Amnesty
International's report on Bangladesh' 2004
Human
rights violations continues
Amnesty
International
Dozens of people died in violence during and after local elections in
the first quarter of the year. Several opposition politicians were assassinated.
Corruption and poor governance remained key factors blocking economic
prosperity. The government reportedly pressured judges to dismiss criminal
charges against ruling Bangladesh Nationalist Party supporters. Most
sessions of parliament were boycotted by the main opposition party,
the Awami League.
Torture
The government failed
to implement safeguards against torture. Victims included suspected
criminals, children and people detained on politically motivated grounds.
At least 13 people died in police custody. The police reportedly denied
allegations that their deaths were the result of torture.
Following his release
from police custody on 5 January, senior journalist Enamul Haque Chowdhury
said that he was beaten, tortured with electric shocks, and threatened
with death at gunpoint. Arrested on 13 December 2002, he was accused
of misquoting the Home Minister in a news agency report. No official
investigation was initiated into his allegations of torture.
Abdul Gaffar, 45,
a day labourer from Ekbarpur village in Mougachhi area of Rajshahi,
died on 6 May in police custody. He had reportedly been beaten with
batons and rifle butts to compel him to reveal the whereabouts of a
suspect. A three-member police committee, formed following protests
by villagers, failed to hold responsible any of the officers involved
in his death.
Police
brutality
Police continued to use excessive force during opposition or trade union
demonstrations. Hundreds of protesters were injured, some critically.
No officers were known to have been brought to justice for these attacks.
On 10 October officers
attacked and beat unemployed and student nurses from 38 government nursing
institutions who were protesting against changes in their terms and
conditions of employment. When demonstrators tried to enter the Directorate
of Nursing Services, police officers beat them. Over 50 nurses were
reportedly injured, most of them women, and 23 were admitted to hospital,
three of them in a critical condition.
Death
penalty
Courts sentenced to death more than 130 men and women. Most death sentences
were passed by Speedy Trial Tribunals, which were required to conclude
trials within 135 days, increasing the risk of convictions based on
flawed evidence. Two men were hanged on 10 July.
Arbitrary
detention
Following repeated High Court orders and international appeals, some
prominent political detainees were released in January. They included
human rights defenders Shahriar Kabir, Professor Muntasir Mamun and
Saleem Samad, as well as Awami League leaders Bahauddin Nasim, Saber
Hossain Chowdhury and Tofael Ahmed. However, they continued to suffer
harassment and threats of detention.
In June, warrants
of arrests were issued against Mahfuz Anam, editor and publisher of
the Daily Star newspaper; Matiur Rahman, editor of the Daily Prothom
Alo newspaper; and Abdul Jalil, Secretary General of the Awami League.
A senior government official had brought a criminal defamation case
against them after publication of a letter in which Abdul Jalil criticised
the nomination of the official to an executive post in an international
organisation. They were not detained but the arrest warrants remained
pending.
Violence
against women
Reports of rape were widespread, including of young children. There
were frequent reports of women being beaten by their husbands, sometimes
with fatal results. The perpetrators were often husbands whose demands
for dowry had not been met. Scores of women were victims of acid attacks,
usually by rejected partners or people settling scores with the victims'
families. Some 20,000 women and children were reportedly trafficked
to other countries, usually after abduction from rural areas. Women's
rights groups blamed the low rate of convictions for violence against
women on a lack of government institutions to support the victims and
a lack of trained police officers to investigate the cases. On 26 August,
nine women from tribal communities in the Chittagong Hill Tracts were
reported to have been sexually assaulted by Bengali settlers who attacked
Jumma villages and set fire to hundreds of homes. One of them was reportedly
gang-raped. Army connivance in the attacks was suspected. Attempts by
the tribal people to file a complaint with the police against the attacks
were not successful, while police filed a complaint on behalf of Bengali
settlers against 4,000 tribal people, accusing them of attacking the
settlers.
Attacks
against Hindus
In an apparently planned arson attack on a Hindu family in Banskhali
Upazila near Chittagong around midnight on 19 November, 11 members of
the family were burned to death. The government called it an act of
banditry, but evidence suggested it was a motivated attack against the
family because of their identity as Hindus. Police filed a case but
despite repeated demands from civil society groups, no independent inquiry
was set up.
Attacks
against Ahmadis
From October onwards, Islamist groups embarked on a campaign of hate
speech against members of the Ahmadiyya community and marched on their
places of worship in Dhaka and other parts of the country, calling on
the government to declare them non-Muslim. The government deployed security
personnel to protect Ahmadis against attacks but took no action against
those using hate speech. On 31 October, Shah Alam, the Imam of the Ahmadi
mosque in the village of Raghanathpur Bank in Jessore District, was
beaten to death in front of his family. Some 90 men led by a local Islamist
leader attacked him because he refused their demand to recant his Ahmadiyya
faith. No one was charged in connection with the killing even though
the assailants' identities were known.
Impunity
Immunity from prosecution was granted to officials and army personnel
associated with human rights violations during the anti-crime "Operation
Clean Heart" from 17 October 2002 to 9 January 2003. At least 40
men died, reportedly as a result of torture, after being detained by
soldiers.
This
is edited version of Amnesty International's report on Bangladesh covering
events from January - December 2003.
