Why the world is silent about persecution in Balochistan?

SALEEM SAMAD

At the onset of the Holy Ramadan month, Muslims all over the world were busy with fasting rituals, and the global protest against the occupation of Balochistan on 27 March 1948 was not heard across the globe.

Balochistan, for 76 years has endured institutionalised persecution and atrocities of Baloch ethnic minorities.

The Baloch people have been living in pain and agony under Pakistan’s occupation. The exiled Baloch has taken to social media @Twitter (now X) to remind that Balochistan was forcibly annexed by Pakistan against the will of the people.

Not much has been written and published in the international press. Not enough voice has been raised at any international forum regarding appalling human rights abuses, missing persons, enforced disappearances, extra-judicial deaths, crimes against humanity and genocide committed by state actors – Pakistan security forces.

Before the 1947 partition of India and Pakistan, Balochistan consisted of four princely states under the British Raj – Kalat, Lasbela, Kharan and Makran, which is known as Balochistan. Two of these provinces, Lasbela and Kharan, were fiduciary states placed under Khan of Kalat’s rule by the British, as was Makran which was a district of Kalat.

The rulers of Kalat State first were under the subject of Mughal emperor Akbar in Delhi and after 1839 to the British.

Only three months before the creation of Pakistan (in August 1947), Muhammed Ali Jinnah, and the first Governor-General of Pakistan had negotiated the freedom of Balochistan under Kalat State from the British.

The series of meetings were held between the Viceroy, the British Crown’s representative based in New Delhi, Jinnah and the Khan of Kalat regarding the future relationship with Kalat State and Pakistan.

The parleys ensued in a communiqué, popularly a Standstill Agreement on 11 August 1947, which stated that: The Government of Pakistan recognised Kalat as an independent sovereign state in treaty relations with the British Government with a status different from that of Indian States.

The ruling Muslim League elites of Pakistan led by Jinnah had a change of heart and unilaterally decided to merge Balochistan with the Pakistan Union on 27 March 1948. The hashtag #27MarchBlackDay is viral on social media.

A Baloch journalist Malik Siraj Akbar remarked, “The Black Day in Balochistan is a reminder of the struggle for freedom and justice that continues to this day.”

For decades, exasperated Baloch people have been ferociously protesting the forcible conversion of the Baloch population into a minority in their homeland.

Armed militants of the fiercest Marri and Bugti tribes, waged armed struggles and politically challenged the forcible inclusion of the resource-rich province into Pakistan in March 1948.

Pakistan army forcibly occupied the Balochistan capital Quetta, raided the Amar Palace of Mir Sir Ahmad Yar Khan Ahmedzai, Khan of Kalat, who was also the President of the Council of Rulers for the Balochistan States Union and was forced to sign a document of accession to Pakistan.

In 1958, Pakistan military officer Tikka Khan brutally suppressed the first nationalist movement by the Baloch people and the military commander was dubbed the “Butcher of Balochistan”.

After 23 years, the hawkish Lt. Gen. Tikka Khan was rechristened as “Butcher of Bengal” for his role in the genocide in the 1971 Bangladesh liberation war.

The province is vastly rich in natural resources, including oil, gas, copper, and gold. Despite huge deposits of mineral wealth, Balochistan is one of the poorest regions of Pakistan and also the largest province of Pakistan.

“Balochistan is a rich land with poor people because the state has never invested in its development,” stated Naela Quadri Baloch, an outspoken human rights defender and a senior member of the Balochistan government in exile.

Today the resources are plundered by the Pakistan junta in collaboration with China, in the name game of the mega debt-trap Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which was fiercely resisted by the armed Baloch nationalists.

Amnesty International in a report stated that despite several pledges to resolve the country’s crisis of ‘disappearances’, Pakistan’s new civilian government has not yet provided information about hundreds of cases of people believed to be held in secret prisons in undisclosed locations by the military establishment.

International political think tanks say that there is no global support for the Baloch movement for freedom because an independent Balochistan would result in more violence and destabilisation.

First published in the Northeast News, Guwahati, India

Saleem Samad is an award-winning independent journalist, media rights defender, recipient of the Ashoka Fellowship and Hellman-Hammett Award. He could be reached at <saleemsamad@hotmail.com>; Twitter @saleemsamad

A number that irks Bangladesh authorities

SALEEM SAMAD

Bangladesh authorities were pissed off with Odhikar, a human rights organisation, its boss Adilur Rahman Khan and its Director Nasir Uddin Elan for the last several years.

The government was angry because Odhikar was frequently quoted by the United Nations, the United States and the European Union for its authoritative research, monitoring and documentation on extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances of opposition, critics, dissidents, human rights defenders and even journalists were victims.

Some of the victims have returned, but maintained dead silence over their captivity]. A significant number were found dead and the rest have disappeared forever.

Each year, the family members grieve in silence about the disappearances of their loved one, the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances is organised by Mayer Dak on 30 August each year.

Mayer Dak, a network of family members believed to have been forcibly disappeared by state and non-state actors. The Mayer Dak is taken from Argentina’s popular platform Mothers’ Call. Its defiant coordinator Sanjida Islam, is also harassed and intimidated by state security apparatus and law enforcement agencies.

The government officials, the governing Awami League have a scripted message, playing the same record again and again. The content of the message is a mix of denial. A conspiracy theory to overthrow the democratically elected regime of Sheikh Hasina and to undermine the massive development of the country.

The government is too sensitive to the use of “enforced disappearances” and instead likes to say “missing” persons. Then who is responsible for the “missing” persons? In this regard, the government again prefers to remain silent and dumb.

Many top ministers said most of the “missing” persons are due to the inability to repay loans from lenders, family disputes over properties, secret multiple marriages, and migrants missing on dangerous journeys in the sea.

The apologetic officials do not understand that such an explanation is shrugging responsibility for the disappeared persons. The sincerity of the government in international media and rights groups were questioned, as the authorities refused credible probes.

Such attitude of the government has encouraged the police stations to refuse to register cases of disappearances, missing or kidnapped persons by their immediate family members.

This has encouraged criminal gangs to kidnap victims for ransom, as they very well know the police will not accept complaints and will not launch a hunt for the missing persons.

The Centre for Governance Studies (CGS) published a study by Ali Riaz, a distinguished professor at Illinois State University, USA which stated that as many as 86 per cent of the Human Rights Defenders (HRDs) in small towns and grassroots are intermittently faced obstacles in their work from the state and governing party.

The CGS study “Who Defends the Defenders” said the obstacles the HRDs face come from law enforcement agencies, state intelligence agencies, and government officials have been identified by 42.3 per cent of the respondents. While 23.7 per cent of ruling party activists were identified as troublemakers.

Threats, harassment, intimidation or persecution forced 28.6 per cent of respondents to scale down their work and 10.7 per cent have relocated in fear of harassment, said Ali Riaz quoting the findings of the research.

After the publication of the HRD study, CGS is often harassed and intimidated.

The government has been harassing and intimidating the rights organisation Odhikar for the past 12 years. The two rights defenders were under surveillance, their phones were tapped and bank accounts were scrutinised.

The government cancelled Odhikar’s NGO registration and permission to receive foreign funds.

Rights organisations Ain O Shalish Kendra (ASK) and BLAST (Bangladesh Legal Aid and Services Trust) were harassed by the NGO Affairs Bureau (under the Prime Minister’s Office) causing immense delays in approval of their projects and sometimes denied.

The government seems allergic to rights organisations and human rights defenders. What do the authorities want to hide?

In a glaring example of an orchestrated campaign against the HRD, on 14 December 2022, the American Ambassador Peter Haas visited the home of Sanjida Islam, coordinator of Mayer Dak to hear the agony and trauma of the family whose loved ones became victims of enforced disappearances.

Barely 30 minutes of the discussion. Due to security concerns, suddenly the meeting was cut short and security staff hurriedly escorted the ambassador to his vehicle. The crowd of pro-government ‘Mayer Kanna’ (Cry of Mothers) and local Awami League supporters was swelling in front of the residence of Islam making hue and cry.

The crowd mobbed the Ambassador and wanted to hand down a statement, which was declined. His security whisked the envoy safely from the area.

Commenting on the incident a US embassy spokesperson Jeff Ridenour said, “We have raised this matter at the highest levels of the Bangladeshi government, as well as with the Bangladesh embassy in Washington, D.C.”

Meanwhile, the Bangladesh Foreign Minister Dr. AK Abdul Momen expressed his annoyance and said that ‘Mayer Kanna’ went against the [diplomatic] norm by trying to submit a memorandum [statement] to the US ambassador. “Our country does not have the culture to stop a foreign ambassador on the road to submit a memorandum,” he remarked.

Despite all odds, Odhikar did not cease monitoring despite the government’s sensitivity to the issue, the extra-judicial deaths and enforced disappearances. The data with sensitive information was uploaded and updated on Odhikar’s website in both English and Bangla, which was also annoying for the regime.

The information was used by major international media, rights groups and human rights annual country documents of American and European governments.

Such sensitive information in the public domain caused outrage among bureaucrats, political leaders, and policymakers, which had dented the government’s international reputation.

Despite the global outcry, the authorities did not bother to investigate the wrongdoings of the state actors and non-state actors.

Instead blamed Odhikar for disseminating disinformation, misinformation, fake news, hoax news, mal-information, and rumour and of course fake news.

Coming to the issue of numbers, Odhikar has been banned and two leaders of the organisation were sentenced to two years in prison in September.

The crime of Adilur Rahman Khan and Nasir Uddin Elan was that ten years ago Odhikar published a number of people killed on 5 and 6 May 2013. The midnight police crackdown brutally suppressed the Islamist protest.

Thousands of members of a hardline Sunni Muslim organisation, Hefazat-e-Islam (Defender of Islam) occupied downtown Motijheel Commercial Area unless the government accepted their demands to declare Bangladesh an Islamic Republic, scrap the secular constitution, and change the national flag and the national anthem. Also implement Shariah laws and a host of other Islamic dogma, which incidentally match with the Wahabi creeds advocated by the Taliban and Islamic State (ISIS).

The Human Rights Watch said at least 58 people were killed in police action. Amnesty International put the figure at 44. It said 3 members of law enforcement and 41 civilians were killed in the violence on May police mayhem.

Well, the Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) and Home Affairs Ministry contradicted each other. Police said the figure was only 11, while the Home Ministry said 28 dead. Both DMP and the ministry never published the names of the dead people.

Odhikar, several times changed the figure and finally concluded that the death stood at 61. The organisation never published the names of the victims and their addresses.

Khan defending himself in the court said it’s a moral obligation that the privacy of the immediate family members be protected from the wrath of law enforcement agencies.

He said that Odhikar did not publish the names and addresses for fear of being harassed and intimidated by law enforcement agencies in forcing the victim’s families to sign a paper stating that the person is living in the Gulf countries or another story.

In a ‘white paper’ published by the “People’s Commission” formed by Ekattorer Ghatok Dalal Nirmul Committee (committee against the collaborators of 1971) challenged the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and Hefazat-e-Islam’s claim that thousands of people have been killed, which were exaggerated and incomplete.

The “People’s Commission” got a list of 79 names from Hefazat-e-Islam.

“Awami League leadership and Bangladesh authorities mock victims and routinely obstruct investigations, making clear that the government has no intention of meaningfully addressing enforced disappearances by its security forces,” said Brad Adams, Asia Director, Human Rights Watch.

Bangladesh has not ratified the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance.

The curious question arises, why did the government target Odhikar? Why did authorities not list Hefazat-e-Islam, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International for disseminating misinformation or disinformation? The question is left to the readers to respond.

First published in the Northeast News, 2 October 2023

Saleem Samad is an award-winning independent journalist and media rights defender based in Bangladesh. A recipient of the prestigious Ashoka Fellowship and Hellman-Hammett Award. He could be reached at <saleemsamad@hotmail.com>; Twitter @saleemsamad

No Justice for Victims Under Nepal’s Maoist Prime Minister

SALEEM SAMAD

Nepal’s decade-long Maoist insurgency ended 16 years ago, but war crimes victims are still seeking justice. The government, headed by the same party leader that carried out the insurgency, has largely refused to prosecute alleged war criminals. If the international community does not change its tack, this situation will doubtlessly continue.

Once popularly known as the Himalayan Kingdom, Nepal transformed by fits and starts from a Hindu nation-state to a secular, democratic state through the 20th and early 21st centuries. From 1996 to 2006, the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist Centre), or CPN (MC), waged a bloody insurgency against the royal government. The civil war took some 17,800 lives. In 2008, Nepal finally abolished thousand-year-old monarchy and the official Hindu kingdom, introducing secularism and a fragile democracy, for better or worse.

The current Nepal Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal, aka Prachanda, began his third non-consecutive term in December 2022. He was and is the leader of the CPN (MC) since its founding. He has recently refuted allegations that his party recruited and used child combatants during the insurgency and the years of the peace process. Dahal made the claim in an apologetic response to a petition filed at the supreme court in Kathmandu. The petition claimed that child combatants were used during the Maoist insurgency. Dahal pointed to the documents of the peace process, insisting that the term “child soldiers” was not used.

By documents, he meant the Comprehensive Peace Accord, the Agreement on Monitoring of the Management of Arms and Armies, the Interim Constitution, the 2015 constitution and other authentic documents, where “child soldiers” had indeed not been mentioned.

Nearly three decades after the Maoists launched their armed struggle on 13 February 1996, Nepal is still haunted after 27 years of conflict and violence.

Of the 17,800 Nepalis, including civilians and armed forces, who were killed during the conflict, Dahal admitted to being responsible for only (if that word can even be used) 5,000 of the deaths.

Decades later, victims still seek justice

Dahal has left many wondering what it was all for, writes Sonia Awale in Nepali Times. When heinous crimes against humanity including summary executions, torture, disappearances and war rape by both sides go unaddressed and unpunished, it creates a sense of impunity for unpunished war crimes, she wrote.

Families of the victims worry that with the Maoists now in the governing coalition with their erstwhile nemesis, the Nepali Congress, justice may never be served.

Suman Adhikari’s father was brutally killed by the Maoist foot soldiers. He was a popular school teacher at Panini Sanskrit Secondary School in Duradanda in Lamjung district. His crime? Refusing to contribute a quarter of his salary to the so-called people’s war fund.

Adhikari and his family members petitioned the independent Nepal Human Rights Commission (NHRC) but have little hope in justice for the murder. They pled with the Commission of Investigation on Enforced Disappeared Persons and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The members of these latter two commissions were selected on the governing party’s recommendation.

Adhikari believes that both of the commissions are more interested in letting war criminals off the hook than in providing justice and protecting the perpetrators. He is worried by reports “that they want a blanket amnesty for all war crimes by both sides in the conflict,” he lamented.

In another case, nearly 3000 child soldiers were disqualified for integration into the Nepal Army by the United Nations Missions in Nepal (UNMIN) during the verification process in 2007. After being blocked by UNMIN, several of the child soldiers demanded adequate compensation and also demanded punishment for Dahal and his second-in-command, Baburam Bhattarai. The aggrieved young persons claimed that the Maoist leaders committed war crimes using children in the armed conflict.

These thousands of victims are still waiting for justice 17 years after the signing of the historic Comprehensive Peace Agreement. What they need is an investigation through a tribunal, like the trials in Rwanda, Sierra Leone and Yugoslavia. The government’s unresponsiveness has lost it the victims’ trust.

On October 15, 2020, the NHRC published a major report evaluating government responses to its recommendations over the last two decades. The commission said that, out of 286 individuals whom it said should face legal action, only 30 had been held accountable. The list of those identified includes 16 civil servants, 98 policemen, 85 Nepal Army personnel and 65 Maoists.

Of a total of 1,195 recommendations made by the commission over the last 20 years, the government failed to act on half, and only 163 recommendations were fully implemented.

A mentality of violence lives on

The Maoist insurgency has profoundly shaped Nepali political psychology. The Maoist rebels still believe in the ideology of violent revolution to bring about what they term “people’s government.” Poor governance, corruption, government apathy towards integrated socio-economic development and, most importantly, political instability have contributed to the continuing growth of Maoism, says researcher Smruti S. Pattanaik, writing for Strategic Analysis Journal.

Former insurgents continue to address political rallies and blatantly boast that they killed 5,000 people. People like Adhikari and the former child soldiers are being ignored while those responsible for conflict-era crimes are walking openly in broad daylight.

Dahal’s decision to declare February 13 as a national holiday marking the start of the “people’s war” in 1996 “sparked outrage in Nepal’s cybersphere and brought conflict survivors out into the streets,” according to Nepali Times. Glorification of the violence continues to come from the highest levels of government.

Meanwhile, Dahal has claimed that he will complete the transitional justice process. In a statement on November 20, 2021 English op-ed in The Kathmandu Post, he termed Nepal’s peace process a successful “home-grown model” that avoided heavy-handed Western intervention.

We must not ignore Nepal or expect the government to police itself of its own volition. I will conclude with the words of an editorial from Nepali Times:

The international community, which was once so vociferous on transitional justice, has suddenly gone quiet.

Nepal’s conflict ended without a victor or vanquished. The former enemies are now the state. Neither they, nor the police, nor Nepal Army generals or former guerrilla commanders, want to rake up wartime atrocities. They have colluded to set up a Truth and Reconciliation Commission as well as a Commission on Enforced Disappearances, both of which can offer amnesty to those found guilty. If something is not done, the victims of brutality may be waiting forever.

[Anton Schauble edited this piece.]

First published in Fair Observer, United States, 01 SEPTEMBER 2023

Saleem Samad is an award-winning independent columnist and media rights defender based in Bangladesh. He became an Ashoka Fellow in 1991, and won the Hellman-Hammett Award in 2005. He could be reached at <saleemsamad@hotmail.com>; Twitter @saleemsamad

An unsung martyr missing since 1971

Col Ziaur Rahman with wife Ferdousi Chowdhury and Shahreen Rahman Lubna (centre)

SALEEM SAMAD

An unsung martyr missing since 1971Col AF Ziaur Rahman, principal of Sylhet Medical College was abducted by the Pakistan army and never was seen again.

Possibly thousands of unsung martyrs have not been properly documented. Their names are not mentioned in speeches of a politician, nor are they mentioned in textbooks, and not even documented in liberation war history.

Lieutenant Colonel Abul Fazal Ziaur Rahman, of Pakistan Army Medical Corps (AMC), is one unsung hero, missing since 1971.

Col Zia was posted as Principal and Superintendent of Sylhet Medical College (now Sylhet MAG Osmani Medical College) in 1968.

Despite being cautioned by his well-wishers and family, he ignored official protocol and wearing military uniform joined the countrywide anti-Ayub student protests in 1969. Incidentally, one of Ayub Khan's favorite playing card partners was a young army doctor Zia in Rawalpindi.

He was often visited by Col Osmani, senior Awami League leaders at his official residence in Sylhet for his outspoken support for independence from the shackles of the Pakistan junta.

Born in Araihazar Upazila, Narayanganj in 1926, and studied medicine at Campbell Medical College (now Nil Ratan Sircar Medical College), Kolkata. After graduation in 1947, he joined Pakistan Army Medical Corps in 1949.

He was visibly angered when General Yayha Khan, Chief Martial Law Administrator (CMLA) and President of Pakistan on March 1, 1971, cancelled the maiden parliament session scheduled to be held in Dhaka.

The cancellation sparked the nationwide street protest. The Sylhet Medical College was overwhelmed with wounded protesters and treated for bullet wounds and other injuries. Col Zia was an experienced surgeon and took care of the patients at the Operation Theatre himself.

One day in early March, Col Zia responding to a phone call from Col Sharfaraz of Sylhet Regional Martial Law Administrator, barked at him and said "It is simple, I will not treat [your soldiers]. You are shooting our innocent civilians [Bangalee] right and left and you are asking for treatment?"

He argued: "Your soldiers are CMH entitled, so take them to CMH," according to a short biography by his wife Prof Ferdousi Chowdhury, published in Shadhinata Juddhei Army Medical Corps (2010).

In another round of heated argument erupted with the Punjabi officer visited the medical college the same day. Troops accompanying Sarfaraz urged order to shoot Col Zia when he was defending Banglaee nationalism and demanded that Pakistan troops should withdraw from his motherland.

From somewhere he got a small flag of independent Bangladesh on March 3 and while driving Sylhet city the flag fluttered in his official car. Another flag was hoisted at his residence.

His wife Prof Ferdousi, believes that the display of the flag on his car and residence had invited him trouble. Similarly, another AMC officer Shaheed Lt. Col. Hye dared to display the flag in his car and was brutally killed.

His home radio was seized and was unable to hear the historic public speech of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman on 7th March at Race Course Maidan. He heard the summary of the speech at the hospital.

He told his colleagues as well as the Pakistani soldiers that all directives have been given by Bangabandhu, now it's time to join the struggle for independence.

Five days after the "Operation Searchlight" crackdown by Pakistan troops to smash the rebellion, on 1 April, a fire-fight occurred at Punjab Regiment in Sylhet. An army vehicle dropped a grievously wounded Bangalee military officer and a doctor.

On April 9, Pakistan troops raided the hospital on information that officers who defected and joined Mukti Bahini were being treated and sheltered in the college.

The unwarranted death of his two colleagues made his blood boiling further heightened his anger and hatred towards the Pakistanis.

Col Zia was confined to his residential quarter and not allowed to buy essentials and daily groceries. His family along with his wife, their daughter, and son starved. The soldiers denied buying milk for his youngest son.

During his confinement, Col Zia often told his wife that "Bangabandhu can be compared with Mahatma Gandhi only."

They were rescued from confinement by a parent of a former student of Col Zia. After a few days, they felt that the shelter was not safe. They decided to return to the staff quarter of the medical college, where most of the residents have fled for safety. They broke open the door of a resident doctor and stayed from 7 April.

Shahreen Rahman Lubna, the only daughter of Col Zia was playing with dolls in front of the quarter. A Lieutenant arrived with few soldiers and asked the whereabouts of Col Zia.

She volunteered to take them upstairs where they were leaving as a refugee. On that day, Col Zia desired to eat 'bhuna-khichuri'. When Ferdousi was preparing his favourite menu, he went to take a shower.

The young officer said he has been asked to report to the military camp immediately. Zia was expecting this, so he quickly changed into a shirt and a pair of trousers. The 'khichuri' was lying on the dining table while he was escorted away.

Like thousands of victims of enforced disappearance by the Pakistani occupation force on 14 April, none have returned home.

At least 15 doctors and 122 healthcare staff of the Army Medical Corps were martyred. Ten members of AMC received gallantry recognition by the state.

A student's hostel at Osmani Medical College has been named after Shaheed Lt Col Zia, which heartens his family members.

Ferdousi Chowdhury retired as Head of Geography from Begum Badrunessa Government Women's College and also was a teacher of Geography at Eden Girls College. She died of old age complications in May 2017.

Lubna was five years old on a fateful day. Since then she never observed Pahela Baishak. The celebration of Bangla New Year's festivity does not arouse feelings in her life. She misses her father who loved her the most.

On that day she remains in solitude and silently weeps the whole day.

First published in The Asian Age, 16 December 2020

Saleem Samad, is an independent journalist, media rights defender, recipient of Ashoka Fellowship and Hellman-Hammett Award. He could be reached at saleemsamad@hotmail.com; Twitter @saleemsamad

Getting away with enforced disappearances

When will this stop in Bangladesh?

SALEEM SAMAD

On August 30 - the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances - hundreds of families in Bangladesh must have been heart-broken for their loved ones. 

A son cries for his father, a mother cries for her son. The wife grieves for her husband and the heart of a sister aches for her abducted brother.

“Enforced disappearances are grave violations of international law and are crimes against humanity,” explains constitutional lawyer Dr Shahdeen Malik. He laments that the state lacks the initiative to rescue abducted persons as police stations refuse to register complaints of their families.

The New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW), quoting the rights groups in Bangladesh, said that in the last 18 months from January 1, 2019, to July 31, 2020, at least 572 people have been reported to have been forcibly disappeared by security forces and law enforcement agencies.

While some were eventually released, shown arrested, or discovered killed by law enforcement agencies in so-called “crossfires,” the whereabouts of many of them remain unknown.

We all know that enforced disappearance has frequently been exercised as a tool to spread terror among critics. In a political void, both the state and non-state actors regularly fish in murky waters to settle their scores. Most of the acts of disappearances could be clustered into three groups. First in the line of fire are the political opponents and antagonists of the state. Second, are security threats to the state and non-state actors, and third is obviously for extortion. The latter two are never freed. Mostly they are executed.

The sensational abduction in recent times is the case of journalist Shafiqul Islam Kajol. The journalist was “found” blindfolded, with his legs and arms bound at the no-man’s-land of the Bangladesh-India international border 53 days after he disappeared.

Also, rights defenders have not forgotten the mysterious abduction of indigenous rights activist Kalpana Chakma 22 years ago from a village in Rangamati in the Chittagong Hill Tracts. 

She was taken away hours after midnight, on the eve of the 1996 general election. No one has been tried for her disappearance. She is presumed to have been killed after her abduction to cover up the incident.

The day before Kajol’s suspicious disappearance on March 10, the journalist was one of 32 individuals booked for criminal defamation complaints by a member of parliament of the ruling Awami League.

Kajol was accused under the controversial Digital Security Act, 2018 of publishing defamatory posts on the lawmaker on Facebook. His disappearance, and suspected torture, appear to be heavily connected to the trumped-up charges. 

After 203 days since Kajol had disappeared, he had been “found” and then taken into custody. The ailing journalist is now languishing in prison and is refused proper health care despite a court order.

On the other hand, the families in grief squarely blame the authorities for not responding to the repeated appeals from the victims’ families for investigations into the enforced disappearance of their loved ones.

The UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances, the UN Committee against Torture, and the UN Human Rights Committee have all expressed their concern over the Bangladesh government’s failure to disclose information regarding arbitrary arrests, unacknowledged detention, and enforced disappearances.

However, the government persistently denies that enforced disappearances occur in Bangladesh and refuse to credibly investigate the fates and whereabouts of disappeared persons, according to HRW.

The government has yet to sign or ratify the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance. The end of impunity of state actors will not cease unless accountability and transparency of a democratic government are assured. Safety and security are enshrined in the constitution.

First published in the Dhaka Tribune on 31 August 2020

Saleem Samad is an independent journalist, media rights defender, and recipient of Ashoka Fellowship and Hellman-Hammett Award. He can be reached at saleemsamad@hotmail.com. Twitter @saleemsamad

Victims of abduction in Bangladesh, Pakistan, Kashmir, Sri Lanka, Nepal & Ugyhur

Women shout slogans during a protest following restrictions after the government scrapped the special constitutional status for Kashmir, in Srinagar August 14, 2019. Photo: REUTERS

SALEEM SAMAD

As the world observes the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances on Aug 30, another hundred or more people will be abducted silently by state security agencies globally.

Their relatives will hold portraits of disappeared family members and call upon governments to stop such abductions, and seek accountability for the enforced disappearances, killings, and abductions, in Bangladesh, Pakistan, Kashmir, Sri Lanka, Palestine and elsewhere.

Families cry for answers on International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances on August 30, a day declared by the United Nations.

Since its inception in 1980, the UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances has registered 56,363 cases across 112 countries — but thousands of other cases were simply not reported!

Unfortunately, governments are often reluctant to respond. Besides, security agencies engaged in enforced disappearances, while non-state actors also settle their scores in muddy waters. They enjoy their impunity as they rub shoulders with the mighty in the corridors of power.

The impunity is extended to these forces, often because their crimes against humanity may have had government sanction.

The legal explanation does not, however, convey the horror families endure as they try and grapple with the enforced disappearance of a loved one.

Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia director of Human Rights Watch says, under international human rights law, an enforced disappearance occurs when a person is taken into custody by government officials or their agents and the state refuses to acknowledge the person’s fate or whereabouts, placing the victim outside the protection of the law.

In South Asia, the recent history of violent conflicts ------ whether the war in Afghanistan; insurgencies in Balochistan, Pakistan or Kashmir, India; the civil war in Sri Lanka and Nepal; or political violence in Bangladesh and the Maldives------ has witnessed serious human rights violations including secret detentions and enforced disappearance, states the New York-based Human Rights Watch.

Bangladesh authorities have traditionally trashed allegations of the disappearances even after the security forces have taken someone away in front of witnesses. Instead, the agencies claim that the ‘disappeared’ are hiding to evade banks loans or are felons dodging arrest.

In Indian administered Kashmir, they use the shocking word ‘half widow,’ for women whose husbands are missing.

In Kashmir, hundreds of unidentified foreign jihadists are buried in unmarked graves, but the government is yet to order forensic tests to determine whether the remains of "disappeared" Kashmiris also lie buried in those graveyards.

In Sri Lanka, families of the tens of thousands of people who disappeared during the three-decade-long bitter ethnic civil war are camped in street corner protests. The war ended in 2009, and these families are still hoping that their loved ones will be found.

In Nepal, a Commission of Investigation on Enforced Disappeared Persons received nearly 3,100 complaints but failed to explain the causes and origin of the scary social phenomenon experienced so widely during the country’s ten-year civil war.

The victims experience egregious form of human rights violation, removed from legal protections, remaining at the mercy of their captors, at severe risk of torture or inhumane treatment, and of extrajudicial killings, says Meenakshi Ganguly.

"The families of missing ones spend the rest of their lives waiting for their loved ones to return home, or at least be told where they are buried. This is a severe form of psychological torture," said Leonce Byimana, a psychologist and Executive Director of TASSC, a US-based Torture Abolition and Survivors Support Coalition.

On this International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances, human rights leaders will be speaking on behalf of missing loved ones---- for the Sindhis in Pakistan, the Kurds in the Middle East, the Tamils in Sri Lanka and Uyghur Muslims in China at the National Press Club in Washington DC.

Sufi Laghari, Executive Director of the Washington DC-based Sindhi Foundation also coordinating the Washington Press Club event, said: "We want people to understand how governments carry out enforced disappearances to silence their dissidents."

Until their whereabouts are determined, families of the disappeared should have access to effective remedies and reparations, including regular updates on the status of the investigations. This cruelty needs to stop.

First published in the Bangla Tribune, 30 August 2019

Saleem Samad, is a journalist, media rights defender, also recipient of Ashoka Fellow (USA) and Hellman-Hammett Award. Twitter @saleemsamad; Email: saleemsamad@hotmail.com

Bangladesh - Amnesty International Report 2013: The State of the World Human Rights

HUMAN RIGHTS 

KNOW NO BORDERS

Photo: Elite anti-crime team RAB. Rights groups blame RAB for extrajudicial executions and other violation of human rights, but government argues that such incidents have been reduced (but not stopped)

Some 30 extrajudicial executions were reported. State security forces were implicated in torture and other ill-treatment and at least 10 enforced disappearances. Political violence resulted in the death of at least four men. Women continued to be subjected to various forms of violence. The government failed to protect Indigenous communities from attack by Bengali settlers. At least 111 workers died in a factory fire, some allegedly because officials refused to let them leave the premises. More than 20 Buddhist temples and monasteries, one Hindu temple and scores of Buddhist homes and shops were set on fire during a communal attack. One person was executed and at least 45 people were sentenced to death.

Background

In January, the Prime Minister stated that no human rights violations had been committed in the country.

Political violence escalated in December, when opposition parties tried to impose day-long general strikes. At least four people died and dozens of strikers and police sustained injuries. Jamaat-e-Islami demanded the release of their leaders currently being tried on war crimes charges. The Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) demanded that the forthcoming general elections be held under a caretaker government. Members of a group affiliated with the governing party attacked opposition members, beating and stabbing one bystander to death.

National and international concern about allegedly high levels of corruption were echoed in June when the World Bank cancelled US$1.2 billion credit for the construction of Padma bridge in central Bangladesh, due to the government’s insufficient response to allegations of corruption. An inquiry by the Anti Corruption Commission remained open.

The authorities continued to raise concerns with India over killings of Bangladeshis by Indian border control forces. More than a dozen Bangladeshis were killed by Indian forces while crossing the border into India.

Extrajudicial executions

At least 30 people were victims of alleged extrajudicial executions. Police claimed they had been killed in gun battles with security forces. Families said they had been killed after being arrested by people in plain clothes identifying themselves as Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) personnel or other police. No one was brought to justice for these killings. 

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RAB personnel allegedly shot dead Mohammad Atear Rahman (also known as Tofa Molla), a farmer, in Kushtia district on 12 September. RAB said he was killed in “crossfire”, although Atear Rahman’s family and other witnesses said RAB had arrested him at his home the previous evening. His body reportedly bore three gunshot wounds, two in the back.

Torture and other ill-treatment

Torture and other ill-treatment were widespread, committed with virtual impunity by the police, RAB, the army and intelligence agencies. Methods included beating, kicking, suspension from the ceiling, food and sleep deprivation, and electric shocks. Most detainees were allegedly tortured until they “confessed” to having committed a crime. Police and RAB allegedly distorted records to cover up the torture, including by misrepresenting arrest dates.

Enforced disappearances

At least 10 people went missing throughout the year. In most cases the victims were never traced. Those bodies that were recovered bore injuries, some caused by beatings.

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Ilias Ali, Sylhet division secretary of the opposition BNP, disappeared together with his driver Ansar Ali on 17 April. The government promised to investigate the case but provided no information by the end of the year.

Violence against women and girls

Women continued to be subjected to various forms of violence. These included acid attacks, murder for failing to pay the requested dowry, flogging for religious offences by illegal arbitration committees, domestic violence, and sexual violence.

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Aleya Begum and her daughter were arrested without a warrant on 9 September and were allegedly tortured at Khoksa police station in Kushtia district. After two days they were transferred to Kushtia city police station and kept in a dark room. The daughter, a college student, was separated from her mother at night and sexually abused by police officers. The two women were released on 18 September, after appearing in court. Aleya Begum and her daughter shared their story with the media, and were arrested and jailed again on 26 September.

Indigenous Peoples’ rights

As in previous years, the authorities failed to settle Indigenous Peoples’ claims to land that had been seized from them during the internal armed conflict (1975-1997), or recently occupied by increasing numbers of Bengali settlers. Tension between the two communities and the failure of the security forces to protect local Indigenous people against attacks by Bengali settlers led to several clashes and injuries on both sides.

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At least 20 people were injured in a clash between Indigenous people and Bengali settlers in Rangamati on 22 September. Local people said security forces came to the scene but failed to stop the violence.

Workers’ rights

Trade union leaders supporting garment factory workers’ rallies against low pay and poor working conditions were harassed and intimidated. One man was killed. 

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Trade union leader Aminul Islam went missing on 4 April. He was found dead a day later in Ghatail town, north of Dhaka. His family saw evidence of torture on his body and believed he had been abducted by security forces. He had previously been arrested and beaten by members of the National Security Intelligence for his trade union activities.

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At least 111 workers died from burns and other injuries, some allegedly because factory officials refused to open the gates to let them escape a fire that broke out at Tazreen Fashion in Savar town, north of the capital Dhaka, in November.

Communal violence

Attacks against members of minority communities took a new turn in late September. Thousands of people protesting against an image posted on Facebook of the Qur’an, which they considered derogatory, set fire to more than 20 Buddhist temples and monasteries, one Hindu temple and scores of homes and shops in the southern cities of Cox’s Bazar and Chittagong.

Death penalty

At least 45 people were sentenced to death. One man was executed in April.

Amnesty International Report 2013: 

The State of the World Human Rights

http://files.amnesty.org/air13/AmnestyInternational_AnnualReport2013_complete_en.pdf