State Sponsored Human Rights Violations in Bangladesh

By Sajjad Shaukat

Since the Prime Minister of Bangladesh and leader of the ruling party, Awami League (AL) Sheikh Hasina Wajid came into power, she has been committing state sponsored human rights violations by persecuting the opposition parties, intellectuals, her critics and journalists. 

Reports suggest that under her rule, there have been hundreds of secret detentions cells for political opponents, using the law enforcement authorities. During 2017, the United Nations Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances and other UN experts had demanded from Bangladesh to halt an increasing number of enforced disappearances in the country. Reportedly, in 2017, Bangladesh human rights organization “Odhikar” had identified over 180 cases of disappearances in the previous two years with dead bodies of 28 persons found and the whereabouts of over 25 people remain unknown.”

It has been reported that a number of different state agencies, including the paramilitary organisation, Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), the detective branch of the police, the counter-terrorism unit and the special branch and the Directorate General of Forces Intelligence

 (DGFI) are involved in forced disappearances of anti-AL entities.

In this regard, Voice of America (VOA) on January 12, 2023 pointed out Human Rights Watch’s voices and concerns over attacks on Bangladesh Opposition.

Quoting, Meenakshi Ganguly, the organization’s South Asia Director HRW said in the group’s World Report: “The ruling Awami League is promising free and fair elections in response to increased international scrutiny but is belying those claims by ramping up repression.”

VOC elaborated: “Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League party was widely alleged to have massively rigged the electoral process during 2018 general elections…Now with general elections due late this year, but not yet announced, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party [BNP], the country’s largest opposition party, has been insisting that AL should not be in power when the polling takes place. The BNP held sit-in demonstrations on January 11 in major cities across the country seeking Hasina’s resignation and the installation of a neutral caretaker government, among other demands, before the next general elections are held”.

BNP leader AKM Wahiduzzaman, told VOA: “The AL formed the governments twice by fraudulently winning general elections in 2014 and 2018. This government has to be unseated ahead of the next general election…We will hold scores of peaceful rallies, highlighting our political demands in the interest of free, fair and peaceful general elections.”

VOA added: “According to the BNP, the law enforcement agencies tried to stop most of its rallies, and over 9,000 of its leaders and workers have been arrested in the past five months. In addition, at least eight BNP activists participating in political rallies were shot dead by police during the period…Ganguly told that the last two Bangladeshi general elections were “not free and fair, marked by violence, the crackdown on the opposition, intimidation of voters and opposition candidates…The ruling Awami League-led government is once again telling its international friends that it is committed to democracy, but a spate of politically motivated cases and arrest of opposition leaders and supporters present facts to the contrary.”

In recent months, the United Nations, the United States, other countries and rights groups have urged the Hasina government to hold the next national election in a free and fair manner.

Gayeshwar Chandra Roy, another senior BNP leader said: “In no situation, shall we take part in the general election if the current government stays in power and conducts it.”

Under the caption, Bangladesh Media in fear after PM’s ‘people’s enemy’ attack, The Guardian on May 1, 2023 indicated persecution of journalists in an article written by Kaamil Ahmed who described: “Even stories on cost of living journalists leaving facing assault, threats and arrest under Digital Security Act, a reporter in Bangladesh was hauled from his office, badly beaten–and then thrown from the roof of his building, leaving him with fractures in his back, three broken ribs and a machete wound on his head. The journalist, Ayub Meahzi, believes he was targeted for reporting on alleged local government ties to a criminal group.”

Kaamil Ahmed further pointed out: “The attack in Chittagong, in south-east Bangladesh, has compounded fears of a further deterioration in press freedom in the country…In late March, Bangladesh police arrested a journalist working for the country’s largest newspaper, Prothom Alo, for a seemingly innocuous report that went viral, on the subject of high food prices and living costs…The reporter, Shamsuzzaman Shams, has been charged with producing “false news” and the newspaper labelled an “enemy of the people” by the prime minister, Sheikh Hasina.”

Kaamil Ahmed further said: “Journalists and press freedom groups say the country has suffered since the introduction in 2018 of the Digital Security Act (DSA), a cybercrimes law the government says is aimed at stopping propaganda and extremist material online but which has led to dozens of arrests, as well as intimidation and violence against journalists…A Bangladeshi journalist working for an online news publication said the law’s vague wording has made reporters and their editors extremely cautious about the stories they write. “Ever since the DSA, we were cautious to not put ourselves into jail because it was easy…it is an absolute fear.”

Ahmed added” “Media workers say they have avoided critical stories on the ruling party or its projects…Reporting on issues like a price hike seemed harmless. But after the arrest of Shams, it seems obvious we can’t report on these seemingly innocuous issues as well,” said the journalist, who wished to remain anonymous…They added that it was not only fear of facing a lawsuit under the DSA, but also the threats and intimidation journalists and their families face. “It’s a way of creating panic among journalists. These police arrests happen mostly in the middle of the night, and in some cases they [the journalists] are taken for a few days, and no one knows where you are…A protest banner featuring a portrait of the Bangladeshi writer Mushtaq Ahmed. Ahmed died in prison after being arrested under the DSA in 2021. In 2021, the writer Mushtaq Ahmed died in custody after being detained for social media posts criticising the government’s response to the Covid pandemic. The cartoonist Kabir Kishore, who was arrested alongside Ahmed, said he had been tortured and that Ahmed had also spoken about receiving electric shocks. Ali Riaz, a professor of politics at Illinois State University, said the DSA “put serious constraints” on journalists. “They’re exercising what is described as self-censorship but it’s not self-censorship–it’s creating an environment of fear, and they have to comply.”

Besides, both Farhad Mazhar-a renowned poet and Maroof Zaman-a retired ambassador were abducted by security forces. Farhad Mazhar was kept in captivity for 467 days. Salahuddin-BNP lawmaker was abducted by members of RAB, a notorious death squad under the regime, and was later found in Shillong (India), where he is imprisoned on trumped up charges.

Dr. Muhammad Yunus-a renowned economist and Nobel Laureate was hounded/persecuted in Bangladesh by PM Hasina Wajiid’s directions. He subsequently fled Bangladesh—living in USA. He is far more well-known abroad, especially in the West. Hasina’s contempt for Yunus had been fueled by Yunus’s close relationships with West, WB and IMF and her suspicion that he has been behind WB’s refusal to finance Padma Bridge Project in Bangladesh.

Tariq Rahman-publisher and vice chairman of BNP—owner of Dainik Dinkal’s printing press in Dhaka—persecuted on several accounts, and he moved out of Bangladesh and is living in exile in UK. He is currently acting chairman of the BNP.

It is due to state sponsored gross human rights violations by the regime of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasin Wajid who is persecuting the opposition parties, strangulating through various suppressive tactics, and is targeting all other entities relating to various fields that Banglaesh dropped ranks in RSF’s World Press Freedom Index. When PM Sheikh Hasina returned to power in 2009, Bangladesh was ranked 121st out of 180 countries in World Press Freedom Index. Now it is ranked 162nd having fallen a total of 41 places under Premier Hasina.

Nevertheless, the controversial jailing of ex-PM Zia and the state persecution of the dissents have raised fears that the next parliamentary elections could turn into a violent sham—Fear of a 2014 repeat, when the parliamentary elections were boycotted by almost all the opposition parties and marred by large-scale violence and killings, runs high in Bangladesh, as the ruling Awami League government faces allegations of a concerted persecution of its opponents.

We can conclude that it is a government and a political party which believe that they are not accountable to anyone. It is a dangerous sign in a democracy which shows that Dhaka is moving towards one-party state.

Sajjad Shaukat writes on international affairs and is author of the book: US vs Islamic Militants, Invisible Balance of Power: Dangerous Shift in International Relations

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