(Hong Kong, November 7, 2008)
A man who is under arrest at one of the police stations in Bangladesh was posed with a riddle by the Officer-in-Charge of the station. Here is the riddle:
When arresting officers bring you, meaning the arrested person, to the police station our superior officers expect that we will collect money from you and that we will give it to them. Now if you do not give the money do you expect me to sell my cattle or my household goods and give the money to our bosses?
This happened to Mr. F.M. Abdur Razzak who is detained at the Paikgachaa Police Station. Now this is the problem that the arrested person, in this case a man arrested on completely fabricated charges, has now been asked to solve. He has been there for several days now and by now his family has spent almost Taka 50,500 (around US$ 750). Now he is being asked for more for each day that he is in custody.
The familys problem is this; if the money for the day is not paid the arrested person faces the threat of being tortured throughout the night. The way to prevent the torture being carried out is give the money as demanded.
In these circumstances there are some iron laws of logic that an arrested person cannot find any way to avoid. Our inquiries have revealed that there is hardly anything that the lawyers can do in these matters. Even if by any chance the courts happen to make some favourable intervention that too is likely to be ignored by the police. The courts have no way to impose their orders except through the police themselves.
Inquiries made by us through the lawyers, also reveal that the practice of the use of arrest as a money spinner is very common in Bangladesh. The type of argument that is used to convince people to pay seems also to be more or less along the same lines as described by the family facing this unfortunate situation.
Mr. Basil Fernando of the Asian Human Rights Commission said Unless the government firmly intervenes on behalf of an individual, there are hardly any way out. On the other hand the changing of these circumstances altogether in favour of everyone will require political will on the part of the government if it believes that it needs to and that it can change these circumstances.
