Bangladesh Human Rights Watch World Report 2014

Bangladesh tumbled backwards on human rights in 2013. The government led by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, which has long claimed to be liberal and democratic, engaged in a harsh crackdown on members of civil society and the media. In August, it jailed prominent human rights defender Adilur Rahman Khan on politically motivated charges. “Atheist” bloggers were arrested, as was a newspaper editor. The government increasingly accused those who criticized its actions or policies, ranging from the World Bank to Grameen Bank founder and Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, of being involved in plots against it.

On many occasions the government employed violent and illegal measures against protesters, including against followers of the Hefazat-e-Islami movement and those demonstrating against deeply flawed war crimes trials which ended in death sentences against many accused.

Dire conditions for workers in the garment and other industries remained largely unreformed in spite of promises of improvements following the tragic collapse of the Rana Plaza garment factory in April and the deaths of over 1,100 workers. The government finally dropped frivolous charges against several labor rights leaders. The courts also ordered all charges to be dropped against Limon Hossain, a young man wrongfully shot and maimed by security forces in a botched operation in 2011.

Elections scheduled for January 2014 led to increased tensions. Although the Awami League campaigned for a caretaker system while in opposition to guard against fraud and manipulation, once in power it abolished the system, leading to opposition party threats to boycott the elections and increasing the chances of violent confrontations between security forces and protesters.

Crackdown on Civil Society, Media, and Opposition

In February, Bangladesh was gripped by large-scale protests, political unrest, and violence after the International Crimes Tribunal (ICT) sentenced a leader of the Jamaat-e-Islaami party, Abdul Qader Mollah, to life in prison instead of death. Hundreds of thousands of people throughout Bangladesh took to the streets in peaceful protests to demand that Mollah be hanged. The situation took a more violent turn after the ICT, on February 28, sentenced another Jamaat leader, Delwar Hossain Sayedee, to death for war crimes. Following this verdict, Jamaat supporters took to the streets. Jamaat supporters were responsible for a number of deaths, but the security forces killed many more with often indiscriminate attacks on protesters and bystanders.

At the same time, the government began a crackdown on critics. Several bloggers who criticized the government for appearing to appease Islamic extremism were arrested.

In April, the law minister announced that the government would increase its control over social media, blogs, and online news websites. On February 16, the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission shut down the Sonar Banglablog, known to be operated by Jamaat activists, for spreading “hate speech and causing communal tension.” In a further attack on free speech, on April 11 the police arrested Mahmdur Rahman, the editor of an opposition news outlet, Amar Desh. Rahman was subsequently charged with sedition and unlawful publication of a hacked conversation between the ICT judges and an external consultant initially published by theEconomist magazine. On April 14, police raided the offices of another opposition newspaper, Daily Sangram, and its editor was subsequently charged for printing Amar Desh.

In August, Adilur Rahman Khan of Odhikar, a leading human rights group, was arrested under the Information and Communication Technology Act for allegedly false reporting about killings by government security forces when they dispersed the May 5-6 demonstration by Hefazat, a fundamentalist group demanding greater adherence to Islamic principles. Police raided Odhikar’s offices on the night of August 11, seizing computers which may contain sensitive information on victims and witnesses. Khan was denied bail several times and kept in prison for two months before being granted bail in October on appeal.

In October, parliament passed a bill amending the Information and Communication Technology Act to increase the length of sentences, according the police greater powers to arrest, and making certain offenses non-bailable.

At time of writing, the ICT, set up to prosecute war crimes during the country’s independence war in 1971, had handed down eight convictions, five of which resulted in death sentences. While human rights organizations have long called for fair trials of those responsible, the trials fell short of international human rights standards. In December 2012, theEconomist published damning evidence of collusion between judges, prosecutors, and the government showing that judges were instructing the prosecution on the conduct of the trials, the questioning of witnesses, and written submissions. The revelations led to the resignation of the ICT’s chief judge, but defense motions for retrials were rejected.

Although the ICT had the authority to order measures for victim and witness protection, it summarily dismissed credible claims of witness insecurity. In the Delwar Hossain Sayedee case, judges dismissed credible evidence that an important defense witness was abducted from the courthouse gates and did not order an independent investigation into the allegation. Contradictory statements by key prosecution witnesses were not taken into account in several cases, and judges severely limited the number of defense witnesses. The Appellate Division of the Supreme Court reversed the life sentence given to Abdur Qader Mollah and imposed the death penalty after the government pushed through retrospective amendments to the ICT Act, in clear violation of Bangladesh’s obligations under article 15 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). The amendment allowed the prosecution to appeal against the life sentence handed down by the trial judges, which the ICT Act had not previously allowed.

Human Rights Watch and the Economist, journalists and television show guests were issued orders by the ICT to show cause for contempt for critical remarks and reporting on the tribunal.

Unlawful Violence Against Protesters

Bangladeshi security forces frequently used excessive force in responding to street protests, killing at least 150 protesters and injuring at least 2,000 between February and October 2013. While large numbers of protesters were arrested, Bangladeshi authorities made no meaningful efforts to hold members of the security forces accountable. At least 90 protesters were killed by security force gunfire during the clashes among the Shahbagh movement, Jamaat-e-Islaami supporters, and security forces in March and April.

In response to the May 5-6 Hefazat protests, the police, the paramilitary Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), and the Border Guards Bangladesh (BGB) fired indiscriminately into crowds and brutally and unlawfully beat protesters, leading to approximately 50 deaths. At least a dozen members of the security forces and police officers were also killed, as well as three members of the ruling Awami League party.

Labor Rights and Conditions of Workers

Bangladesh has long had notoriously poor workplace safety, with inadequate inspections and regulations. This issue was spotlighted in April, when the Rana Plaza building, which housed five garment factories, collapsed. The building had been evacuated the day before due to cracks in the structure, but the workers had then been ordered back to work. More than 1,100 workers died.

Under domestic and international pressure, on July 15, 2013, the Bangladeshi parliament enacted changes to the Labour Act. The amendments, which did away with the requirement that unions provide the names of leaders to employers at the time of registration and allow workers to seek external expert assistance in bargaining, failed to lift a number of other restrictions on freedom of association. The law also provided exemptions to export processing zones where most garments are made. Even after Rana Plaza, Bangladeshi law remains out of compliance with core International Labour Organization standards, including Convention No. 87 on freedom of association and Convention No. 98 on the right to organize and bargain collectively.

The government also undertook to have more regular inspections of factories in 2013, but inspections which were due to start in September remained stalled by administrative delays.

In a welcome move, the authorities dropped charges against the leaders of the Bangladesh Centre for Worker Solidarity, who had been hampered and harassed in their work for years by frivolous criminal charges.

Tannery workers in the Hazaribagh neighborhood of Dhaka, one of the world’s most polluted urban sites, continue to face highly toxic working conditions. Some 150 leather tanneries operate in the area, producing leather primarily for export and discharging 21 thousand cubic meters of untreated effluent into the nearby Buriganga River each day. The government's planned relocation of the tanneries to a dedicated industrial zone, delayed numerous times since 2005, was again put off in mid-2013.

The Department of the Environment fined two tanneries for their failure to treat waste in 2013, the first time environmental laws have been enforced against Hazaribagh tanneries. Enforcement of environmental and labor laws is otherwise lacking, with negative consequences for the health and well-being of tannery workers and local residents.

Women’s Rights

Leading human rights groups in the country had discussions with doctors to revise medico-legal protocols for the treatment and examination of rape victims to exclude degrading practices like the two-finger test to draw conclusions about a woman’s “habituation to sex.” Such groups are challenging the practice as a violation of the fundamental rights to life and health with dignity in the High Court Division of the Bangladesh Supreme Court.

Key International Actors

India, Bangladesh’s most influential international interlocutor, remained largely silent on the human rights situation. Bangladesh and India continued to hold talks on issues linked to their shared border including illegal trade and the use of excessive force by Indian border guards leading to deaths and injuries to Bangladeshi and Indian nationals.

Bangladesh’s donors were more vocal, pressing the government to end its crackdown on critics. Donors were swift in denouncing the arrest of Adilur Rahman Khan, with members of the international community observing court proceedings. However, donors were largely silent on the lack of fair trials at the ICT.

Following the Rana Plaza collapse, over 70 European companies signed an international accord designed to better protect Bangladeshi workers by requiring regular inspections of factories and making the results public. However, American buyers refused to join this accord and signed a separate agreement which has been criticized for not allowing workers to freely form unions.

The government publicly agreed to allow international monitors to observe the January 2014 elections. The international community, in particular the US, have been vocal in calling for the various parties to come to an agreement well beforehand in order to avoid contentious and potentially violent protests and a non-credible election result.

First published by Human Rights Watch, January 21, 2014

https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2014/country-chapters/bangladesh

Bangladesh: A long road ahead

To end the deadlock, the two main parties should give all groups a voice in the political process

NAYMA QAYUM

Bangladesh's political crisis is not going away anytime soon. On January 5, the country went to the polls in an election that was largely one-sided. Since 1996, Bangladesh has held elections under a neutral caretaker government. However, the ruling Awami League (AL) has now scrapped a constitutional provision for neutral electoral oversight, and the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) boycotted the Tenth Parliamentary Elections without this provision.

One may certainly question the legitimacy of these elections: They were far from representative. The AL was set to win by default, as BNP had not registered for the election by the end of the registration period. AL candidates won 153 of the 300 parliamentary seats without any contestation. In the capital, Dhaka, citizens only voted in nine out of the 20 constituencies.

Nor is an election acceptable, if citizens do not vote. Fewer than 40 percent of the population turned up at the polls according to the government; others report the number as far less. Some voters stayed away from voting booths for fear of violence. CNN reports one polling officer as saying, "Presence of voters today is lower than any other time of voting."

Members of the international community have also questioned the validity of these elections. Although the United Nations did not formally declare the need for a re-election, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged both parties to exercise restraint and urgently address the people's expectations for an inclusive political process. Australia, Europe, and the United States called for fresh elections to be held.

Political violence a norm

Bangladesh is likely to descend into further violence without new elections. The country is certainly no stranger to political instability. Its violent birth in 1971 was followed by numerous coups and violent strikes as authoritarian governments toppled each other and later gave way to parliamentary democracy in 1991. Electoral violence is not a new phenomenon either. However, the January election is a huge step back after the successful and internationally acclaimed elections of 2008.

The country cannot move forward without a real opposition. AL leader Sheikh Hasina was sworn in as prime minister with the AL-allied Jatiya Party (JP) as the leading opposition in the parliament. The excluded BNP opposition, however, is not likely to stand down.

BNP demonstrations and strikes have paralysed Bangladesh since last year, and the party has continued its protests after the election. However, BNP is now operating within significant constraints. Opposition leader Khaleda Zia has just been released after two weeks of house arrest. Many opposition members are in hiding after the arrest of dozens of party members and police raids on their homes. However, the BNP movement shows no signs of abating. A key BNP leader has recently called the new AL government immoral, illegal, and autocratic and the party is now calling for a new election.

The BNP may, however, have to detach from its former coalition partner, the country's main Islamic party Jamaat-e-Islami (JI). BNP has stood by its ally as JI leaders were tried by a war crimes tribunal for mass atrocities committed against the Bangladeshi population during the 1971 liberation war. A High Court decision has since led the Election Commission to cancel Jamaat's registration, and on-going JI-instigated violence has even prompted one European diplomat to call the JI a terrorist organisation.  

At the same time, Sheikh Hasina plans to keep the AL in power. She shrugged off all doubts regarding the legitimacy of her victory at a press conference. The New York Times reported that when a journalist asked her whether she believed that the election would bring further instability, she said, "What do you want, that I should start crying, 'Oh, crisis, we have a crisis!' Do you want that?" Bangladesh's newly sworn prime minister appears oblivious to the ongoing violence. However, according to the Times a close aid to the prime minister said that he was certain that new elections would occur, although a new opposition coalition was also expected to fill the power vacuum and attract breakaway factions from the BNP.

Decades of strife 

The irreconcilable differences between the AL and the BNP signal the failure of democratic institutions in Bangladesh. Bangladesh was not simply stuck in an impasse as the parties traded power for two decades. Rather, the political system has gradually disintegrated as institutions have failed to regulate politics and society.  

Bangladesh's gradual institutional weakening was overshadowed by the country's remarkable success in economic and human development. And this deadlock may now cost the country its economic and political future; major donors are considering the withdrawal of aid unless the crisis abates. Donor pull-out can have devastating consequences for the lives and livelihoods of vulnerable groups, as the country's development strategy relies heavily on foreign aid.

The newly sworn Awami League government may lack legitimacy with the people, but it must be the one to pull Bangladesh out of this mess. The government needs to pursue political stability as its foremost goal. Failing to do so would be disastrous for the country's growing, but now stalled economy, especially for the informal labour and agrarian workers. A crackdown on the opposition would only worsen the AL's already declining credibility with the people. Under these circumstances, a credible and representative new election is the only viable option.

The AL should also consider bringing back the caretaker government. A non-elected body has its disadvantages: In 2006, an unelected caretaker government stayed in power for over two years as the country prepared for an election. However, this is the third time in Bangladesh's history that the opposition's demand for neutral electoral oversight has brought politics to a standstill. The caretaker government has more credibility with the people than one would expect of an unelected body. Bangladesh experienced its biggest surge in voter turnout during the two elections where a caretaker government supervised the polls after a prolonged period of political unrest (1996, 2008). Electoral turnout rose from 55.5 percent in 1991, to 75.6 percent in 1996; and from 75 percent in 2001, to 85.3 percent in 2008.

New way forward

If the caretaker government is reinstated, its selection mechanism must be reformed. In order to be legitimate, the caretaker government must be selected by representatives of all political groups and through an inclusive process. The government does not have to start from scratch on such an effort. It can draw on the experience and infrastructure of various NGOs and civil society groups that have sufficient experience in creating dialogue across groups.

The government must also review its institutional practices. The current crisis can be traced back to an institutional decay that has silently crept up on politics and society. The parliament needs to be revived; the opposition should refrain from calling hartals and walking out of parliament, and instead, engage in responsible and meaningful dialogue. It is important for all parties to respect existing rules instead of constantly changing them to suit their needs. However, these rules must be created through inclusive processes and not just serve the party in power.

Bangladesh has a long and difficult path ahead. A long-term solution requires more than a new poll. Bangladesh has held elections since its independence in 1971, but ruling parties have monopolised all governing institutions. The country remains far from the democratic ideal that its constitution enshrines - its multiparty governments can, at best, be labelled electoral authoritarian regimes. However, only a genuinely representative political system can bring stability to Bangladesh should the two parties continue to coexist.

Future governments must strengthen governing institutions and give all groups a voice in politics. If not, the two parties may find themselves in another deadlock in five years.

First appeared in Al Jazeera news portal, 18 January 2014

Nayma Qayum is a PhD candidate in Political Science at the Graduate Center, City University of New York. Follow her on Twitter: @naymaqayum

Politics in Bangladesh: No quick fixes

David Lewis

Bangladesh’s political problems are unlikely to be solved soon, whether or not there are fresh elections.

The Awami League’s (AL) Sheikh Hasina was sworn in on 12 January for a third spell as Bangladesh’s prime minister after her party swept the polls, which had been boycotted by the opposition Bangladesh National Party (BNP). Hasina argues that her win in elections held on 5 January is legitimate, despite the BNP boycott and the fact that at least 26 people were killed during the election, making it the deadliest in Bangladesh’s history. Khaleda Zia, the leader of the opposition BNP and two-time former prime minister, has termed the election a ‘scandalous farce’ and rejected the outcome.

According to the AL, the party won up to 80 per cent of the seats contested in an election that saw a nearly 40 per cent turnout in the 147 districts (out of 300) where voting took place. But according to neutral election observers, these figures are suspect. They estimate a voter turnout of approximately 20 per cent (or even as low as 12 per cent), and also point to widespread ballot-stuffing in the AL’s favour. Turnout was also likely affected by the fact that more than 1,000 BNP activists have been arrested in recent weeks. Given that voter turnout in the previous election in 2008 was 86 per cent, it is a stretch to say the electoral outcome reflects the will of the people of Bangladesh.

It remains unclear how long Hasina will be able to hold on to power in the face of a full-blown political crisis and increasing pressure from the opposition and international community for a new election. Since 8 January, the BNP has been blocking roads, railways and waterways in an effort to topple the government. Zia, who was under house arrest for the first two weeks of January, continues to demand that fresh elections be held under a neutral caretaker government to minimise the risk of poll rigging.

After the relatively successful elections that have taken place regularly and returned the opposition to power each time since the military was overthrown in 1990, some suggest Bangladesh has edged closer to a situation that is reminiscent of the one-party state that had emerged in the mid-1970s, and the various sham elections held by the military during the 1980s.

The underlying problems that have brought this situation to a head are complex and unlikely to be solved soon, whether or not there are fresh elections. The first is the continuing polarisation of deeply held views around the legacy of 1971 in relation to the need to secure justice and reconciliation, and the use of religion in politics.

The second is the centrality of an entrenched patron clientelist politics that has led political parties and their supporters into the confrontational style of ‘winner takes all’ politics. This has helped create an illiberal democracy since the 1990s, making political party reform almost impossible and keeping the country’s much vaunted civil society relatively weak.

The third is the international context in which Bangladesh’s politics is evolving: Jamaat-e-Islami’s links with the Middle East; India’s broad support for the AL government; the United States’ preference for the BNP over the AL; and the growing importance of China as it seeks to build influence in the region. Bangladesh’s growing geopolitical importance may bring both opportunities and dangers, but the country will be unable to tackle these as long as its political crisis deepens.

First published in the London School of Economic blog, January 17, 2014

David Lewis is Professor of Social Policy and Development at LSE and author of “Bangladesh: Politics, Economy and Civil Society“

Bangladesh Elections 2013: Fate Of A Nation

CHIRANJIB HALDAR

The outcome was never in doubt. Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League ended with more than two-thirds of seats in a hustings shunned by international observers as flawed and derided as a ‘farce’ by the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP). When the Shahbag unrest intensified in February 2013, some called it an upheaval, some an awakening of sorts. Most analysts termed it a display of pent up feelings and expression that had been stifled for years. The representative reality may be mired in illusion as many sceptics would say, but in this case, a visible spontaneous movement was sustained despite attempts to stifle it by two major opposition parties in Bangladesh.

The Awami League regime doggedly pushed through the polls on schedule despite the opposition boycott with BNP and 17 smaller parties simply refusing to file nomination papers. The supreme questions confronting the average Bangladeshi at this crucial juncture is whether this resilience can be combined with wisdom to assimilate internal contrasts and divisions rather than to intensify hatred even in select segments of the populace. A question that obviously crops up is will one of Asia’s youngest nations be able to preserve its secular fabric. With over 154 Members of Parliament elected unopposed to the 300-member Jatiya Sangsad (Parliament) from the ruling Awami League, the elections were largely be a formality with the party easily garnering two-thirds majority.

While the Bangladesh Nationalist Party led by Begum Khaleda Zia has termed the inevitability of MPs getting elected unopposed as ultimate treachery and deceit, Awami League has termed it as a final frontier between forces who favoured the creation of Bangladesh and those who opposed it. And BNP chairperson and former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia has reiterated umpteen times that elections cannot be free and fair with her rival Awami League in power. If one objectively analyses the Hasina and Khaleda regimes in totality, forces both of cohesion and disunity have coexisted in a precarious balance, as it has since the nation felt its pangs of birth. Even the Shahbag protests have not led to complete integration and so fulfilment may have extracted its pound of flesh.

So, there is much more at stake than discontent and support both in favour and against the war crimes tribunal sentencing anti-liberation satraps. When Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina was sworn in 2008, she may not have anticipated this offshoot in the next general elections. What we are witnessing may be the churning of a nation in the 43rd year of its liberation.

If we rewind for a moment, the last Bangla hustings in December 2008 saw Awami League securing a landslide victory with 230 seats in the Jatiya Sangsad and subsequently forming a Grand Alliance with Ershad’s Jatiya Party and splinter groups. The BNP was decimated from 193 seats in the 2001 polls to just 29 while its principal ally, Jamaat-e-Islami reduced to 2. Many commentators have opined that behind Khaleda Zia’s incessant braggadocio is a premonition that under a neutral caretaker regime, January 2014 could be a repeat of 2001 in heavily polarised Bangladesh when she sprang back to power despite plenty of projections to the contrary. On top of it, the BNP secured convincing victories in the last mayoral polls in four urban hotspots.

A crucial diplomatic shove by India over the past two years to pragmatically engage with Sheikh Hasina, seen by many in Dhaka as pro-India, and her bete noire Khaleda Zia is because New Delhi feels Indo-Bangladeshi ties are better insulated from upheavals in domestic Bangla politics. For the Shahbag movement to happen around ekushe February (21 February) was indeed reinforcing the win of linguistic nationalism over religious nationalism. Even if Sheikh Mujibur Rahman or Bangabandhu had gone to Pakistan in 1974 to attend an Islamic brotherhood conference, for Bangladeshis, the liberation war and ekushe February can’t be claptrap. Bangladesh must look inwards. The West did not stop Bangladesh from bringing the perpetrators of rapes and murders during the 1971 liberation movement to justice for 42 long years.

For the Awami League, keeping up the division between pro and anti-liberation forces is critical for sustaining its political grip. The bridge on the river Padma may definitely boost Sheikh Hasina Wajed’s chances and shed Bangladesh’s basket case tag. But along with the anti-incumbency factor, there are other worries for the ruling Awami League alliance even if it piggybacked to power on a boycott bandwagon. The Teesta Water sharing and the Indo-Bangladeshi land boundary agreements are yet to fructify. If these don’t materialise after the polls in Bangladesh, Sheikh Hasina Wajed will face a demanding electorate and risk accusations that she has not been reciprocated by India. And this failure is where BNP supremo Khaleda Zia could derive her nationalist springboard from in future.

Perhaps the editorial in Dhaka’s Daily Star correctly sums up the polls as the deadliest in the country’s history, asserting that the Awami League won ‘a predictable and hollow victory, which gives it neither a mandate nor an ethical standing to govern effectively.’

First published in Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies, January 7, 2014

Chiranjib Haldar is a freelancer writer & researcher. He could be reached at email: chiranjibhalder@gmail.com

Begum on the Backfoot: Controversial parliamentary election plunges Bangladesh into fresh political uncertainty

SALEEM SAMAD

There was something amiss about Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina celebrating the Awami League's landslide victory-it took 232 of 300 seats-in the January 5 elections to Parliament. For starters, it was a one-sided contest; the opposition alliance of 18 parties led by the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) boycotted the polls. In Dhaka a day after the results, Hasina was both jubilant and defiant. She dismissed critics who questioned the legitimacy of the polls held amid boycott and bloodshed-24 people were killed on polling day. The next day, she asked her main political rival Begum Khaleda Zia to "shut up and negotiate" an end to the country's political paralysis.

Hasina will find it harder to deal with international opinion. The US said the elections lacked credibility and called for fresh polls. United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon criticised the Awami League and BNP and urged them to resume meaningful dialogue. Britain and Canada expressed dismay that candidates were elected unopposed on more than half of the 300 seats. The estimated 40 per cent voter turnout was the lowest in the country's ten elections. Even Hasina's longtime regional supporter, India, issued a guarded statement, terming the polls a "constitutional requirement" and an "internal process of Bangladesh".

Imtiaz Ahmed, a political scientist at the University of Dhaka, believes fresh polls are critical to satisfy the international donors. "Resource-starved Bangladesh needs annual aid of nearly $3 billion for poverty reduction and development projects," he says.

The loss of international credibility is just one of the worries for Hasina. The crisis caused by the political impasse is expected to intensify after her government's five-year term expires on January 24. Violence that has been unleashed by BNP since the elections were called in November threatens to engulf the entire economy. Sporadic incidents of violence continue. A blockade has crippled highway and railway transport, work and education. Economic activity has ground to a halt and Bangladesh's main export earner, the garment sector which employs nearly six million people, has been severely affected. Factories are running under capacity as 75 days of strikes have disrupted raw material supplies and delivery of finished goods.

Inflation rose by about 0.2 percentage point to touch 7.35 per cent in December last year as a direct result of the violence. "I am eagerly waiting for the deadlock to end. If it doesn't happen, I will be forced to cut costs for my survival," says Nasiruddin Biswas, chairman of Nasir Group of Industries, one of Bangladesh's largest industrial conglomerates valued at $256 million.

Hasina's government has blamed the Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI), which has long been an ally of Khaleda Zia's BNP, for the terror campaign and militancy in Bangladesh. In 2010, her government began trials of jei leaders who were accused of participating in a genocide that left more than a million Bangladeshis dead during the 1971 war of liberation. On December 13, senior jei leader Abdul Quader Molla was hanged after being sentenced by a war crimes court. In August, the Supreme Court declared jei illegal and banned it from contesting elections.

Political analysts believe Hasina is unlikely to call fresh polls before the war crime trials are completed next year. Election boycotts have been an important tool in Bangladesh's Battle of the Begums. Khaleda Zia boycotted the 1988 general elections held under the autocratic rule of General Husain Muhammad Ershad. Sheikh Hasina boycotted the 1996 elections when Khaleda Zia was prime minister. Khaleda announced a boycott of the 2014 elections in November after the Hasina government rejected her proposal for a neutral caretaker government to supervise the polls. Since then, more than 120 people have been killed and over 900 buses torched. A disturbing trend has been attacks by suspected jei extremists on the minority Hindu community, which makes up about 10 per cent of the country's 180 million population. Attacks, and looting, have been reported from Satkhira, Dinajpur and Jessore districts, forcing thousands of Hindus to flee their homes for temporary shelters.

At her January 6 press conference, Hasina left the door open for dialogue. And Khaleda Zia agreed. "There is no solution other than talks," she told BBC. But Khaleda insists that the dialogue should be held before the government's current term ends. She has also laid other preconditions, including that she be freed from unofficial house arrest. It is now Hasina's move to make. The world is watching.

First published in India Today magazine, January 10, 2014

Saleem Samad is an Ashoka Fellow (USA) for trendsetting journalism, he contributes for India Today, The Week, Outlook magazines in India and Karachi, Pakistan based Southasia magazine. You can follow her on Twitter - @saleemsamad

Bangladesh has little to celebrate after the most violent election day in its history

With 21 people dead, along with further human rights abuses and an absence of opposition, serious questions must now be asked of this government

AISHA GANI

My cousin Amna (not her real name), a student at Anwer Khan Modern Medical College in Dhaka, is currently resitting her crucial exams and missed all her classes in the past two weeks because of the recent instability in Bangladesh. "My friends are afraid and nobody wants to come into college," she told me. It was not safe for her to travel back to the capital, with violent clashes between protesters and police on the streets, strikes and road blockades, and buses being petrol-bombed. "Bangladesh is very dangerous at the moment. People didn't want to go out during election time. There is horror every day."

I think about when I visited Bangladesh, navigating the dusty alleyways with Amna, hailing a rickshaw and picking up hot parathas and halwa en route to Dhanmondi lake to watch the sun rise. It was Victory day in Bangladesh. But now there is nothing to celebrate after the most recent elections. The country is still being choked by a toxic political culture in which winner takes all, and where there is no room for reconciliation with the opposing side. Sheikh Hasina was sworn in as prime minister this weekend, with the backdrop of putting the opposition leader, Khaleda Zia, under house arrest and banning 21 political parties. The absence of opposition parties raises concerns about the credibility of the elections.

The Hasina regime's record of human rights abuses and the level of corruption is serious, and it is disconcerting that pro-government newspapers and elite commentators overlook this. Moreover, their support for the Shahbag movement, whose demands include hanging those accused at the domestic war crimes tribunal, banning opposition political parties and arresting editors who are critical of them, is deeply disturbing. Although the Bangladeshi novelist Tahmima Anam argued in the Guardian that Bangladesh doesn't have to go back to being a basket case, the only way to prevent this is to have a real democracy, stop the political point-scoring, stop seeking revenge, and focus on unity and working towards a more pluralist society.

This was the most violent election day in Bangladesh's history, with 21 people killed as they headed to the polls, and in the run-up to the elections there have been night raids on the homes of opposition supporters. Yet human rights abuses by the regime's security forces are nothing new. Last year, the offices of human rights activists were ransacked for reporting on abuses by the government's security forces against protesters, while activists Adilur Rahman Khan and Naseeruddin Elan of the Bangladeshi human rights group Odhikar were arrested and are now appearing before a cyber crimes tribunal. There have also been violent attacks on journalists, including the murder of a blogger. And it is the same government security forces that charged with batons and opened fire on protesters who were demanding compensation for the loss of their loved ones after the Rana Plaza factory tragedy, in which more than 1,100 people died.

Much of the current instability is happening because Hasina slashed open some old wounds of the nation: the prime minister had made a manifesto pledge to hold accused "war criminals and collaborators [of Pakistan]" on trial – despite a previous general amnesty in 1973 which had been granted by Hasina's father, Sheik Mujibur Rahman. It was an election winner for Hasina's Awami League party against the Bangladeshi National party (BNP), who had been successful in elections in 2001 when they made a partnership with Jamaat-e-Islami. In 2010, Hasina's government set up the "international" war crimes tribunal and most of those on trial are long-standing members of Jamaat-e-Islami. Last month, Abdul Quader Mollah was the first defendant to be hanged. This war crimes tribunal has been condemned as unjust by the international community, including the UN and Amnesty. It has been marred by scandals including the abduction of defence witnesses by police from the court, to the exposure of partiality and collusion between judges, prosecution and the state.

Are these shackles of war and political grudges what we want the next generation of Bangladeshis to inherit? Grave crimes were committed and have to be addressed. There has to be restorative justice for the victims of the war, and as I have argued elsewhere, there can be truth and reconciliation even after 40 years. But has justice been done with unfair trials, division and more spilt blood? Serious questions must be asked of the government; and with steps taken to eliminate the opposition, is Hasina's regime taking an even more authoritarian direction? There are suggestions that there was less than 10% voter turnout in the elections. The EU, US and Commonwealth nations did not send observers to monitor the polls, which were not deemed to be "transparent, inclusive and credible". While allies have not previously said much of consequence on the country's human rights record, and usually heap platitudes on Bangladesh's progress, the real test will be how they interact with this government in the future, and whether they will legitimise the corruption that they have just called out.

First published in The Guardian, 15 January 2014

Aisha Gani is a Guardian digital journalism trainee and is currently working on the G2 desk. You can follow her on Twitter - @aishagani

Bangladesh: Hope Revived

SANCHITA BHATTACHARYA

S. BINODKUMAR SINGH

On January 5, 2014, Bangladesh conducted its 10th General Elections. With a comprehensive boycott by the Opposition, as well as by some of Sheikh Hasina Wajed's allies, prominently including General H.M. Ershad's Jatiya Party (Ershad), 153 of a total of 300 seats in the Jatiyo Shangshad (National Parliament) were decided unopposed. Results for 136 of the remaining 147 seats for which elections were held, had been declared at the time of writing. Sheikh Hasina's Awami League (AL) had won 102 seats; followed by the Jatiya Party, 13; Independents, 13; Workers Party (WP), 4; Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal (JSD), 2; and others, 2.

Of the unopposed seats, AL candidate were declared unopposed winners in 127 seats; followed by the Jatiya Party, with 20 seats; JSD, with 3 seats; WP with 1 and Jatiya Party-Manju (JP-M) with 1 seat.

Only 11 of the 41 registered parties in Bangladesh participated in the elections. Despite this, according to Bangladesh Election Commission, the voter turnout was 45 to 46 per cent.

The elections were strongly opposed by the BNP-led 18 party alliance, and the run-up to the polls, as well as the election itself, were marred by street violence. At least 18 people were killed on polling day. 151 people have been killed in street violence since the announcement of the elections on November 27, 2013, in protests that combined opposition to the elections and to the War Crimes Trials, which had already sent one senior leader of the Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI) to the gallows .

A complex and high risk politics played out in the months preceding the elections, with parties increasingly polarized on virtually all issues. Eventually, however, the cards appear to have fallen substantially in favour of Sheikh Hasina's AL and its allies. The Opposition had been substantially mislead into believing that the 'international community' particularly led by the US, would not allow Bangladesh to go into an election that was widely boycotted. While there were some indications of a greater willingness in Washington to accommodate the BNP-JeI combine it if came to power in Bangladesh, and consequently, of a narrower band of tolerance for the Sheikh Hasina led alliance, any measure of external support for the Opposition quickly dissipated as the elections came closer, particularly in view of the rising crescendo of violence engineered by BNP-JeI cadres, as well as a result of the visibly increasing popular support to the War Crimes Trial (WCT) process. It is significant that Abdul Qader Mollah, the notorious 'butcher of Mirpur' was hanged on December 12, 2013, barely three weeks before the election date, provoking both wild celebration, on the one hand, and violent protests, on the other.

While questions have been raised regarding the legitimacy of the present elections, it is significant that they have been held within transparent legal and constitutional parameters. Further, even before the elections, Sheikh Hasina had told the Opposition, including Begum Khaleda Zia, chief of the BNP, that while the current election to the 10th Jatiyo Sangshad were already a closed issue, early elections to the 11th Parliament were open to negotiations. Indeed, the present situation in Bangladesh is far from unprecedented and Sheikh Hasina has only reversed roles this time around. In the February 1996 elections for the 6th National Parliament, with a comprehensive Opposition Boycott on the grounds that the Government had rigged Parliamentary by-elections in March 1994, Begum Khaleda's BNP had won all 300 seats, with just 21 per cent of votes polled. Significantly, at least 16 persons had been killed on election day, February 15, 1996. Elections to the 7th Parliament were quickly forced just months later, in June 1996, and the AL secured 146 of 300 seats, with a voter turnout of 75.6 per cent, the highest in Bangladesh to date. The BNP secured just 116 seats.

The Opposition in Bangladesh is now caught in a cleft stick. Sheikh Hasina will evidently continue to strongly support theWCT in her new tenure. Six top leaders of the JeI and BNP are currently on death row, pending appeals, and the appeals process is likely to be exhausted within months, and in some cases, possibly more than that. Significantly, the ICT awarded the death sentence to Mollah on February 5, 2013; it took some ten months for him to exhaust the appeal process, before he was hanged on December 12, 2013. Bacchu Razakar was sentenced (in absentia) on January 21, 2013; Delawar Hussain Sayyedee on February 28, 2013, Muhammad Kamruzzaman on May 9, 2013; Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mojaheed, on July 17, 2013; Salahuddin Quader on October 1, 2013; and both Mohammad Ashrafuzzaman Khan alias Nayeb Ali and Chowdhury Mueenuddin on November 3, 2013. While Razakar is currently believed to be in Pakistan, and unlikely to be brought to justice, Sayyedee and Kamruzzaman could be sent to the gallows at any time. The only hope the BNP-JeI has of rescuing these leaders from execution is to accelerate the process for a new election, with a limited, if not slim, possibility of capturing power. Escalating street violence over the past year has evidently failed to weaken the AL regime's will to bring the perpetrators of the 1971 atrocities to justice. But if the Opposition comes to the negotiating table to hammer out terms for a new Election, the WCT process will continue to its logical conclusion - with lethal consequences for those on the death row. Moreover, Mollah's execution certainly found significant resonance among the people of Bangladesh, and was opposed (violently) only by a narrow spectrum of JeI-BNP cadres. Further executions of those guilty of the 1971 atrocities can be expected to widen the support base of the AL. Further, the JeI has already been declared an illegal formation, and is barred from participation in the Elections, and consequently unlikely to find a formal place on the negotiating table.

The present boycott of the 10th General Elections was purportedly the consequence of the passage of the 15thth Constitutional Amendment Bill on June 30, 2012, which overturned the 16-year-old requirement that general elections be overseen by a non-partisan Caretaker Government - a provision that was introduced into the Constitution in the wake of the February 1996 Elections, and that facilitated a political agreement to hold the June 1996 Elections.

While Sheikh Hasina has made it clear that she is open to negotiations for a new Election, the levels of existing, and now escalating, acrimony between the 'two Begums' make any early resolution unlikely. A pre-Election attempt to restore contact between the leaders of the AL and BNP only deepened bitterness and further polarized their rhetorical positions with the disagreement over the issue of formation of an Interim Government to conduct the January 5, 2014, elections resulting in a complete breakdown. Recent reports suggest that Khaleda Zia is under house arrest in Dhaka. Further, Sheikh Hasina has threatened to indict her for her role in the rising violence of the past months, declaring, on January 1, 2014, “We believe in justice. The Opposition leader would be charged with giving orders for killing and burning people to death in the name of (her) movement. Inshallah [God willing], her trial would be held on Bangladesh soil to this end, and we'll hold this trial.”

Indeed, the onslaught that the AL Government, in alliance with 14 other likeminded parties, had launched against Islamist radicals and their BNP supporters after coming to power in January 6, 2009, can only be expected to intensify in the coming months.

The BNP-led 18 parties’ Opposition alliance, including various Islamist extremist forces, has unleashed and sustained a relentless torrent of street violence through 2013. Hefazat-e-Islam (HeI), which came into forefront in mid-2013, during the course of the Long March on April 6, 2013, has also joined this violent formation. According to partial data collected by the South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP), the country has recorded 379 fatalities, including 228 civilians, 133 Islamist cadres and 18 Security Force (SF) personnel, through 2013, in violence unleashed by the these Islamist radical groups. In comparison, fatalities in such violence stood at just three (one civilian and two terrorists) in 2012, and six in 2010. No such fatalities were recorded in 2009 and 2011.

SF personnel arrested at least 4,201 extremists belonging to various Islamist groups through 2013, as against 1,832 such arrests in 2012; 578 in 2011; and 958 in 2010. The 2013 arrests included 4,041 JeI-Islami Chhatra Shibir (ICS) cadres, 69 HeI cadres, 54 Hizb-ut-Tahrir (HuT) cadres, 27 Hizb-ut-Towhid (HT) cadres, four Harkat-ul-Jihad-al Islami Bangladesh (HuJI-B) cadres, three cadres each of Ansarul Bangla Team (ABT) and Jama'at-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB).

Moreover, in its opposition to the War Crimes Trials, the opposition alliance called for hartals (general shutdown strikes) through the year, resulting in 91 days of disruption, according to partial SATP data.  The Dhaka Chamber of Commerce and Industry estimated the economic loss at about USD 200 million a day during the strikes. In an earlier statement, on June 20 2013, Bangladesh Railway Minister M. Mujibul Haque told the Parliament that Bangladesh Railway alone incurred a loss of BDT 240 million (approximately USD 3 million) as a result of hartals enforced by BNP-JeI since February, 2013.

The combined Opposition, however, was shocked when thousands of people demanding death sentences for War Crimes spontaneously gathered at Shapla Chattar, Shahbagh in Dhaka City. The resulting 'Shahbagh movement' with its Six Points, acquired immense support from Ganajagaran Manch (People's Resurgence Platform) and Muktijuddho Projonmo Oikya Forum, a platform of 13 organisations comprising freedom fighters’ children and their generation.

Despite the uncertainties of the situation in Bangladesh and the boycott of elections by the Opposition, the tactical advantage has clearly shifted in favour of Sheikh Hasina. The only instrumentality that the combined Opposition has in the situation prevailing after the elections is street violence, and this they have already deployed to the limits of their capacity, with little impact on the actions or intentions of the Government. Further escalation of this violence, though likely, is only going to provoke a further alienation among the people, undermining the prospects of the BNP alliance in any early General Election that may be negotiated. In the meanwhile, the WCT process will grind on, exposing the role of JeI and BNP leaders in the atrocities of 1971, and further delegitimizing these political formations in the eyes of the people, and of substantial sections of the international community.

First appeared in South Asia Intelligence Review, Weekly Assessments & Briefings, Volume 12, No. 27, January 6, 2014

Sanchita Bhattacharya is Research Associate Institute for Conflict Management and S. Binodkumar Singh is Research Associate Institute for Conflict Management

Bangladesh: Politics of fury

Elections may not put an end to the political upheaval in Dhaka

SALEEM SAMAD

On January 5, Bangladesh will hold elections to 300 seats in Jatiyo Sangshad, its parliament. But, unlike in the past, there is no excitement in the air. With the opposition staying away from the polls, as many as 153 candidates have been elected unopposed. The ruling Awami League is sure to bag majority, as 127 of the candidates belong to the party. Fear of political violence is likely to deter voters from casting their ballots.

 

Badiul Alam Majumder, secretary of Sujon, an NGO that advocates good governance, calls the election a farce. In December, the opposition, which consists of 18 parties led by the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), decided to boycott the polls, after its demands for a non-party caretaker government to supervise “a free, fair and credible election” were rejected by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.

The opposition and Hasina had been at loggerheads over the election for several months. The rift deepened on December 13, when Abdul Quader Mollah, leader of BNP's ally Jamaat-e-Islami, was executed for atrocities committed during the country's liberation struggle in 1971. Claiming that Hasina was bent on eliminating opponents, the JeI unleashed a violent campaign against the government.

The JeI's opponents say its fundamentalist ideology has no place in a secular country like Bangladesh. The country's supreme court, too, echoed the view on August 1, when it ruled that the JeI's registration as a political party was illegal. Following the verdict, the election commission banned the party from contesting the January 5 polls. Party leaders, however, have vowed to carry on their campaign, saying Mollah's trial was politically motivated.

But experts say the JeI is a spent force. According to Prof. Nazmul Ahsan Kalimullah of Dhaka University, the party's struggle is meaningless, as it cannot hope to hold any public office in the near future. He also said that, unlike what Hasina had been saying, the election would be “exclusive, not inclusive”. “The silent majority will lose confidence in the polls and refrain from participating,” said Kalimullah.

Fears of violence, he insisted, were misplaced. “I do not see any reason for violence. Not on poll day, because of the deployment of military troops and para-military forces,” he said.

But, even if the government manages to avoid bloodshed during the polls, the future seems rather grim. The JeI has said if Hasina plans to push ahead with her repressive tactics, the consequences would be dreadful. Also, experts point out that attempts by the government to neutralise the JeI could result in the party becoming more radicalised.

Though the JeI remains belligerent, the BNP has been reportedly participating in secret parleys with the Awami League to put an end to the political clashes that have plagued Dhaka in recent times. Apparently, the eagerness of the BNP to solve the impasse could be one reason it deliberately ignored the ban on the JeI.

The efforts to broker a deal, however, are yet to succeed. The violence in Dhaka has left people's lives and public utilities in ruins. Nearly 500 people have been killed and thousands injured in clashes since March last year. Nearly 900 vehicles, mostly public transport buses, have been torched. State-run medical facilities are overrun by the injured, most of whom are from low-income groups who dared to venture out of their homes in search of work. With education and tourism on the verge of collapse, and intermittent blockades affecting the business climate, experts point out that the next casualty could well be the ailing economy.

First appeared in The Week magazine, January 3, 2014

Saleem Samad is an Ashoka Fellow (USA) and Bangladesh based award winning journalist