The people of Bangladesh are scared. Incidents of abduction by plain-clothed people, who often claim to be law-enforcing agents of the country, are ongoing, without any indication of being on the want. The people of Bangladesh are scared because their brothers and sons are disappearing.
The stories of disappearances are being exposed by the media and human rights groups amidst constant denials by law-enforcement agencies and their political masters. The people, particularly dissidents, find themselves trapped like mice. Their love for the people and the land is only met by the insecurity and hunger of those in power. Many families of the victims of disappearance are forced to maintain silence due to tremendous threat orchestrated by the agencies like the Rapid Action Battalion, police, and intelligence agencies.
It is surprising to see that not a single case of disappearance has been met with credible investigation by any agency of the State, while tax-payers’ money is being drained for maintaining the so called ‘elite force’ – the Rapid Action Battalion – and its self-styled ‘efficiency in investigating crimes.’ The police refuse to register complaints whenever allegations arise against law-enforcement agencies. In addition, further harassment, intimidation, and death-threats become part of the lives of the families that wish to complaint about any incident of rights violation by such state agencies.
There is another worrying scenario. The country’s Attorney General’s Office argues in favour of the law-enforcers carrying the statements of denial during the hearings in the highest judiciary, thus undermining the constitutional responsibility of state attorneys to assist the judiciary in administering justice. The Attorney General has done so on several occasions, particularly during the hearing of the disappearance case of Mohammad Salim Mian, a fruit-seller who was abducted by officers of RAB in February 2010 (For further details, please see: AHRC-UAC-043-2010 & AHRC-UAU-020-2010), a case the Asian Human Rights Commission has followed since the crime was committed.
The courts of Bangladesh, constitutionally obliged to safeguard the rights of the people, have been mostly discharging their duties by archiving the state-agents’ statements that contain denial of their involvement in abducting and disappearing people, rather than holding the perpetrators accountable, or compelling executive authorities to act immediately in identifying offenders, so that the judiciary can ensure real justice in the long run.
The diplomats and ministers of Bangladesh have been making rhetorical speeches in the Human Rights Council of the United Nations for more than six years, when the nation has not yet even intended to accede to the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, which would allow it to comply with international human rights instruments and the fundamental rights enshrined in the Constitution of the country.
The nation hardly allows the key UN mandate holders on civil and political rights to visit Bangladesh, which is an obligation for any state-party to the international human rights instruments. Unavoidable question arise: what reflects Bangladesh’s commitment to the UN human rights mechanism, and what is the meaning of occupying a seat in the Human Rights Council for so many years? Bangladesh’s state authorities are shameless hypocrites!
Likewise, key professionals that are integrally attached to the criminal justice institutions have not come up with any trustworthy commitment to address the entrenched problems of the criminal justice and law-enforcement systems. The institutions of the state survive in a mood that holds that nothing has happened to their countrymen and they have nothing to do. It is not understood whether these professionals or institutions have ever realised how their reluctance, tacit and active endorsement, and non-professional and non-juridical attitudes are contributing to deepen the roots of public distrust in these basic institutions of the country.
The country is run by a government having a brute majority in the parliament, which means that the people rely on political party representatives to deal with their benefits and woes as citizens of a democratic nation. In reality, the response made by the government led by the Awami League-Jatiya Party dominated alliance is far from the aspiration of the people, at least in the cases of gross violation of fundamental human rights of the people.
Whenever allegations of abductions and disappearances of persons are publicised, ministers and parliamentarians of the ruling regime sing the same song of denial, in chorus with the police and the RAB, as if the government’s stand is permanently against any victims. No credible investigations takes place, which indicates that the state-agents are, either directly responsible for committing the crimes, or sincere in their efforts to protect the offenders. By endorsing the lawlessness of the police and Rapid Action Battalion, which is in fact dominated by the armed forces of Bangladesh, the ruling politicians have ultimately established a truth: that they do not belong to the people. This truth, which runs through the veins of the structure of government, a hidden rot, allows the state spaces to disappear its own citizens. It is this truth that allows the most fundamental contradiction behind the quality of life and the kinds of death behind faced by the people of Bangladesh; it allows the people’s right to life, liberty, and safety to be infringed upon by those constitutionally obliged to protect the same.
