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October 15, 2005
Bangladesh: Extra-Judicial Killings Raise Concerns About Justice
The General Secretary of the Awami League announced yesterday that there was an urgent need for a white paper review on the extra-judicial killings that have taken place and also the amount of killings in police custody, according to today's Daily Star.
I admit to feeling uneasy myself when I write of supposed Islamists being detained for "interrogation", and the figures on these killings make me more uneasy about how to honestly report the news. In Britain, when a suspect is arrested, the individual's name is never released until charges are brought against him or her. In Bangladesh, not only is the person's name given out in press statements made by the police, but also their entire supposed "confessions", which would in a western democracy be deemed prejudicial to any ensuing court case.
The Awami League General Secretary, Abdul Jali and others in his party have said in a meeting that, should they come to power at the next election, they will take "appropriate measures" on these killings. He said that 707 people had died in the four years of the coalition government's rule of the country. The coalition is led by the Bangladesh National Party (BNP) and its junior partner, the Jamaat-e-Islami.
Bangladesh is in a state of economic melt-down at present, with basics becoming either unobtainable through cost or unavailablity. A port at Chittagong has closed down because of strike action, Iftar treats are found to contain toxic food colourants, and though the head of the government, Begum Khaleda Zia of the BP has made statements condemning militancy and has begun to inttroduce strict anti-terror legislation, the country seems to be over-run in parts by Islamists and by outlaws.
AL presidium member Zillur Rahman, who chaired the discussion, demanded immediate resignation of the prime minister for her 'total failure' to run the country.An editorial on these killings and how people are being made scapegoats for the current crisis, can be found in the Daily Star.Law and order has collapsed, and the alliance government has no moral right to cling to power anymore, he said.
Supreme Court Bar Association President Mahbube Alam blamed the coalition government for trying to make the judiciary ineffective, and said its target is to appoint BNP-Jamaat loyalists in the judiciary.
There have been various operations mounted against suspected radicals and "outlaws" in the coalition government's four year tenure. Those which have been mounted against "Islamists" and which have caused fatalities have included operations with names such as "Operation Clean Heart", "Rapid Action Battalion", and also people have been killed by the elite forces Chita and Kobra, Jalil claimed. A number of "outlaws" have died in extra-judicial killings during Clean Heart and also "Spider Web".
The Daily Star editorial claims that what is reprehensible in these "deaths without trial" are the methods by which the mechanisms of the law sanctify the killings and raise the perpetrators of the killings above the law, by means of the "Indemnity Law", and the institution of departmental, and not external, investigations into the deaths.
It is a pathetic state of human rights when the executive acts as the judge, jury, and executioner.The greatest blow to the rule of law in this regard is the Indemnity Act, which has all but closed the door of legal succor to the relatives of the victims. Not only that, the Act has validated these killings. Moreover, the departmental investigations of the custodial deaths that the police conduct are a convenient ploy to prevent those policemen from facing justice in the court of law.
These deaths can not only be deemed as a violation of human rights, but also something that can only bring the image of the country into disrepute which is otherwise eminently avoidable.
Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at October 15, 2005 9:59 AM
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