EMBARGOED FOR THURSDAY, AUGUST 24
PRESS RELEASE
ALRC-PL-005-2006

BANGLADESH: UN inaction on Bangladesh "immoral", new report says

(Hong Kong, August 23, 2006) A new special report from the Asian Legal Resource Centre (ALRC) describes policing in Bangladesh as "lawless" and has called for UN agencies to ban the country from the new human rights council and peacekeeping missions abroad until its government addresses key rights concerns.

The 140-page report, released on Wednesday, describes how the police and special anti-crime paramilitary groups have since 2004 been locked in a "killing contest", which government-controlled courts have done nothing to stop.

"The story of the bloody violence going on all over Bangladesh today is a horrible untold story," Basil Fernando, executive director of the ALRC, said on the report's release.

"It is a story of violence promoted by both the country's major political parties to the extent that it is simply a fact of life that any person visiting making a peaceful protest or visiting a police station can expect to be assaulted or abused," Fernando said.

The report, "Lawless law-enforcement and the parody of judiciary in Bangladesh", details 33 cases of killing, torture, rape, assault, robbery, intimidation and other gross abuses by police and members of the joint army-police Rapid Action Battalion, which was established in 2004.  

All of the cases were documented by the Hong Kong-based regional group during the last 12 months.

"Nobody in Bangladesh is surprised to hear that members of the police or RAB have killed, tortured or robbed another apparently innocent person," Fernando said.

"But while the people in the country are terribly frustrated and trying to find a way to change the situation, the international community has done virtually nothing," he said.

The report calls upon the UN Human Rights Council to revoke Bangladesh's membership, and for the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations to stop accepting more troops from Bangladesh until the RAB is disbanded. 

"The UN seems happy to take thousands of Bangladeshi peacekeepers for operations around the world without any questions asked," Fernando noted. 

Bangladesh currently is the highest contributor to UN missions, with over 10,000 troops abroad.

"In fact, it is immoral for the UN to be accepting huge numbers of troops from Bangladesh without ever asking questions about what sort of damage these men have done to their own country," he said.

"We also appeal to the government of Lebanon and those in other countries where Bangladeshi peacekeepers may be posted: for the sake of your own people and those of Bangladesh, please don't accept these troops," Fernando requested.

"Peacekeeping must begin at home," he observed.

The report also contains a list of over 23 army and police officers alleged to be complicit in gross human rights abuses in Bangladesh whom the sister organisation of the ALRC, the Asian Human Rights Commission, has requested the UN to ensure are under no circumstances sent on missions.

The report also calls for UN special experts on human rights to pay more attention to Bangladesh, and for the UN secretary general to appoint a special envoy to study and report on worsening conditions there.

"We have especially urged the UN to tackle the government over its failure to separate the lower judiciary from its ministries," Nick Cheesman, one of the report's authors, said.

"It is ridiculous that after 15 years of promises to create an independent judiciary the government has done virtually nothing," Cheesman said.

"This is exactly the sort of issue that the UN should be working much harder and more critically to raise and address with the government," he said.

The report notes that the government has failed to criminalise torture as required under an international human rights law it has signed, and has failed to lodge reports with the UN monitoring body on its compliance with the treaty.

"Doesn't it make any difference to the UN whether or not a country submits reports on time, or at all?" Cheesman asked.

"Bangladesh should have lodged two reports with the UN Committee against Torture, the first seven years ago, and yet even though it hasn't even bothered it was still elected to the Human Rights Council in May," he noted.

"The government of Bangladesh seems to repeatedly demonstrate that it is possible to be rewarded for doing nothing: in fact, less than nothing, given that it seems intent upon worsening the lives of countless numbers of persons who have suffered gross abuses in the last couple of years," Cheesman added.

The ALRC has said that it will distribute copies of the report very widely.

"We will certainly be giving this report to concerned UN staff and agencies and making the true situation in Bangladesh much better known than it is at present," Cheesman said.

The report will be launched at an event in Hong Kong on Thursday.

It is the first lengthy report exclusively on Bangladesh published by the ALRC.

The report, which is published as the August edition of the organisation's bimonthly periodical, article 2, is available online at: www.article2.org.

A summary of the report's key findings and its recommendations to UN agencies follows.

KEY FINDINGS & RECOMMENDATIONS TO UNITED NATIONS AGENCIES ON BANGLADESH BY THE ASIAN LEGAL RESOURCE CENTRE

Findings
The police and other security agencies in Bangladesh, among other things, commonly
1. Harass, detain and torture persons to extort money or other reasons;
2. Fabricate cases and produce fake records;
3. Kill persons on pretext of "crossfire";
4. Assault persons at random or as a favour to others, often resulting in death;
5. Commit rape;
6. Participate in robberies and thefts;
7. Threaten witnesses;
8. Work for and protect politicians and other powerful persons;
9. Fail to record and investigate cases where the accused are police or influential persons;
10. Deny all violent crimes, even those of which there is incontrovertible evidence; and,
11. Enjoy almost absolute impunity from criminal prosecution for all offences.

In the lower courts
1. Magistrates are often complicit in offences committed by the police;
2. Prosecutors are often inept or politically-controlled;
3. Judicial probes do not result in prosecutions;
4. Trials rarely proceed against accused police; and,
5. No notion of witness and victim protection exists.

Recommendations
To the UN Human Rights Council:
Cancel Bangladesh's membership and deny it reelection until it
1. Completely detaches the judiciary from the executive;
2. Removes all political control of public prosecutors;
3. Ends its policy of extrajudicial killings and investigates and prosecutes all perpetrators;
4. Criminalises torture in accordance with international standards;
5. Repeals numerous laws that are contrary to international standards of human rights;
6. Establishes a properly independent and powerful anti-corruption agency;
7. Designates an independent body to receive and investigate complaints against the police and other state officers; and,
8. Sets up a national human rights commission.

To the UN Secretary General:
Appoint a Special Representative on Bangladesh to monitor and report on the country until such a time that there has been a marked improvement in human rights conditions.

To the UN Under Secretary General for Peacekeeping Operations:
Suspend Bangladesh from sending further troops or police abroad until the Rapid Action Battalion is disbanded and victims of extrajudicial killings and other gross rights abuses are given access to redress.

To the UN independent experts on human rights:
Request to make visits to Bangladesh and assess conditions of the judiciary, extrajudicial killings, torture and violence against women.

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About ALRC: The Asian Legal Resource Centre is an independent regional non-governmental organisation holding general consultative status with the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations. It is the sister organisation of the Asian Human Rights Commission. The Hong Kong-based group seeks to strengthen and encourage positive action on legal and human rights issues at local and national levels throughout Asia.