DISAPPEARANCE, EXTRAJUDICIAL KILLING UN officials criticised for inaction

Rights activists on Saturday criticised three senior UN officials for ignoring human rights abuses, enforced disappearance and extrajudicial killing in particular, in Bangladesh during their recent visit.
At a discussion at the National Press Club, the rights activists and families and victims of enforced disappearance, extrajudicial killings and custodial torture also criticised the National Human Rights Commission and successive governments for their inactions in finding out the disappeared citizens.
Committee for the protection of fundamental rights organised the discussion on ‘enforced disappearance and continued crisis of democracy.’
Educationists, rights activists, lawyers and social workers joined the discussion along with the families of the victims of enforced disappearance and other rights abuse reported during the successive Awami League-led governments.
A report of Paris-based International Federation for Human Rights, also known as FIDH, said on April 18 that enforced disappearance in Bangladesh constituted crimes against humanity.
International and local rights organisations have documented more than 500 cases of enforced disappearances in Bangladesh in the past decade. 
Addressing the discussion, Bangladesh Legal Aid and Services Trust honorary executive director Sara Hossain praised the UN delegation for visiting Rohingyas in Cox’s Bazar but criticised the UN officials for not speaking to Bangladeshis facing serious forms of human rights abuse. 
‘I feel so ashamed and angry,’ Sara told the discussion.
UN under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator Mark Lowcock, International Organisation for Migration director general António Vitorino and UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi visited Bangladesh for three days until Friday and focused on the rights of Rohingyas sheltered in Cox’s Bazar.
The United Nations should see the crime against humanity in Bangladesh, said Sara, also member of the human rights committee of London-based International Law Association.
She called on the families of the victims to continue efforts to get justice in future.
Jurist Shahdeen Malik said that justice for crimes against humanity would definitely be done in Bangladesh but it was a matter of time only. 
He said that all members of the law enforcement agencies were not always patronised by the government and those who were deprived would help find out the perpetrators although it might take 20 years. 
‘We are not talking about revenge, rather we are talking about justice,’ he said, adding, ‘none of the people involved in enforced disappearance and extrajudicial killings will be spared.’
Economist Anu Muhammad said that the government and its high-ups continued their falsehood on ‘crossfire’ and disappearance. 
He said that when families alleged that their dear ones were picked up by Detective Branch of Rapid Action Battalion personnel, it was the duty of the law enforcement agencies to find them out otherwise it suggested that they were involved in the crimes.
‘Fear and greediness have weakened many people,’ said Anu, also Jahangirnagor University professor. 
Researcher and writer Rehnuma Ahmed detailed how her partner photographer Shahidul Alam was picked from their house at Dhanmondi in Dhaka at midnight on August 5, 2018 and how the police refused to receive missing complaint at initial stage. 
Over a dozen of families and victims of enforced disappearance, extrajudicial killings and custodial torture also narrated their ordeals and demanded independent investigations into the cases.
Former Bangladesh Nationalist Party lawmaker M Ilias Ali’s wife Tahsina Rushdi alleged that the prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, had played a drama with her following the disappearance of her husband and their driver. 
‘PM invited me and assured me of finding him out but later I understood it was completely a drama,’ she said, recalling Ilias’ disappearance on April 17, 2012.
She said the trial of the crimes against humanity must be held. 
Ward BNP leader Sajedul Islam Sumon’s sister Marufa Islam said that the government was not responding to the calls made by the victims’ families although witnesses saw RAB-1 member to pick up her brother and cousins week before the January 5, 2014 national elections, boycotted by all opposition parties. 
Saleha Begum, the mother of SM Moazzzem Hossain Topu who was picked up allegedly by law enforcers from Bashundhara residential area on January 26, 2016, said she had approached every single door of the government but his whereabouts was never known.
She said that she approached 36 times to the home minister Asaduzzaman Khan. 
Saleha said that her husband died and son was ‘taken away’ and she believed that only Moazzem’s popularity in the area led the enforced disappearance.
Suvadra Chakma, the sister of missing United Peoples Democratic Front leader Michael Chakma, said her political activist brother remained missing since on April 9 when he left a house at Narayanganj for Dhaka.
Jesmin Akhter Ruma, the wife of retired army corporal Mukul Hosain, said that she approached all the possible corners of the government but none could find her husband out since February 3, 2019. 
Health activist Zafrullah Chowdhury and Dhaka University international relations professor CR Abrar, among others, attended the programme moderated by Shireen Huq of Naripokkho.

News Courtesy: www.newagebd.net