior bureaucrats with persons perceived to be more honest, and forced some officials in key statutory and constitutional positions—such as the attorney general and heads of the Anti-Corruption Commission and Election Commission—to resign and be replaced by officials considered to have greater integrity. These moves proved highly popular.
The Anti-Corruption Ordinance, however, also empowers Anti-Corruption Commission officials, with retroactive effect, to arrest suspects without warrants, confiscate property without court orders, and detain suspects for thirty days without a warrant. Many suspects have been held for 30 days while evidence of their alleged offenses is collected. The special tribunals set up for these cases often fail to meet international fair trial standards because of limits on access to counsel, flawed evidentiary requirements, and lack of judicial independence.
State of Emergency and Suspension of Rights
Tens of thousands of people were reportedly arrested in the weeks following the declaration of a state of emergency in January 2007. The government has not published accurate statistics on detainees, access to official places of detention has been restricted, and the security forces have used unofficial sites, such as the headquarters of the Directorate General of Forces Intelligence (DGFI, or military intelligence) in Dhaka, making it impossible to know exactly how many people were arrested or how many are still being held.
Most arrests under the state of emergency have taken place without warrants. Security forces have told detainees that they do not need such authorization under emergency rules. Evidence used to make arrests often has not been transparent or available to detainees or their lawyers. Credible reports suggest that many arrests have been based on coerced statements from others or have been the product of “score-settling.” Many offenses have been deemed “non-bailable” under emergency rules, resulting in indefinite detention even for minor charges.
Bail orders or habeas corpus decisions in favor of detainees often have been ignored or overturned by politicized appellate decisions. On August 30, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers expressed concern at alleged irregularities in the trial of Sigma Huda, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons, who was convicted by the Special Anti-Corruption Court of Bangladesh and sentenced to three years’ imprisonment on extortion charges, citing reports that the “right to legal representation and the independence of the court were severely affected during her trial.”
Torture
Torture in custody, a longstanding problem in Bangladesh, continues to be routine. The use of unofficial places of detention for interrogation by the DGFI and others has exacerbated this problem, as such sites are beyond the scrutiny of the courts, lawyers, family members, and the media.
Professor Anwar Hossan, a Dhaka university professor, was taken into custody for his alleged involvement in inciting August campus protests against the army. He was taken to an unofficial detention center run by DGFI, where he remained for two days without being brought before a judge. When he was later produced in court, he said that he had not been allowed to sleep, was questioned constantly, and was slapped.
Similarly, Tasneem Khalil, a Daily Star reporter, CNN representative, and Human Rights Watch consultant, was taken to an unofficial place of detention by DGFI on May 11, where he was interrogated, tortured, and coerced into making a false confession. After international pressure, he was released but later had to seek asylum in Sweden.
Extrajudicial Killings
The paramilitary Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) and the police continue to engage in extrajudicial killings of suspected criminals and others. The security forces euphemistically call these “crossfire” killings, falsely suggesting they are carried out in self defense. Such killings continued under the caretaker government. Odhikar, a Dhaka-based human rights monitoring organization, said that 126 people were killed by security forces during the first 210 days of emergency. Of them, 82 were allegedly killed in “crossfire,” while at least 23 others were allegedly tortured to death. The most brutal was the March torture and killing of Choles Ritchil, a well known rights activist. Although eyewitnesses identified some of the perpetrators, the government failed to bring them to justice.
Freedom of Expression, Assembly, and Association
Section 5 of the Emergency Power Rules bans the use of the internet or other electronic or print media to publish “provocative” editorials, feature articles, news items, talk shows, or cartoons. Violations lead to confiscation of equipment and jail terms ranging from two to five years.
In 2007, many journalists and NGO workers continued to receive anonymous phone calls from persons claiming to be members of DGFI, the army, or RAB, warning them against defaming the army or government. Others were summoned to military intelligence headquarters and delivered warnings. Some, such as Tasneem Khalil, were tortured, sending a chilling message to all journalists.
Security forces use mass arrests as a means to suppress demonstrations. Curfew was imposed after protests erupted in August when a squabble between soldiers and Dhaka university students spread into demonstrations against the emergency restrictions and de facto army rule. Many began to question whether the military would be willing to give up power.
Soon after the August demonstrations, two television channels—Ekushey Television (ETV) and the CSB news network—received a written notice from the Press Information Department warning them not to broadcast "provocative" news. Several journalists were arrested and some were beaten up while they were covering the protests.
Human Rights Defenders
The activities of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) were also restricted by the army. In July 2007, a notice was issued by the NGO Affairs Bureau asking all voluntary organizations to spend at least half of their foreign grants on visible development works such as roads and canals. Human rights defenders, including the head of Odhikar, were threatened for highlighting abuses by troops.
Key International Actors
While governments such as the US, UK, and India expressed concern about the slow pace of election preparations, few expressed concern over the country’s poor human rights situation. Most cheered reforms while turning a blind eye to the human rights violations that accompanied mass arrests and continuing reports of torture and illegal killings. Although the army already had effectively taken power in January when it installed the second caretaker government, no international actors publicly called on the army to return full powers to a civilian government.
The Bangladeshi army continues to receive assistance and training from several foreign governments including the US and UK, which are concerned about Islamic militancy in Bangladesh. The army remains a large contributor to UN peacekeeping operations and is thus susceptible to pressure from the UN and others to restore civilian rule and enforce basic rights. At this writing, international actors had not used this leverage.
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