Enforced disappearance goes unabated

Enforced disappearance goes unabated with the law enforcement agencies reportedly enjoying impunity, victims keeping silent on return and authorities conducting no effective investigation while the agony of many victim families never end as they have been in the dark about their dear ones’ fate for long.

In a joint statement on Friday, 12 national and international rights bodies said that at least 572 people were subjected to enforced disappearance by security forces and law-enforcement agencies in Bangladesh between January 1, 2009 and July 31, 2020.

While some were eventually released, shown arrested, or found killed by the agencies in reported incidents of ‘crossfire’ but the whereabouts of many of them remained unknown, the statement said.

Dhaka University law professor Mizanur Rahman, who served at the National Human Rights Commission chairman between June 2010 and June 2016 for two terms, said that those incidents were hardly being investigated while those who were ‘released’ were so frightened that they did not dare to speak up.

‘It is the responsibility of the state to identify the perpetrators behind the crime against humanity,’ Mizanur said.

‘Bangladesh security forces and law-enforcement agencies continuously commit enforced disappearances with ‘impunity’, targeting journalists, activists, and government critics,’ the 12 rights organisations said in the statement.

According to rights organisation Odhikar, at least 507 people were subjected to enforced disappearance between January 2009 and December 2018. Of them, 62 were found dead, 286 returned alive or were shown arrested or produced before courts. But, whereabouts of the 159 others are still unknown.

Sanjida Islam Tulee, one of the spokespersons of Mayer Daak campaigning for return of their dear ones who went missing after reportedly being picked up by law enforcers before 2014 general elections, said that they approached all the doors for the return of the victims over the years in vain.

She alleged the indifferent attitude of the government clearly indicated that it was behind the scene.

‘Most recently the police arrived at our house and inquired about my missing brother [opposition activist Sajedul Islam Sumon]. Can you imagine the cruelty?’ Sanjida expressed her disappointment.

Former brigadier general Abdullahil Amaan Azmi was picked up from his home at Moghbazar in the capital allegedly by a group of people identifying them as ‘law enforcers’ on August 22, 2016. He never came back.

He is the son of Jamaat-e-Islami leader Ghulam Azam who died in 2014 while serving sentence for crimes against humanity committed during the 1971 War of Independence.

On August 11, Amnesty International stated that people with political dissents being the target of enforced disappearance had come up as ‘a disturbing pattern’ in Bangladesh in recent years.

Ashraf Uddin Mahdi, 27, was one of the latest victims of enforced disappearance in Dhaka.

Ashraf, a student of Al Azhar University in Egypt, faced involuntary disappearance in old part of Dhaka and was release after 48 hours on August 8 on condition of not writing any critical post on social media, Amnesty International stated saying that it was a ‘brazen tactic’ to silence him.

Former National Human Rights Commission chairman Mizanur said that the people who were ‘released’ after long disappearance hardly dared to speak in public as they knew their lives would be threatened.

Columnist and rights activist Farhad Mazhar was taken into a microbus in July 2017 and later was spotted into Khulna by the Rapid Action Battalion.

On release, he was not seen as critical on social issue as he was in the past.

Dismissed army lieutenant colonel Hasinur Rahman returned home at Mirpur DOHS on February 21, 2020 after he had reportedly been taken by a group of people, who identified them as ‘Detective Branch’ personnel, on August 8, 2018.

Hasinur declined to comment about his whereabouts during this period.

Like Hasinur, former ambassador M Maroof Zaman returned home after 467 days of reported enforced disappearance since December 4, 2017 while going to Dhaka airport. He also did not speak up.

Rights organisation Ain o Salish Kendra immediate-past executive director Sheepa Hafiza said that enforced disappearance kept going unabated with the government continuing to deny the allegations over the years.

Asked about the government’s move to initiate any investigation, the home minister, Asaduzzaman Khan, on Saturday said they received no specific complaints from the victim families.

The National Human Rights Commission, however, sent a letter to the home ministry on February 26, 2017, along with a list of 156 complaints, including 27 about enforced disappearance, against law enforcers pending with the ministry for long.

Poor response has so far been found from the ministry while the list was being updated, said commission officials.

National Human Rights Commission chairman Nasima Begum said that they would hold shortly a meeting with the home ministry with some specific issues of human rights including of enforced disappearance.

The European Parliament on November 15, 2018 called on Bangladesh government to conduct independent investigation into incidents of extrajudicial killing and enforced disappearance.

Geneva-based rights group International Commission of Jurists in its reports in 2017 said that following the Awami League government’s assuming power in 2009 there had been a surge in enforced disappearances, with reports of opposition political activists and human rights defenders going ‘missing’.

Bangladesh is a party to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, which defines the widespread or systematic practice of enforced disappearance as a crime against humanity.

The law minister Anisul Huq in March 2017 acknowledged to the UN Human Rights Committee that disappearances had taken place, but claimed that the number had been brought down to ‘a very low level’.

News Courtesy: www.newagebd.net