AFAD Appeals to take Measure on Bangladesh over Gravely Alarming Human Rights Situation

To: His Excellency Ban Ki-Moon
Secretary General of the United Nations
1st Avenue and 46th Street
New York, NY 10017 U S A

Re: AFAD Appeals to take Measure on Bangladesh over Gravely Alarming Human Rights Situation

Your Excellency Ban Ki-Moon,

The worsening political crisis in Bangladesh has led to the gravely alarming human rights situation in the country.

The Asian Federation against Involuntary Disappearances (AFAD) is deeply concerned with the rising and unabated of human rights violations occurring in Bangladesh. It has become an almost daily phenomenon for law enforcement agencies to arrest people, resulting in human rights violations such as torture, ill treatment, extrajudicial deaths and enforced disappearance.

Enforced disappearances allegedly perpetrated by the security forces of Bangladesh has become an almost daily occurrence, mostly centering on the current political confrontations between the ruling Awami League and the BNP led 20-Party Alliance over free, fair, credible and participatory national elections under a neutral interim government. The administration’s refusal to the holding of such an election has resulted in widespread violence and human rights violations in Bangladesh.

MOROCCO: Raid on the premises of the Moroccan Association of Human Rights (AMDH) and assault against a human rights activist

Paris – Geneva - Copenhagen, 19 February 2015 – The Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders, a joint programme of the FIDH and the OMCT, along with the Euro- Mediterranean Human Rights Network (EMHRN) and the Euro-Med Federation against Enforced Disappearances (FEMED), condemn the raid on the premises of the Moroccan Association of Human Rights (Association marocaine des droits humains – AMDH) and the assault against one of its members by the Moroccan security forces.

Bangladesh: Extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances amidst political impasse must end

(Bangkok/Dhaka, 10 February 2015) - The Asian Federation Against Involuntary Disappearances (AFAD) and the Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development (FORUM-ASIA), express deep concern over the extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances by the security forces of Bangladesh, centering on the current confrontations between the ruling Awami League (and its 14-party Alliance) and the BNP-led 20- Party Alliance over free, fair, credible and participatory national elections under a neutral interim government, which has resulted in large scale violence and human rights violations all over Bangladesh.

Sisters in Pain and in Strength

Amina Masood Janua - mother of three – searching for her disappeared husband Masood Janjua since 2004 – founder of the NGO Defence for Human Rights in Pakistan. To express her solidarity with Shui Meng, the wife of Magasaysay award winning development worker Sombat Somphone who disappeared on 15th December 2012, wrote a letter to her. Both have never met each other. They have been introduced to each other by AFAD.

We are sharing their letters to give you a glimpse of their love and their commitment to truth and justice.