BANGLADESH: Affording justice to victims is not on the State’s agenda

AHRC-STM-XXX-2017
17 July 2017

A Joint Statement by the Asian Human Rights Commission, the Asian Federation Against Involuntary Disappearances and Odhikar, on the Day of International Criminal Justice

BANGLADESH: Affording justice to victims is not on the State’s agenda 

Hong Kong/Dhaka/Manila; 17 July 2017: One of the three main goals of Bangladesh’s War of Independence was ‘social justice’ coupled with ‘equality’, and ‘human dignity’. The word ‘justice’ connotes ‘just behavior or treatment’ without any bias or discrimination. In another word ‘justice’ is a guaranteed process of addressing a citizen’s grief, by all means, through the justice mechanisms and administrative systems of a State beyond any abuse of power or negligence. The Institutions that are expected to uphold justice require capabilities to ensure that the victims of crime and the victims of abuse of power are dealt with fairly in accordance with the right to a fair trial.

Six-Month Human Rights Monitoring Report - ODHIKAR

Under the  incumbent Awami League Government which has been in power since 2009, human rights violations continue unabated through suppressing political parties, particularly the opposition BNP and Jamaat-e-Islami and dissenting voices, including human rights organizations.

Human rights violations include  enforced disappearances, extrajudicial killings, torture and arbitrary arrests of leaders and activists of the BNP-led 20-Party Alliance.  The government is also harassing opposition party leaders and activists in various ways to create pressure on them, including implicating them in criminal cases or lodging false cases against them. Hindrances to freedom of expression and repression on the ordinary people and leaders and activists of the opposition political parties are also happening. 

ODHIKAR reports that the police forces are used to suppress dissent resulting to human rights violations affecting mostly the opposition. Bangladesh is not a yet a party to the International Treaty on the Protection of Persons against all Enforced Disappearances (ICCPED).  #YesToICCPED #ICCPED #Bangladesh #HumanRights #EnforcedDisappearance #ODHIKAR.   

A Tribute to Fr. Rudy Romano

You came to us as God’s precious gift
As a friend; a retreat master;
A co- rallyist during Marcos’ darkest years;
A good shepherd to the little ones of God’s flock;
A spiritual adviser and an ardent follower of Christ Jesus,
The Most Holy Redeemer....

Eliminate Torture, Strengthen Preventive Mechanisms to Prevent Torture

A Call for Solidarity on the International Torture Survivors’ Day

26 June 2017

"... Most of them lived the rest of their lives in the detention centers, hooded or blindfolded, forbidden to talk to one another, hungry, living in filth. The center of their lives - dominating the memories of those who survived - was torture. They were tortured, almost without exception, methodically, sadistically, sexually, with electric shocks and near-drownings, [some burried to their necks and left in the sun and the rain for days. They were] constantly beaten, in the most humiliating possible way, not to discover information - very few had any information to give - but just to break them spiritually as well as physically, and to give pleasure to their torturers."[Ronald Dworkin, in the introduction to "Nunca Mas, Argentina "]