Rights bodies call for sanctions over enforced disappearances in Bangladesh

By Md. Kamruzzaman

DHAKA, Bangladesh (AA) - Three international rights watchdogs issued a joint statement Monday urging governments to impose targeted sanctions against top security force commanders in Bangladesh who are involved in enforced disappearances and other grave abuses.

“More enforced disappearances in Bangladesh have been linked to the notoriously abusive [elite force] Rapid Action Battalion (RAB),” said the statement issued by Human Rights Watch (HRW), Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights, and the Asian Human Rights Commission on the occasion of the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances.

Referring to Bangladesh’s position as the top contributor of peacekeeping troops in the world, the statement urged the international community not to train members of RAB for deployment in UN peacekeeping operations.

The statement also accused the Bangladesh government of giving members of law enforcement agencies free reign to carry out enforced disappearances.

“The Bangladesh government has repeatedly denied involvement in hundreds of enforced disappearances of activists, critics, and opposition members, and has taken no steps to investigate them,” it said.

Underlining enforced disappearances as defined under international law, HRW Asia director Brad Adams urged all governments across the world to “ensure that the Bangladesh security force officials responsible face sanctions on their international travel, overseas assets, and use of international financial services.”

In a statement in mid-August, HRW, citing media reports and local human rights organizations, reported that nearly 600 people had been forcibly disappeared by security forces since Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina took office in 2009 and 86 of them were still missing.

Denying the charges, Bangladeshi Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal told Anadolu Agency by phone that it was political propaganda against Bangladesh.

“In most cases, people after committing crimes go into hiding voluntarily, and we have already been able to detect many of them,” he said.

“Sometimes people go hiding after incurring loss in business, sometimes after committing political or social crimes.”

He said there is no instance of enforced disappearances in Bangladesh.

“Those who are still hiding will be traced out soon,” he added.

In reply to a query about the alleged involvement of RAB mostly in involuntary disappearances, the minister said it is false and fabricated.

Meanwhile, dozens of relatives and family members of victims of forced disappearance held a press conference Monday and formed a human chain at the National Press Club in the capital Dhaka demanding the immediate rescue of all such victims.

They urged the government to produce them before the court, and if anyone was found guilty of any crime, they should be tried under existing laws.

Underlining enforced disappearance as a crime and human rights violation, they also called for justice against the perpetrators.