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

Will Selfie Diplomacy Reset Relations with the United States?

 

US president Joe Biden (L), Saima Wazed (C) and Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina (R)

SALEEM SAMAD

Most political observers are curious to know, what’s next after United States President Joe Biden and the world’s longest-serving women Prime Minister of Bangladesh Sheikh Hasina, both posed for selfie shots in New Delhi recently.

The two leaders met during a break at the G-20 Summit in Delhi in early September. Bangladesh Foreign Minister Dr Abul Kalam Abdul Momen admitted to the media that he approached Biden and sought his consent that his prime minister wished to take a photo with the leader of a super-power.

In a candid confession to television media, Dr. Momen said Biden promptly agreed with a smile. Hasina accompanied by her only daughter Saima Wazed approached for a selfie spree with Biden.

A grin of excitement from Biden, Hasina and Saima were reflected in the shots.

The Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) press wing made urgent requests on WhatsApp group of embedded journalists accompanying the PM’s media entourage to publish the selfie photos. Within a few hours, the selfies were splashed on the online edition of major news organisations. Why this hullabaloo of selfies?

Hasina’s ranting against the USA came to a grinding halt. The following day, the governing Awami League party general secretary Obaidul Quader shot an arrow toward the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and told cheering crowds that “BNP shocked seeing Biden taking selfie with Sheikh Hasina.”

For months, Hasina’s political rhetoric against America hit hard on its foreign policy towards third-world countries, especially Bangladesh and pressure on the issue of human rights records, labour rights and vote fraud which severely dented Bangladesh’s image.

She once said that America proposed to establish a naval base at 8 Sq. Km of Saint Martin’s island in the southwest of the country on the Bay of Bengal. Her denial of such a proposal has made Washington determined not to see her (Hasina) in power again.

She also went a step forward and said the USA has struck a deal with BNP to establish a military base at a ‘critically endangered’ coral island. The base was to keep watch over a huge swatch of the Bay of Bengal, which merges with the Indian Ocean to monitor merchant vessels and battleships of China, which indeed an absurd proposition, says the former Ambassador to Washington.

Meanwhile, intermittent visits of US officials, the European Union and the United Nations call on the government to hold free, fair, credible and inclusive elections in the upcoming January 2024 general elections and to respect human rights compliance.

On selfie diplomacy, when asked whether the USA relations with Bangladesh is likely to thaw. Humayun Kabir disagrees and said a tête-à-tête between two heads of government and photoshoots usually will not make any change in US foreign policy.

The policy is prepared by a team of think tanks, consisting of seasoned diplomats and international security experts, and then the US State Department draws a road map with individual countries and Bangladesh is no exception.

Earlier, Washington threatened to restrict the issuance of visas to travel to the USA of any official, judiciary, individual, as well as governing and opposition responsible for or complicit in undermining the democratic election process in Bangladesh.

Her government has reiterated that the next elections would be “free, fair and violence-free elections”. The foreign dignitaries visiting Bangladesh and listening to stakeholders including opposition leaders are not convinced of the government’s commitment to an inclusive election.

The crackdown on opposition and intimidation by henchmen of Awami League often pounce upon opposition rallies, while the police remain a silent spectator.

Several thousand opposition members were arrested and thousands are languishing in prison for months. The New York Times writes that the opposition was deliberately targeted to punish them for demanding a ‘caretaker government’ to oversee the elections as they have lost hope in Hasina’s government to hold credible general elections.

On the other hand, she is visibly annoyed over 170 global leaders and Nobel laureates who have urged the government to suspend legal proceedings against Muhammad Yunus.

In an open letter dated 27 August, leaders, including former US President Barack Obama, former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and more than 100 Nobel laureates, said the case of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Prof. Muhammad Yunus. “We are alarmed that he has recently been targeted by what we believe to be continuous judicial harassment,” the letter read.

The UN also voiced alarm at using legal proceedings in the South Asian country to intimidate and harass rights advocates and civil society leaders, including Yunus.

“While Yunus will have the opportunity to defend himself in court, we are concerned that smear campaigns against him, often emanating from the highest levels of government, risk undermining his right to a fair trial and due process in line with international standards, the letter said.”

Angry Hasina said that such a statement challenges the integrity and credibility of the judiciary system of a country and remarked that the law should take its path in the case of Yunus.

Without naming Hillary Clinton, the former Foreign Minister of the USA, she invited her to come to Dhaka and defend Yunus against his “corruption” and robbing financial benefits of the staff of Grameen Telecom.

Law Minister Anisul Huq told Deutsche Welle of Germany that the lawsuits were not meant to harass the Nobel laureate. “Those who faced injustice sought remedy at the court. It’s their right as citizens of Bangladesh. It will be decided at the court trial whether he committed any crime,” Huq concluded.

Some say Hasina became infuriated when Yunus announced he would form a King’s party in 2007 when a military-backed caretaker government took charge of the country.

However, the plan to formally float the King’s party fell flat in a few weeks of its announcement. Since then Yunus never showed any interest in politics.

In yet another political development, a fresh global outcry was caused after sending two prominent human rights defenders Adilur Rahman Khan and ASM Nasiruddin Elan of Odhikar for two years.

They were accused 10 years ago of exaggerating the number of deaths during the police midnight crackdown on Islamist organisation Hefazat-e-Islam during a seize of downtown Dhaka on 5 & 6 May 2013.

Human Rights Watch reported at least 58 people killed in police action, Amnesty International said 44 died, government claims only 11, while Odhikar said 61 were killed.

Besides, nearly a hundred eminent citizens and several international rights organisations, Canada, the European Union, France, Germany, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, United Nations Human Rights and the United States called on the government to release the defenders, which the UN said: “Such reprisals also have a chilling effect and may deter others from reporting on human rights issues and cooperating with the UN, its representatives and mechanisms.”

“Have you ever seen a regime so insecure that they feel more threatened for critiquing the government,” political historian Mohiuddin Ahmad poses the question.

Whenever or whoever raises the issues of human rights abuse, or holding of free and fair elections, the government starts shaking and scores of pro-government cyber warrior launches misinformation and disinformation campaign, remarked Ahmad.

As China and the US jostle for influence in Asia, French President Emmanuel Macron offered an alternative to Bangladesh during a recent short visit to Dhaka.

While the United States and China compete for influence in the wider region, Macron has pushed France as an alternative partner for Bangladesh, writes Arafatul Islam of German Deutsche Welle.

Sadia Aktar Korobi, a researcher on international affairs and studying at the University of Dhaka writes in the Fair Observer that India sees Bangladesh as both an economic and strategic investment, other major powers have their own goals with Dhaka.

Obviously, the US has shown a keen interest in Bangladesh, but its policies are complicated by Washington’s ever-consistent need to interfere in the internal matters of others, says the researcher Korobi.

On one hand, the US wants Bangladesh to join the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (QUAD) to restrain China’s growing influence in the Indo-Pacific. The growing frustration caused by incidents like this is pushing Bangladesh more towards China and India, the researcher concludes.

First published in nenews.in, 19 September 2023

Saleem Samad is an award-winning independent journalist based in Bangladesh. A media rights defender with the Reporters Without Borders (@RSF_inter). Recipient of Ashoka Fellowship and Hellman-Hammett Award. He could be reached at saleemsamad@hotmail.com; Twitter: @saleemsamad

Who Can Be Members Of UNHRC?

SALEEM SAMAD

Bangladesh has been elected as a member of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) for the term of three years (2023-2025).

Bangladesh Foreign Minister Dr Abul Kalam Abdul Momen has sent messages on WhatsApp stating (quote unquote): “Bangladesh won the Human Rights Council Election today (Tuesday) at the UN with highest votes (160 votes) which vindicated again that the global leaderships have confidence on Sheikh Hasina’s government and the Human Rights track record of Bangladesh. Bangladesh government is always at the forefront of democracy, Human Rights and justice.”

A question obviously arises, who can be members of UNHCR? The Council is comprised of 47 member states, which are elected by the majority of members of the General Assembly of the United Nations through direct and secret ballots.

The General Assembly takes into account the candidate States’ contribution to the promotion and protection of human rights, as well as their voluntary pledges and commitments in this regard.

The election to the Council’s Membership is based on equitable geographical distribution. Seats are distributed as follows: African States (13 seats), Asia-Pacific States (13 seats), Latin American and Caribbean States (8 seats), Western European and other States (7 seats) and Eastern European States (6 seats).

Countries elected are Algeria, Bangladesh, Belgium, Chile, Costa Rica, Georgia, Germany, Kyrgyzstan, Maldives, Morocco, Romania, South Africa, Sudan and Viet Nam.

Bangladesh is fortunate to have been elected in the quota of Asia-Pacific States with the highest vote of 160. It definitely gives the impression that Bangladesh’s diplomacy is in a win-win situation and made commendable strides in image-building globally.

The good news is Bangladesh, Belgium, Chile, Costa Rica, Georgia, Germany, Morocco, Romania and South Africa, 23 of the 47 Council members during 2023 will be “Friends of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P)” and have been appointed as Focal Point for Group of Friends in New York and Geneva.

By the end of this year, 123 UN member states will have served as Human Rights Council Members, reflecting the UN’s diversity and giving the Council legitimacy when speaking out on human rights violations in all countries.

If we review the list of members of the past and present, it could be found that at least two-thirds of the members are governed by autocratic regimes and built-in draconian laws to suppress freedom of expression, freedom of political assembly and freedom of faith.

Hundreds of dissidents, critics, journalists and opposition are languishing in prisons in Algeria, Bangladesh, Georgia, Morocco, Sudan and Viet Nam and other countries who were and are new members of the Council.

Sudan is no doubt a failed state but has been included in the Council, surely for a purpose which is not understood well.

Many totalitarian governments and new members of the Council deliberately flout the principles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). The UDHR is a milestone document in the history of human rights proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly on 10 December 1948 as a common standard of achievements for all peoples and all nations. The Declaration is believed to be a fundamental human right to be universally protected.

Like Bangladesh, Vietnam state media boasted that being elected to the UNHRC is an “international recognition of Vietnam’s commitment to respect and protect human rights.”

However, there is still hope. Many newly elected governments in third-world countries have come to power through credible elections with people’s mandates. Those third-world countries have launched political reforms – trashed draconian laws which suppress freedom of expression and religious freedom.

To conclude, Bangladesh with membership in the Council comes with a responsibility to uphold high human rights standards. The nation under the steadfast leadership of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina will surely reform the draconian laws, and ensure freedom of expression and freedom of assembly of opposition, critics and dissidents.

First published in The News Times, 12 October 2022

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

Remands will soon be found in the museum

SALEEM SAMAD

The outspoken human rights lawyer Zahirul Islam Khan Panna assertively said that “the practice of remand will soon be found in a bolted iron cage in the museum.”

Remand, as Dr Masum Billah, a teacher of law at the Jagannath University, has said, is not found in the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC), the Bible for judiciary and police crime management. The practice of obtaining remands for suspects or the accused from judicial magistrate courts is unconstitutional.

The police exercise section 167 of the CrPC, which ushers the victim into legal harassment and also intimidates victims with ill motives, flexing their political power. 

Advocate Panna did not hesitate to add that remands are mostly used for extortion from families after they hear about the police brutality the alleged accused face in police stations. From January to August of 2021, legal rights organization Ain O Salish Kendra (ASK) reported 44 deaths in judicial custody. The report points fingers at the perpetrators from the police force, elite anti-crime Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), and Border Guards Bangladesh (BGB).

Unsurprisingly, the RAB has been blamed for 17 custodial deaths caused by torture. Next is the police for the deaths of 11 suspects, followed by the BGB (9 deaths). Most of these victims died in custody during interrogation, which has been practised since the British colonial era. 

Most senior officers of law enforcement agencies have participated in training courses in different countries on crime management, techniques of interrogation, investigation, and knowledge of forensic science vis-à-vis the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948.

During the ongoing War on Terror campaign, also known as the Global War on Terrorism spearheaded by the United States in the aftermath of 9/11, hundreds of officers from the Bangladesh Police, security intelligence from the armed forces, and national intelligence attended courses on how to handle a suspect red-flagged as a terrorist. 

In addition, hundreds of police officers were deployed in peacekeeping under UN missions abroad training them in human rights. 

While in remand in November 2002, my torturer was in a UN peacekeeping mission in Kosovo and the interrogator from the DGFI attended a counterterrorism course in America under the WoT program.

Many human rights researchers claim that the century-old torture in custody has significantly decreased, while rights groups say that the curve of death in custody has not straightened. 

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has continued to urge the members of the Bangladesh Police to build themselves as a “pro-people force” -- a call that could not be more appropriate for ensuring human rights and strengthening democracy. Human rights abuses are endemic and most citizens who come in contact with the police complain of corruption and torture. 

In its assessment report, the International Crisis Group stated that a successful police reform can only be sustained if it is linked to a judiciary that enforces the rule of law and effectively protects individual rights and assures citizen security. 

It warned that if the police continue to be used for political ends, it will affect democracy, law and order, crime and corruption, national security, and the economic growth in Bangladesh.

The much ado about the Police Reform Program (PRP), which was funded by the United Nations, European Union, and British DFID, is back to square one. Ironically, the pro-Islamist alliance Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and Jamaat-e-Islami-led government scuttled the PRP. The military-backed caretaker regime resuscitated the program in 2008.

With police reforms, Bangladesh could have been a more secure and stable country, where the human rights of citizens, particularly the vulnerable and marginalized, were promoted and protected to accelerate progress on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), economic growth, and social justice.

The police bundled up their learning experience from the police reforms initiative and instead resorted to torture in judicial custody in name of extracting “vital” information needed for their investigations. 

First published in the Dhaka Tribune, 21 September 2021

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

Remand is torture, extortion in police custody

SALEEM SAMAD

“Remand” is a common word used in crime stories in newspapers and television news, mentioned when a suspect is detained and a remand is sought from a magistrate court for further interrogation.

Each time a remand is sought, the suspect experiences torture and humiliation in police custody. Any suspect in police custody is supposed to be safe and secured. In Bangladesh, it’s dangerous for an accused person to be in police custody.

Unfortunately, this legacy has been inherited by the police from the autocratic regime of Pakistan, and Pakistan inherited it from the British colonialists, who tortured revolutionaries and activists of the Swadeshi Movement.

In November 2002, I was accused of sedition, along with other foreign journalists of Channel 4 TV. In the wee hours of Friday in the month of Ramadan, I was hauled up from my friend’s apartment in Uttara. After Jumma prayers, I was driven to the Dhaka District Judicial Magistrate court in the old town.

Four armed plainclothes policemen in an unmarked van with shotguns protruding from the windows. A decoy vehicle accompanied us to cheat the paparazzi photographers and TV cameras. Two lorries with scores of police in riot gear escorted the “person of interest.”

The Friday traffic was thin and reached the court premise quickly. I wanted to get down but was asked to stay put while the detective police officers with walkie-talkies smoked and chewed pan (betel leaves). After several minutes, an officer snarled at the policemen to board the vehicles and head towards the Detective Branch (DB) HQ at Minto Road.

The unknown magistrate granted remand for five days without my appearance at the court. That was the reality of a democratically elected regime of Begum Khaleda Zia (2001-2006), which swept back to power after the October 1, 2001 elections.

Her regime refused to tolerate any critics, dissidents, and opposition. Delinquents were severely reprimanded. The reign of terror by police and intelligence agencies was to instil fear among nonconformist citizens.

Arbitrary arrests, torture, death in custody, legal harassments, enforced disappearances and extra-judicial killings were rampant. This situation further deteriorated when her administration launched “Operation Clean Heart'' in the winter of 2001-2002. World leaders and international organizations expressed grave concern over the violation of the fundamental rights of the citizens.

On return from the magistrate court, Kohinoor Miah, the deputy police commissioner of DB who had close ties with Hawa Bhaban, took me to a powerhouse outside the prime minister’s office run by Khaleda’s rogue eldest son Tarique Rahman and thrashed me with a baton wrapped with electric wires and hit my knee cap (which does not swell). After iftar, he again assaulted me and threw me on the floor and held his service revolver on my forehead and screamed that he should shoot me for defaming the country.

During five days of remand, three military officers of DGFI tortured me during interrogation and wanted me to confess a fairytale conspiracy that they had written on their storyboard. I was determined not to confess, nor did I sign any print-outs downloaded from the internet. Thus the scale of suffering increased. I was also denied food, drinking water, a toothbrush, and soap to clean after defecation.

Suddenly the torture stopped on the fourth day of the remand. A detained underworld don living in the same prisoner’s cell said that the torturer did not want to show fresh marks of torture to the magistrate.

Recently, the High Court made an exception to remand popular movie star Pori Moni three times. The judge observed that conceding multiple remand conflicts with the Supreme Court guidelines on arrests, detention and interrogation of suspects. Justice Mustafa Zaman Islam and Justice KM Zahid Sarwar Kajol said the repeated permission for remanding Pori Moni challenged the independence of the judiciary.

Veteran human rights lawyer Zahirul Islam Khan Panna told the court on a petition seeking directives that the guideline for remand is only followed by the Bangladesh International Crimes Tribunal (ICT) during the arrests, detention, and interrogation of war crime suspects.

First published the Dhaka Tribune, 14 September 2021

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

Pegasus spyware worries rights group

SALEEM SAMAD

In neighbouring India, opposition Congress lawmakers in the Indian parliament are at loggerheads with the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), as anti-cybercrime firms report claims that opposition leader Rahul Gandhi was “interest to clients” by Pegasus spyware along with 300 politicians, journalists, human rights defenders, and government officials in India.

Recently, a consortium of 17 global media outlets published leaked reports stating that Pegasus spyware developed by the Israeli firm NSO was used to hack into the phones of thousands of people across the world.

The tsunami of global outrage sparked after non-profit journalism organization Forbidden Stories released a major new investigation into NSO Group on July 18. The investigation exposed widespread global targeting with the Pegasus spyware.

On request of Forbidden Stories and Amnesty International, Canada-based Citizen Lab undertook an independent investigation based on forensic methodology. The forensic investigation reveals the dark surveillance market of spyware manufacturers used against “interest to clients.”

Allegations that mostly authoritarian governments used phone spyware or malware capable of spying on journalists, critics, opposition, and heads of state have “exposed a global human rights crisis,” according to Amnesty International.

Pegasus can access both Android phones and iPhones, keeping the user unaware of the secret surveillance. Data thieves stealthily retrieve call lists, SMS, contact lists, photos, and geo-location from phones without the knowledge of the user.

This is the world’s only organized secret surveillance -- a crime which pays back in huge cash. The spyware masters earn millions of dollars against installation, service charges, and other fees. Diving deep into the issue of spyware, it is indeed a very expensive electronic spy.

NSO comes from three founding members’ initial names in 2010. The firm employs 500 dedicated IT experts in command and control centres in the client’s hub. The small team of the former Israeli intelligence agency Mossad Special Unit produced the controversial product for clients mostly in authoritarian and despotic regimes in Latin America, Africa, Middle-East, South Asia, and beyond.

The NSO website describes that their company creates technology to help governments and agencies prevent terrorism, break up paedophilia on the dark web, and prevent sex trafficking, money laundering, drug trafficking, and other organized crimes across the globe.

In a naive statement, the NSO official website says that the spyware can help rescue missing or abducted children, survivors trapped under building collapses, and victims of natural disasters.

Besides Pegasus, there are four other known manufacturers which also produce spyware and provide services to clients. The other products in the surveillance market are Dropout Jeep, RCS Android, Exodus, and PG-GEO. Nevertheless, Pegasus is an all-in-one spyware and has reason for being expensive.

In 2020, media rights organization Reporters Without Borders (RSF) branded NSO Group as a “digital predator” and reiterated its aim to punish NSO for the cyber crimes which infringed on privacy and freedom of speech.

In the United States and Pakistan, Cambridge Analytica misused intimate personal Facebook data to micro-target and influence swing voters in the last elections of Donald Trump, and Imran Khan’s in Pakistan.

It was alarming for civil society, when Amnesty launched a ground-breaking report in November 2019 on how the surveillance-based business models of companies like Facebook and Google undermine fundamental rights, including the right to privacy and freedom of expression.

Nonetheless, rights organizations expressed a clear danger for freedom of opinion and expression, especially preying on journalism, which is guaranteed by article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Rights groups around the world called for accountability in spyware sales and urged nations to wake up to a responsible international standard for snooping.

First published in the Dhaka Tribune, 27 July 2021

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

Cybersecurity law to end harassment?

SALEEM SAMAD

The week-long street protests and pro-government intellectuals, academics, rights activists, and defenders of media rights continued to ventilate their anger over the death of writer Mushtaq Ahmed and simultaneously demands to repeal the controversial Digital Security Act (DSA), the government in damage-control mode has hinted to repair the draconian law.

Law Minister Anisul Huq has said that the government is taking measures so that no one can be arrested or sued under the DSA before the investigation, he told BBC Bangla radio.

The DSA came to the forefront after the death of writer Ahmed, who was detained under the draconian law and died in Kashimpur High-Security Jail in Gazipur last week.

The Minister assured that they trying to reach a conclusion where no one can be arrested before investigation.

Admitting the misuse of law, the minister assured that they [government] are taking measures to bring an end to it.

For the first time in the country, there is a repressive cybersecurity law that only protects the government, politicians, and bureaucrats, but not the citizens.

If the controversial DSA could provide security to the citizens, the government must come forward and state who are those citizens benefitted from the draconian law.

The government cannot deny that the law arbitrarily targets critics, netizens, and journalists.

Not surprised that the law has never slammed charges against ‘waz-mongers (Islamic evangelists)’ and seems to have given immunity under the repressive law.

When the Mullah ‘wazi’ makes hate speech against the Ekushey book fair, Ekushey February, elective democracy, gender quality, Independence Day, liberation war sculptures, liberation war, national anthem, national constitution, national flag, Pahela Baishak, pluralism, school textbooks, secularism, Victory Day, women leadership, women’s empowerment, anger the people who suffered and contributed to the liberation.

They dared to challenge the elected government, demand to garbage the state constitution and instead override with Holy Quran and Sunnah as guiding principle of the nation-state, and to declare the nation an Islamic Republic, which was born from a bloody war on the principles of democracy, secularism and pluralism.

Such hate-speech challenges the sacrifice made by the people of Bangladesh – the three million martyrs, more than 400,000 women victims of rape, and 10 million war refugees.

The district administration nor the local police chief monitor the Waz-Mehfils, which gives them an upper hand to deliver hate-speech among tens and thousands of disciples. The audience enlarges when the sermons are uploaded to Youtube and Facebook, which are owned by infidels.

Despite hate-speech by the Mullahs are widely available on social media, but they are never punished. They are not slammed under cybersecurity laws.

Should the government be afraid of the Mullahs? The wazi’s overtly opposed secularism, pluralism, democracy, and are threats to national unity.

The mango-people understand that like the writer Ahmed, who dared to criticise the government’s pandemic management is a soft target for legal harassment.

More than 2,000 people have been booked under the undemocratic law since 2018, including folk singers, children, doctors, netizens, and not the least but the last are the journalists.

The law gives a wide range of authority to a junior police officer to barge into a newspaper or a media office. They can confiscate digital devices, like computers/laptops, WiFi routers, external hard disks, and mobile phones without any warrant.

The accused persons are blamed for tarnishing the image of the nation or have attempted to ‘destabilise’ the state.

Such lambasting accusations against the critics, writers, netizens, and journalists are sweeping statements. At the end of the day, the police investigators do not have any evidence, nor could they list any eyewitness to the alleged cybercrime.

On the other hand, the cybercrime tribunal is ill-equipped and does not have digital equipment, nor any trained personnel to determine what the accused has committed through social media.

The police investigators also do not have the skill and experience to understand what digital offence has been committed.

As the law allows, the detained accused should be kept in prison until a competent court grants bail, or held in custody to stand trial at the cybercrime tribunal.

Meanwhile, civil society and rights groups have reiterated to scrap the controversial cybersecurity law, which shrinks the space for freedom of expression, free speech, press freedom, and right to critique.

First published in the Dhaka Courier, 5 March 2021

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

What will President Joe Biden’s strategy be for South Asia?

President Joe Biden signs executive orders in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington/ Photo REUTERS

SALEEM SAMAD

Hours after President Joe Biden took oath in Washington DC, the leaders of South Asia showered tribute to the new leadership of the United States.

Months before the formal swearing-in on January 20, there were frantic exchanges of diplomatic cables from the capitals of South Asian countries to the United States capital, eager to know the 46th US president’s strategy for South Asia.

Most South Asian think-tanks were of the opinion that the policy would be different from the outgoing president, Donald Trump. The regional leaders and think-tanks have mixed feelings on Trump’s policy on South Asia, which was dubbed as “out of focus.” Most of the think-tanks on South Asian affairs were confident that Biden’s foreign policy would be far more pro-active and pragmatic.

The new US president is likely to engineer a full-scale foreign policy plan to augment cooperation with the 8-member South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), 11-country Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), 55 member states of the African Union, 21-member state Organization of American States (OAS), 22-member Arab League, 6-member Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), and so on and so forth.

Michael Kugelman, deputy director for the Asia Program at the Woodrow Wilson International Centre for Scholars in Washington, DC, believes that Biden will fully back a rapidly growing US–India partnership that enjoyed much forward movement during the Trump years -- just as it had throughout every previous administration back to the Bill Clinton era.

Incidentally, Biden is a long-time friend of India’s, who once described the US–India partnership as the defining relationship of the 21st century.

On the other hand, thousands of bipartisan Indian expats in America, who are effectively influential in American politics and administration, were able to churn hard facts into a pro-active foreign policy towards India in South Asia.

The two countries have a shared concern over combating terrorism and the challenges that the emerging Chinese hegemony pose -- these will have Biden’s full-throated support. He will also increase pressure on Pakistan to shut down the India-focused terror networks on its soil, especially with the receding US footprint in Afghanistan.

Nevertheless, Washington’s delicate relationship with Pakistan won’t be upended by abrupt moves, such as a sudden decision to cut security aid. Like Trump, however, Biden strongly supports total withdrawal from Afghanistan.

However, when he was vice president of Barack Obama’s administration, he was a vocal opponent of his policy regarding additional troop deployment to battle the Taliban and the remnants of Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State.

He is expected to toe the line of Trump for a workable relationship with Pakistan that revolves around securing Islamabad’s diplomatic support in advancing a fragile peace process in Afghanistan with the jihadist Taliban.

Meanwhile, the rest of South Asia will receive strategic focus, as it did during Trump’s era. The attention will be largely framed through the lens of the US-China rivalry and, increasingly, the India–China rivalry amid Beijing’s deepening footprint across the region, fuelled by its controversial Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), says Kugelman at the Woodrow Wilson International Centre.

Washington’s radar will once again lay emphasis on democracy and human rights issues in South Asian states, an emphasis which was often overlooked by the previous administration.

Biden is likely to go relatively easy on India for strategic reasons, but Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka could find themselves subjected to sharp and frequent criticism.

Fortunately, climate change is another priority for Biden, which is a major threat to South Asia, especially Bangladesh, Maldives, India, and Sri Lanka, and this offers an opportunity for less tense US engagement in the region.

In short, the South Asian policy under President Joe Biden will be a rare case of a continuity program. It will definitely have an impact upon the incoming administration and will reset the US foreign policy, presenting both new opportunities and fresh challenges for the region.

First published in the Dhaka Tribune, 26 January 2021

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

Austerity, economic recovery, and the debt trap

SALEEM SAMAD

Why developing nations such as Bangladesh must be especially wary of how they seek to recover from the Covid-19 fallout

Development economists and civil society organizations (CSOs) argue that austerity measures adopted by the governments of third-world countries are not a solution during the coronavirus crisis.

They raise questions about austerity, gradually imposed after the Covid-19 crisis due to the massive debt contract. Immediate suspension of debt payments and better still, cancellation of debt, must take priority.

Instead, they advise governments to opt for economic recovery. The economic recovery will only be possible from “debt relief” and “debt justice.”

Bangladesh and other developing countries have given special attention in the wake of the coronavirus crisis and engaged in servicing external debts to international financial institutions.

The governments are deliberately diverting funds from education, human development, and infrastructure development sectors, whereas the health and safety net programs are implemented under a shoe-string budget.

According to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), the pandemic has pushed another 32 million people in poor countries into abject poverty.

Another report by the International Finance Institute highlights the $272 trillion global debt, a new high, in the third quarter of 2020 and warns us about the “attack of the debt tsunami.”

There are issues in which countries while seeking assistance from international financial institutions, are often imposed conditionalities that have not necessarily been negotiated with borrower states. These conditionalities are even seen in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The government deliberately does not involve the citizens to participate in consultations, discussions, or negotiations. Such conditionalities increase the country's chances of falling into a “debt-trap.”

Ultimately, it is the people that have to foot the debt repayment after authorities impose additional taxes and levies to recover from the vicious cycle of debt.

According to standards of international law, international financial institutions should be held responsible for complicity in the imposition of economic reforms that violate human rights, which is well documented.

Governments and major multilateral institutions like the World Bank, the IMF, and regional development banks have used repayment of public debt to generalize policies that have damaged public health systems.

This has meant job cuts in the health sector, job instability, reduced numbers of hospital beds, closing down neighbourhood health services, increased medical costs both for care and medicines, under-investment in infrastructure and equipment, and privatization of various sections of the health sector along with public under-investment in research and development for treatment, which is to the advantage of big private pharmaceutical groups and companies.

Even before the Covid-19 pandemic broke out, these policies had already led to an enormous loss of human lives, and all around the world, health personnel were organizing protests.

Neither the World Bank nor the IMF have cancelled any debts since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic.

Although they have made endless calculated declarations to give the impression that they are taking very strong measures. This is completely false.

Worse still, since March 2020, the IMF has extended the loan agreements that entail continuing with the structural measures enumerated above. As for the World Bank, since March 2020 it has received more in debt repayments from developing countries than it has paid out to finance either donations or loans.

Eminent development economist, Dr Atiur Rahman states that “We want to fight the coronavirus and, beyond that, improve the health and living conditions of populations, [for which] emergency measures must be taken.”

Immediate suspension of debt payments and cancellation of debt must take priority, suggests former Bangladesh Bank’s governor Dr Rahman.

The austerity measures do not contribute to economic recovery, but instead have negative consequences in terms of economic growth, debt ratios, and equality, and routinely result in a series of negative human rights impacts.

First published in the Dhaka Tribune, 8 December 2020

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

Jammu & Kashmir continues to face violations of human rights and free speech

Kashmiri journalists protest against alleged harassment by Jammu and Kashmir police - Outlook/Umer Asif

SALEEM SAMAD

On the morning of August 5, 2019, the few that had access to dish TV watched in shock the proceedings of the Indian Parliament, which abrogated the special status of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) and stripped it of its limited autonomy.

The restive Kashmir Valley is already one of the most militarized zones in the world, where suspicion, distrust, and rumour galore brew among the 13 million residents.

“Working has been hell for journalists in Kashmir for the past year,” said Daniel Bastard, the head of the Asia-Pacific desk of Paris-based media rights watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF).

For J&K’s residents, the state became the centre of the world’s biggest news and information blackout, with all forms of communication -- internet, mobile data, TV, and fixed-line telephone -- suddenly suspended. This unprecedented internet shutdown began on the night of August 4, 2019, on the eve of the abrogation of Article 370 of the constitution of India, which granted special status to the state of J&K.

The South Asia Media Solidarity Network (SAMSN) and the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) deplored Kashmir Valley’s one year under shutdown.

On August 11, a special committee set up by India’s Supreme Court recommended the restoration of 4G internet services in J&K, and access to high-speed internet on a “trial basis in a calibrated manner in specified limited areas to assess the impact on the security situation” after August 15.

However, the government in New Delhi and the J&K Union Territory administration (Delhi-appointed governor in Srinagar) told the court that while security concerns and threats from the region continued to remain high, 4G internet services would not be made available.

Further fuel to the fire is the J&K government’s new media policy for journalists. The policy announced in June has come under strong criticism, with political parties stating that it will give the government an upper hand to militate against journalists and muzzle free speech. “It’s an assault on press freedom,” writes Naseer Ganai in Outlook magazine.

The policy says that background checks of newspaper editors, publishers, and reporters will be carried out before the empanelment of newspapers, media organizations, and outlets. The policy gives power to the Department of Information and Public Relations (DIPR) to examine the content of print, electronic, and other media for “fake news, plagiarism, and unethical or anti-national activities.”

On the other hand, Tapan Kumar Bose, an independent filmmaker and a human rights activist based in Delhi, expressed his deep concern over those detained during the crackdowns and search operations, and those picked up from highways, with promises to relatives of their safe return -- the releases rarely happen.

Since 1990, thousands of habeas corpus petitions have been filed before the J&K High Court. “There is a total breakdown of the law and order machinery. I shall not feel shy to say that this court has been made helpless by so-called law enforcement agencies. Nobody bothers to obey the order of the court,” grieves Tapan Bose.

Besides Kashmir valley, Punjab, Nagaland, Manipur, and Assam are the worst places in India where enforced disappearances are rampant and appalling. Usually, security forces are in denial about those in custody and do not even register complaints about missing persons.

The relatives of the detainees move from pillar to post in J&K after being refused help for year after year. The relatives are frustrated and tired, but angry; they eventually abandon the search for their loved ones, and one day their cries go silent.

Tapan Bose, who made a documentary with Zahir Raihan during the 1971 Liberation War, stated that India’s domestic law allows impunity for enforced disappearances in states such as Manipur, J&K, and Punjab.

He says there is denial of justice and the right to know the truth, but de jure immunity minimizes victims’ access to the right to justice. The perpetrators are rarely held accountable for their acts.

First published in the Dhaka Tribune on 14 September 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

After Bangladesh, next Balochistan

The Baloch population has become a minority in its own homeland

SALEEM SAMAD

Akbar Shahbaz Khan Bugti or Nawab Bugti, a defiant Baloch nationalist, was murdered by the Pakistan Army on orders of Pakistan’s President General Pervez Musharraf. Nawab Bugti, born in 1927, chieftain of the rebellious Bugti tribe, was the tallest Baloch leader who was the federal minister, governor, and chief minister of Balochistan.

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

Nawab Bugti was assassinated in a military raid ordered by General Musharraf. In a fierce battle with militants, Bugti’s fortified cave in Bhamboor hills fell after the helicopter gunship fired missiles into the cave. Bugti and 35 of his compatriots were martyred on August 26, 2006.

Musharraf was charged by an anti-terrorism court and then acquitted by a Pakistan court in Bugti’s assassination. His death sparked a countrywide anti-Pakistan protest by Baloch students and youths. Police had to quell ethnic riots in different cities and towns.

Balochistan is a region mostly populated by ethnic Balochs, as well as Pakhtuns or Pashtuns. It is the least populated region, and also the largest province of Pakistan. For decades, disgruntled Balochis have been protesting the forcible conversion of the Baloch population into a minority in their own homeland.

Since the death of Bugti, the restive Balochistan has experienced appalling human rights abuse. Anytime someone speaks up, protests, or writes on the rights abuses in Balochistan, the next day a dead body is dumped to warn of the consequences of challenging the state. Journalists who have published about Balochistan’s issues faced violent backlash from the state security apparatus.

The United Nations, International Court of Justice, and human rights organizations may not be able to fathom the plight of the families of the missing persons. Baloch mothers, sisters, widows, and their children are suffering from severe spiritual and mental distress.

Military regimes in Pakistan envisaged eradicating ethnic identities by changing provincial demographics and pursuing Islamization, or the substitution of a common Muslim identity for ethnic ones.

At the end of the 1970s, Balochistan became one of the two focal points of the dictator’s Islamization strategy (the other being the North-West Frontier Province, now Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa).

The period between the end of the Bhutto regime and the military coup of Pervez Musharraf witnessed major developments in the Balochistan policy. Zia-ul-Haq used Islamization as a weapon against the insurgency in Balochistan, said Frederic Grare in his research publication Balochistan: The State Versus the Nation.

In 1970, when Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was on a whirlwind tour for the election campaign in Karachi, Lahore, Peshawar, and Quetta -- he was given a tumultuous welcome, said Zahirul Islam Khan Panna.

Z I Khan Panna, a leading human rights lawyer, was a law student at Karachi University and was hand-picked by Bangabandhu to be his fixer for the election campaign in Pakistan.

Panna met Nawab Bugti in Karachi in June 1970, and handed over an English copy of the Six-Point program, as desired by Sheikh Mujib. Bugti was indeed a great admirer of Mujib and told his Baloch nationalist leaders that the Six-Point was a Bible to resolve the longstanding deprivation and political neglect of Balochistan.

Sher Mohammad Bugti, spokesperson of the Baloch Republican Party (BRP) spoke from Geneva, where he and BRP’s key leaders are living in exile. He lamented that the “Balochistan atrocity is worse than Bangladesh” in 1971, which was perpetrated by marauding Pakistan military.

Baloch nationalists are fighting two fronts, he said. One is Pakistan and the second is China. The Chinese Communist Party is singing the same tune as Pakistan on the Baloch issue on the mega Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and Gwadar Port, which is located in Balochistan.

Bugti’s party senior leaders urged Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to support their cause and help bifurcate Balochistan from the deep state hawks of Pakistan -- like Indira Gandhi helped Bangladesh in 1971.

Brahamdagh Bugti, the grandson of the slain Baloch leader Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti is presently the president of BRP. He rejected the possibility of holding any negotiations with Pakistan authorities, suggesting an internationally supervised referendum in Balochistan to bury the crisis once and for all.

First published in the Dhaka Tribune on 7 September 2020

Saleem Samad is an independent journalist, media rights defender, and recipient of the Ashoka Fellowship and Hellman-Hammett Award. He can 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