PlanetSoldier
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So shootings by police at point blank range are justified by chapati brain?
Odhikar secretary Adilur Rahman detained by DB
- Thread starter idune
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So shootings by police at point blank range are justified by chapati brain?
scholseys
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when you turn off the lights in downtown dhaka and not allow any media there, you are bound to get exaggerated numbers. The Public will exaggerate. Arresting adilur rahman was a big mistake by awami league in terms of pr.
Bangladesh: UN urges immediate release of detained human rights defender
13 August 2013 – The United Nations today voiced concern about the recent arrest of a prominent human rights defender in Bangladesh and urged the Government to secure his immediate release.
Adilur Rahman Khan, the director of Odhikar, a well-known human rights organization in the country, was arrested at his home in the capital, Dhaka, on 10 August by plainclothes officers reportedly acting without a warrant, according to the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR).
“We are calling on the Government of Bangladesh to guarantee the physical and psychological integrity of Mr. Khan, whose arrest might be linked to his work as human rights defender,” OHCHR spokesperson Liz Throssell told reporters in Geneva.
She said Mr. Khan is reported to have been arrested under section 54 of the Code of Criminal Procedure and section 57 of the Information and Communication Technology Act, accused of publishing false information about violence by Government forces during demonstrations in May by the Islamist movement, Hefazat-e-Islami.
Odhikar reported that 61 people had died during these protests, challenging the Government’s version of events, noted Ms. Throssell.
She said that the day after his arrest, Mr. Khan was denied bail and ordered to be held on remand for five days.
“He was allegedly denied access to a lawyer before his court hearing,” she added.
United Nations News Centre - Bangladesh: UN urges immediate release of detained human rights defender
13 August 2013 – The United Nations today voiced concern about the recent arrest of a prominent human rights defender in Bangladesh and urged the Government to secure his immediate release.
Adilur Rahman Khan, the director of Odhikar, a well-known human rights organization in the country, was arrested at his home in the capital, Dhaka, on 10 August by plainclothes officers reportedly acting without a warrant, according to the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR).
“We are calling on the Government of Bangladesh to guarantee the physical and psychological integrity of Mr. Khan, whose arrest might be linked to his work as human rights defender,” OHCHR spokesperson Liz Throssell told reporters in Geneva.
She said Mr. Khan is reported to have been arrested under section 54 of the Code of Criminal Procedure and section 57 of the Information and Communication Technology Act, accused of publishing false information about violence by Government forces during demonstrations in May by the Islamist movement, Hefazat-e-Islami.
Odhikar reported that 61 people had died during these protests, challenging the Government’s version of events, noted Ms. Throssell.
She said that the day after his arrest, Mr. Khan was denied bail and ordered to be held on remand for five days.
“He was allegedly denied access to a lawyer before his court hearing,” she added.
United Nations News Centre - Bangladesh: UN urges immediate release of detained human rights defender
Zabaniyah
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Well, I did say that the AL did try to hide the exact figures. I didn't deny that human rights abuses have indeed occurred.
I did however question the numbers since I understand pretty well that in such an operation and get over 3000 killing blows, it'd take incredible levels of fire-power and deadly precision with mad skills.
Bangladesh Police aren't particularly known for those, using mostly outdated firearms, let alone heavier military-standard equipment. That's why I questioned the figure.
I personally have nothing against AL sympathizers. They can talk out loud all they want. The more they talk, the more votes their party lose. So what do you or I have to lose? Let them yell all they want.
Desperation is never a solution to anything. It's a self-defeating sentiment.
Interestingly, the US spoke out against Odikar's arrest. It'd be interesting to see how the AL's backers would respond to this.
"human rights abuses" is mild manner to brutal massacre took place. You question number of death but avoid answering what is the figure you are alluding to.
Also, you are talking about "outdated fire arms"; do you have proof of that? Because, all video and pictures shows BGB and RAB using firearms that can kill mass people.
Who you are kidding here? even lone kids in US showed how they could kill 20-30 people with automatic weapon in a small class room. It does not take deadly precision skill to kill (hundreds or even thousand) at all when battle trained BGB and RAB unleashed their automatic firepower on mass gathering of hundreds of thousands. Do you have clue how many bullets were used?
My goal is not to convince you but to show "Awami League did not commit massacre" does not hold water by any means or measure of evidence or logic.
Clampdown on Odhikar: Madness or desperation?
M. Shahidul Islam in Toronto
The situation in Bangladesh has reached the proverbial point of no return and the world is stunned by the desperation of a political regime that is getting ever more draconian by the day.Coinciding with the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) initiation of an investigation into the alleged commission of crimes against humanity by the country’s security forces in February, March and May, a global uproar has been stirred following the police raid on August 11 at the office of an independent human rights group, Odikar, the seizure of computers, laptops and archive materials, and, the arrest of the outfit’s secretary, Adilur Rahman Khan.
This is sheer madness.
Already the EU, the USA and all the major human rights watchdogs across the world have expressed condemnation for the police swoop at the Odikar compound and the arrest of its secretary.
Evidence confiscated
“All data, pictures and archive files relating to the massacres in late February, early March and on May 5 and 6 have been confiscated by police,” said a researcher working for the much famed independent watchdog which receives contributions for its noble works from a number of foreign governments and international organizations.
Insisting on anonymity, the researcher said, “When our officials went to Gulshan Police Station to file a complaint against Adilur’s arrest and the seizure of evidence from our head office, police refused to accept it. Adilur was deprived of his rights. The law enforcers didn’t file any case before arresting him and had no warrant to make the arrest or to conduct the seizure.”
Adilur was charged on August 11 under Section 57 (1) and (2) of the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Act for allegedly publishing false information on website while police obtained from the court a mandate to put him on a 5- day- remand for quizzing, which was revised later as quizzing on jail gate. One of his family members claimed the former Deputy Attorney General was tortured in custody soon after his arrest.
In Bangladesh, quizzing by police while on remand means torture in custody. Amidst chorus of uproar by rights groups within and outside the country protesting the crackdown on a human rights watchdog, media reports claimed the attack on Odikar followed the group’s publication on June 10 of its latest report on the alleged crime of genocide in which it claimed that 61 people died in the early hours of May 6 when a 10,000 strong force flushed out thousands of Hefajat activists from Dhaka’s Shapla Chattar where the group staged an overnight sit – in; demanding punishment of bloggers insulting the Prophet of Islam in the internet. The government claims that the report is false.
ICC probing
That claim sounds hollow given the slew of demands from national and international rights group to launch an independent investigation into the alleged massacre and the government’s stone-walled response that nobody was killed during the late-night raid in May on the Hefajat congregation. Hence the desperate bids by rights groups and investigative journalists to unearth the truth behind the reports that hundreds of Islamists may have been slaughtered during that brutal crackdown, and the filing of a formal complaint to the International Criminal Court (ICC). The Hefajat declared officially that over 2000 of its activists are still missing. In early July, head of the ICC’s information and evidence unit of the office of the prosecutors, M.P. Dilon, confirmed having received a complaint relating to the alleged genocide in Dhaka on May 5-6, and, on February 28 and March 1, 2013. Dilon said the ICC would give consideration to the complaint “in accordance with the provisions of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.”
Mooted by the Washington based law office of Martin F. McMahon & Associates on behalf of Counsel for Human Rights and Development for Bangladesh, and, Bangladeshi Americans in Greater Washington DC, the complaint was indexed in the ICC’s registry as OTP-CR-214/13, according to the lawyers for the complainants.
Persecution galore
Adilur and the Odikar are the latest victims of a persistent campaign of persecution by the Sheikh Hasina-led Awami League regime which has been accused since 2009 of indulging in a killing spree and abetting the murder of 57 military officers during the February 25-26, 2009 mutiny in the Bangladesh Rifle (BDR) forces, and, of executing thousands of other extrajudicial deaths, kidnapping and illegitimate incarcerations of opposition activists and dissenters.
In April, acting editor of the Bengali language daily Amar Desh, Mahmudur Rahman, was arrested and charged for sedition and unlawful publication of a conversation that led to the resignation of the lead judge of the country’s controversial International War Crimes Tribunal. The Amar Desh was also accused of inciting violence by publishing the contents of the blogs in which the Prophet of Islam was denigrated by some government-sponsored youths seeking death sentences to the accused facing prosecutions in war crimes tribunal for alleged crimes against humanity during the country’s 1971 war of liberation against the Pakistani forces.
These high-profile arrests signal the arrival of some sort of dictatorship in the country as the nation’s political crisis hits its climax in the run up to a scheduled general election in late December or early January 2014; for which no acceptable modality has yet been finalized. The air is thick with speculations that the military will seize power once again if the haggling over the election modality lingers, as it did in 2007.
Since its independence from Pakistan in 1971, Bangladesh has had two of its Presidents killed by the military, one military dictator jailed for corruption, and, two Prime Ministers, including the incumbent one, arrested and indicted for corruption and misuse of power.
Alarm bells
No wonder the latest incidents have begun to ring alarm bells among a group of bureaucrats aligned with the regime that are getting increasingly fearful of retribution once the regime changes. Insisting on anonymity, one of them said: “Adilur’s arrest and the raid on Odikar office aimed at destroying the evidence of genocide which the group has painstakingly gathered and was about to handover to the ICC investigators.”
That seems credible as the report of 61 deaths on that fateful night does not even go near to what happened to thousands of Islamists who’re reportedly still unaccounted for since the May 5-6 onslaughts on the Hefajat congregation.
The Economist magazine of London reported on May 11 that “What happened in Dhaka and beyond in the early hours of May 6 looks like a massacre.” Citing Dhaka-based European diplomats the Economist reported, “The European diplomats say as many as 50 people were killed in the capital as security forces cracked down on members of an extreme Islamist group, Hefajat-e-Islam. Many more were killed elsewhere.”
Track record
From the beginning, the Odikar has been the most diligent in unearthing the truth of this bloodbath. Soon after the May 5-6 massacre, the watchdog reported that “Some hundreds of people died during a “killing spree” by a force of 10,000 made up of police, paramilitaries and armed men from the ruling Awami League.” It said “Bodies were strewn about the streets of Dhaka’s commercial district. Deadly clashes took place elsewhere, such as at Narayanganj, south of the capital, where 20 people were reported killed.”
The Odikar report added, “Just what happened remains murky. Before opening fire in Dhaka, police cut the power supply in the city’s commercial area. The idea seems to have been to flush out tens of thousands of often violent demonstrators, mostly young students, who had flocked in from madrassas (religious seminaries) in rural Bangladesh.”
The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC), an independent rights watchdog, summed up the massacre in its initial report on May 6 that read: “News reports from Bangladesh allege that a series of attacks on demonstrators have taken place, at around 3 am today, May 6, 2013. The extent of the injuries and death is difficult to be ascertained at the moment. The Daily Star, a Dhaka newspaper, gave the figure of deaths as 5. However, several internet reports have mentioned that the number of deaths could be as high as 2,500 or more. Pictures of dead bodies have also been distributed over the internet. Major news channels in Bangladesh have been silenced. Two private television channels that were showing live pictures of the attacks upon the demonstrators were immediately closed down. All forms of public gatherings, rallies and protests have been prohibited until the midnight of May 6.”
If actions are purveyors of intents, there is no reason to believe that the government was not involved in crimes against humanity after the disconnection of electricity on the night of the May massacre; instant closure of two TV channels broadcasting the onslaught live; arrest of Mahmudur Rahman and Adilur Rahman Khan; all of whom were involved in exposing the truth of a heinous crime committed in cold blood.
Rebellion within
Besides, as more evidence of atrocities came to the surface and the complaint in the ICC started to make an impact, the desperation of the government multiplied since late July.
Following the publication of an article on May 29 by ruling party MP Golam Moula Roni that had exhorted the government to explain to the nation the situation of a captive Hefajat leader, Junaid Babunogori, who has had his leg chopped off and was facing imminent death due to torture in custody, Roni became the target of police and ruling party thugs. He too was arrested on July 23 and charged for beating journalists.
With fire now swirling around its own backyard, the government of Sheikh Hasina must change course or risk getting thrown into the gutter of history with one of the most deplorable records of human rights abuses
Holiday
M. Shahidul Islam in Toronto
The situation in Bangladesh has reached the proverbial point of no return and the world is stunned by the desperation of a political regime that is getting ever more draconian by the day.Coinciding with the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) initiation of an investigation into the alleged commission of crimes against humanity by the country’s security forces in February, March and May, a global uproar has been stirred following the police raid on August 11 at the office of an independent human rights group, Odikar, the seizure of computers, laptops and archive materials, and, the arrest of the outfit’s secretary, Adilur Rahman Khan.
This is sheer madness.
Already the EU, the USA and all the major human rights watchdogs across the world have expressed condemnation for the police swoop at the Odikar compound and the arrest of its secretary.
Evidence confiscated
“All data, pictures and archive files relating to the massacres in late February, early March and on May 5 and 6 have been confiscated by police,” said a researcher working for the much famed independent watchdog which receives contributions for its noble works from a number of foreign governments and international organizations.
Insisting on anonymity, the researcher said, “When our officials went to Gulshan Police Station to file a complaint against Adilur’s arrest and the seizure of evidence from our head office, police refused to accept it. Adilur was deprived of his rights. The law enforcers didn’t file any case before arresting him and had no warrant to make the arrest or to conduct the seizure.”
Adilur was charged on August 11 under Section 57 (1) and (2) of the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Act for allegedly publishing false information on website while police obtained from the court a mandate to put him on a 5- day- remand for quizzing, which was revised later as quizzing on jail gate. One of his family members claimed the former Deputy Attorney General was tortured in custody soon after his arrest.
In Bangladesh, quizzing by police while on remand means torture in custody. Amidst chorus of uproar by rights groups within and outside the country protesting the crackdown on a human rights watchdog, media reports claimed the attack on Odikar followed the group’s publication on June 10 of its latest report on the alleged crime of genocide in which it claimed that 61 people died in the early hours of May 6 when a 10,000 strong force flushed out thousands of Hefajat activists from Dhaka’s Shapla Chattar where the group staged an overnight sit – in; demanding punishment of bloggers insulting the Prophet of Islam in the internet. The government claims that the report is false.
ICC probing
That claim sounds hollow given the slew of demands from national and international rights group to launch an independent investigation into the alleged massacre and the government’s stone-walled response that nobody was killed during the late-night raid in May on the Hefajat congregation. Hence the desperate bids by rights groups and investigative journalists to unearth the truth behind the reports that hundreds of Islamists may have been slaughtered during that brutal crackdown, and the filing of a formal complaint to the International Criminal Court (ICC). The Hefajat declared officially that over 2000 of its activists are still missing. In early July, head of the ICC’s information and evidence unit of the office of the prosecutors, M.P. Dilon, confirmed having received a complaint relating to the alleged genocide in Dhaka on May 5-6, and, on February 28 and March 1, 2013. Dilon said the ICC would give consideration to the complaint “in accordance with the provisions of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.”
Mooted by the Washington based law office of Martin F. McMahon & Associates on behalf of Counsel for Human Rights and Development for Bangladesh, and, Bangladeshi Americans in Greater Washington DC, the complaint was indexed in the ICC’s registry as OTP-CR-214/13, according to the lawyers for the complainants.
Persecution galore
Adilur and the Odikar are the latest victims of a persistent campaign of persecution by the Sheikh Hasina-led Awami League regime which has been accused since 2009 of indulging in a killing spree and abetting the murder of 57 military officers during the February 25-26, 2009 mutiny in the Bangladesh Rifle (BDR) forces, and, of executing thousands of other extrajudicial deaths, kidnapping and illegitimate incarcerations of opposition activists and dissenters.
In April, acting editor of the Bengali language daily Amar Desh, Mahmudur Rahman, was arrested and charged for sedition and unlawful publication of a conversation that led to the resignation of the lead judge of the country’s controversial International War Crimes Tribunal. The Amar Desh was also accused of inciting violence by publishing the contents of the blogs in which the Prophet of Islam was denigrated by some government-sponsored youths seeking death sentences to the accused facing prosecutions in war crimes tribunal for alleged crimes against humanity during the country’s 1971 war of liberation against the Pakistani forces.
These high-profile arrests signal the arrival of some sort of dictatorship in the country as the nation’s political crisis hits its climax in the run up to a scheduled general election in late December or early January 2014; for which no acceptable modality has yet been finalized. The air is thick with speculations that the military will seize power once again if the haggling over the election modality lingers, as it did in 2007.
Since its independence from Pakistan in 1971, Bangladesh has had two of its Presidents killed by the military, one military dictator jailed for corruption, and, two Prime Ministers, including the incumbent one, arrested and indicted for corruption and misuse of power.
Alarm bells
No wonder the latest incidents have begun to ring alarm bells among a group of bureaucrats aligned with the regime that are getting increasingly fearful of retribution once the regime changes. Insisting on anonymity, one of them said: “Adilur’s arrest and the raid on Odikar office aimed at destroying the evidence of genocide which the group has painstakingly gathered and was about to handover to the ICC investigators.”
That seems credible as the report of 61 deaths on that fateful night does not even go near to what happened to thousands of Islamists who’re reportedly still unaccounted for since the May 5-6 onslaughts on the Hefajat congregation.
The Economist magazine of London reported on May 11 that “What happened in Dhaka and beyond in the early hours of May 6 looks like a massacre.” Citing Dhaka-based European diplomats the Economist reported, “The European diplomats say as many as 50 people were killed in the capital as security forces cracked down on members of an extreme Islamist group, Hefajat-e-Islam. Many more were killed elsewhere.”
Track record
From the beginning, the Odikar has been the most diligent in unearthing the truth of this bloodbath. Soon after the May 5-6 massacre, the watchdog reported that “Some hundreds of people died during a “killing spree” by a force of 10,000 made up of police, paramilitaries and armed men from the ruling Awami League.” It said “Bodies were strewn about the streets of Dhaka’s commercial district. Deadly clashes took place elsewhere, such as at Narayanganj, south of the capital, where 20 people were reported killed.”
The Odikar report added, “Just what happened remains murky. Before opening fire in Dhaka, police cut the power supply in the city’s commercial area. The idea seems to have been to flush out tens of thousands of often violent demonstrators, mostly young students, who had flocked in from madrassas (religious seminaries) in rural Bangladesh.”
The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC), an independent rights watchdog, summed up the massacre in its initial report on May 6 that read: “News reports from Bangladesh allege that a series of attacks on demonstrators have taken place, at around 3 am today, May 6, 2013. The extent of the injuries and death is difficult to be ascertained at the moment. The Daily Star, a Dhaka newspaper, gave the figure of deaths as 5. However, several internet reports have mentioned that the number of deaths could be as high as 2,500 or more. Pictures of dead bodies have also been distributed over the internet. Major news channels in Bangladesh have been silenced. Two private television channels that were showing live pictures of the attacks upon the demonstrators were immediately closed down. All forms of public gatherings, rallies and protests have been prohibited until the midnight of May 6.”
If actions are purveyors of intents, there is no reason to believe that the government was not involved in crimes against humanity after the disconnection of electricity on the night of the May massacre; instant closure of two TV channels broadcasting the onslaught live; arrest of Mahmudur Rahman and Adilur Rahman Khan; all of whom were involved in exposing the truth of a heinous crime committed in cold blood.
Rebellion within
Besides, as more evidence of atrocities came to the surface and the complaint in the ICC started to make an impact, the desperation of the government multiplied since late July.
Following the publication of an article on May 29 by ruling party MP Golam Moula Roni that had exhorted the government to explain to the nation the situation of a captive Hefajat leader, Junaid Babunogori, who has had his leg chopped off and was facing imminent death due to torture in custody, Roni became the target of police and ruling party thugs. He too was arrested on July 23 and charged for beating journalists.
With fire now swirling around its own backyard, the government of Sheikh Hasina must change course or risk getting thrown into the gutter of history with one of the most deplorable records of human rights abuses
Holiday
kalu_miah
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Bangladesh: Charges framed against Odhikar's Secretary and Director Messrs. Adilur Rahman Khan and ASM Nasiruddin Elan / January 10, 2014 / Urgent Interventions / Human rights defenders / OMCT
Bangladesh: Charges framed against Odhikar's Secretary and Director Messrs. Adilur Rahman Khan and ASM Nasiruddin Elan
New information
BGD 001 / 0813 / OBS 074.4
Judicial harassment
Bangladesh
January 10, 2014
The Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders, a joint programme of the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT) and FIDH (the International Federation for Human Rights), has received new information and requests your urgent intervention in the following situation inBangladesh.
[1]. However, the judge rejected their plea and took into cognisance the Prosecution report/charge sheet submitted by the police on September 11, 2013.
Charges were framed under Section 57 of the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Act 2006 (amended in 2009) against Messrs. Khan and Elan, in relation to a fact-finding report issued by Odhikar on the killing of 61 people during an operation carried out by security forces against Hefazat-e Islam activists on May 5-6, 2013 in Dhaka.According to the charges, Odhikar would have distorted the information of the police operation that took place on May 5, 2013, where 11 people had died. The charges state that Odhikar would have collected information of deaths around the country, including Dhaka, which occurred on May 5-6 and put that total on their website instead. The charges further state that this would have caused extreme damage to the image of the State. Mr. Khan and Mr. Elan both pleaded not guilty and Mr. Khan further declared that the information in Odhikar report was completely accurate, adding that Odhikar had made the list of deceased persons after fact-finding and thorough verification.
Moreover, Odhikar lawyers argued that the investigating officer was not able to give sufficient proof or evidence that Odhikar’s report was incorrect. They also argued that Odhikar was not an individual, but a human rights organisation and that there was no proof that the report had been signed by any one individual. They also stated that several organisations, media and individuals had quoted various numbers of deceased Hefazat-e Islam supporters at that time. Yet, only Odhikar has been targeted by a case filed by the Government, which in addition has failed to set up an independent Judicial Inquiry Commission to investigate the events of May 2013, as proposed by Odhikar.
Judge Shamsul Alam ordered that the trial against the two human rights defenders would start on January 22, 2014 with examination of witnesses.
The Observatory is greatly concerned over the arbitrary prosecution against Mr. Khan and Mr. Elan, which onlyaimsat sanctioning and preventing their activitiesas human rightsdefenders, therefore failing to comply with international human rights standards. Moreover, the Observatory is concerned about the delay in framing charges against Messrs. Khan and Elan, and about the fact that it took a long time to appoint a Public Prosecutor to represent the Government, which amounts to further harassment against the two defenders.
Background information:
On August 10, 2013, Mr. Adilur Rahman Khan was arrested and on August 11, he was placed on a five-day remand for interrogation. On August 12, the High Court of Bangladesh stayed the five-day remand order to interrogate Mr. Khan and asked police to send him to jail. The next day, Mr. Khanwas transferred to Kashimpur Jail number 1.
On September 4, 2013, the Detective Branch of Police announced they had filed a charge sheet against Mr. Khan and Mr. Nasiruddin Elan under Section 57 of the ICT Act and Sections 505 (c) and 505A of the Penal Code for allegedly “distorting images by using photo shop and publishing a fabricated report, which enraged public sentiment”. The charges were brought in relation to Odhikar fact-finding report on the police operation carried out against Hefazat-e Islam activists on May 5-6, 2013 in Dhaka. If found guilty, the two human rights defenders face up to 14 years in jail or a Tk10,000,000 (about 93,660 €) fine under the ICT Act and seven years’ jail term under the Penal Code.
On September 11, 2013, the Cyber Crimes Tribunal issued an arrest warrant against Mr. Nasiruddin Elan.
On October 8, 2013, the High Court Division of the Supreme Court of Bangladesh granted a six-month interim bail to Mr. Adilur Rahman Khan. On October 9, 2013, the Office of the Attorney General filed an application before the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court, requesting to stay the High Court’s order granting bail to Mr. Khan. However, the Chamber Judge decided on the same day to uphold the High Court Division’s decision. The Observatory recalls that the bail petition filed by Mr. Khan’s lawyer was earlier rejected three times in the same case. On October 11, 2013, at 10.30 am, Mr. Khan was finally released on bail from Kashimpur Jail number 1.
On November 6, 2013, Mr. Nasiruddin Elan and his lawyers appeared before the Cyber Crimes Tribunal and appealed for bail in the above-mentioned case. However, Judge Shamsul Alam rejected the plea for bail and ordered that Mr. Elan be arrested and taken to Dhaka Central Jail.
On November 24, 2013, the High Court Division of the Supreme Court of Bangladesh granted a six-months ad interim bail to Mr.Elan, who was finally released from jail on December 1, 2013.
Action requested:
Please write to the authorities in Bangladesh, urging them to:
i. Guarantee, in all circumstances, the physical and psychological integrity of Messrs. Adilur Rahman Khan and Nasiruddin Elan, of all Odhikar members as well as of all human rights defenders in Bangladesh;
ii. Put an end to any kind of harassment - including at the judicial level - against Messrs. Adilur Rahman Khan and Nasiruddin Elan, all members of Odhikar as well as all human rights defenders in Bangladesh;
iii. Conform with the provisions of the UN Declaration on Human Rights Defenders, adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations on December 9, 1998, especially:
-its Article 1, which states that “everyone has the right, individually and in association with others, to promote and to strive for the protection and realisation of human rights and fundamental freedoms at the national and international levels”, as well as
-its Article 12.2, which provides that the State shall “take all necessary measures to ensure the protection by the competent authorities of everyone, individually and in association with others, against any violence, threats, retaliation, de facto or de jure adverse discrimination, pressure or any other arbitrary action as a consequence of his or her legitimate exercise of his or her rights”;
iv. Ensure in all circumstances respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms in accordance with international human rights standards and international instruments ratified by Bangladesh.
Addresses:
·Ms. Sheikh Hasina, Prime Minister, Office of the Prime Minister, Gona Bhaban, Old Sangsad Bhaban, Tejgaon, Dhaka, Bangladesh. Fax: +880 2 8113243, Email: pm@pmo.gov.bd
·Mr. Muhiuddin Khan Alamgir, Minister for Home Affairs, Ministry of Home Affairs, Bangladesh Secretariat Building 4, Dhaka, Bangladesh, Email: mkalamgir@yahoo.com;minister@mha.gov.bd;
·Barrister Shafique Ahmed, Minister for Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs, Ministry of Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs, Bangladesh Secretariat, Dhaka, Bangladesh, Email:info@minlaw.gov.bd
·Mr. Hasanul Haq Inu, Honourable Minister, Ministry of Information, Building # 4 (8th floor), Bangladesh Secretariat, Dhaka-1000, Bangladesh. E-mail: adv_mahbubey@yahoo.com
·H.E. Mr. Abdul Hannan, Ambassador, Permanent Mission of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh to the United Nations in Geneva, 65 rue de Lausanne, 1202 Geneva, Switzerland, Fax: +41 22 738 46 16, E-mail: mission.bangladesh@ties.itu.int
Embassy of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh in Brussels, 29-31 rue J. Jordaens, 1000 Brussels, Belgium, Fax: +32 2 646 59 98; Email: Appeals@fidh-omct.org
Properties
Date: January 10, 2014
Activity: Human Rights Defenders
Type: Urgent Interventions
Country: Bangladesh
Subjects: Human Rights Defenders, Threats, intimidation and harassment
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Bangladesh: Charges framed against Odhikar's Secretary and Director Messrs. Adilur Rahman Khan and ASM Nasiruddin Elan
New information
BGD 001 / 0813 / OBS 074.4
Judicial harassment
Bangladesh
January 10, 2014
The Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders, a joint programme of the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT) and FIDH (the International Federation for Human Rights), has received new information and requests your urgent intervention in the following situation inBangladesh.
[1]. However, the judge rejected their plea and took into cognisance the Prosecution report/charge sheet submitted by the police on September 11, 2013.
Charges were framed under Section 57 of the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Act 2006 (amended in 2009) against Messrs. Khan and Elan, in relation to a fact-finding report issued by Odhikar on the killing of 61 people during an operation carried out by security forces against Hefazat-e Islam activists on May 5-6, 2013 in Dhaka.According to the charges, Odhikar would have distorted the information of the police operation that took place on May 5, 2013, where 11 people had died. The charges state that Odhikar would have collected information of deaths around the country, including Dhaka, which occurred on May 5-6 and put that total on their website instead. The charges further state that this would have caused extreme damage to the image of the State. Mr. Khan and Mr. Elan both pleaded not guilty and Mr. Khan further declared that the information in Odhikar report was completely accurate, adding that Odhikar had made the list of deceased persons after fact-finding and thorough verification.
Moreover, Odhikar lawyers argued that the investigating officer was not able to give sufficient proof or evidence that Odhikar’s report was incorrect. They also argued that Odhikar was not an individual, but a human rights organisation and that there was no proof that the report had been signed by any one individual. They also stated that several organisations, media and individuals had quoted various numbers of deceased Hefazat-e Islam supporters at that time. Yet, only Odhikar has been targeted by a case filed by the Government, which in addition has failed to set up an independent Judicial Inquiry Commission to investigate the events of May 2013, as proposed by Odhikar.
Judge Shamsul Alam ordered that the trial against the two human rights defenders would start on January 22, 2014 with examination of witnesses.
The Observatory is greatly concerned over the arbitrary prosecution against Mr. Khan and Mr. Elan, which onlyaimsat sanctioning and preventing their activitiesas human rightsdefenders, therefore failing to comply with international human rights standards. Moreover, the Observatory is concerned about the delay in framing charges against Messrs. Khan and Elan, and about the fact that it took a long time to appoint a Public Prosecutor to represent the Government, which amounts to further harassment against the two defenders.
Background information:
On August 10, 2013, Mr. Adilur Rahman Khan was arrested and on August 11, he was placed on a five-day remand for interrogation. On August 12, the High Court of Bangladesh stayed the five-day remand order to interrogate Mr. Khan and asked police to send him to jail. The next day, Mr. Khanwas transferred to Kashimpur Jail number 1.
On September 4, 2013, the Detective Branch of Police announced they had filed a charge sheet against Mr. Khan and Mr. Nasiruddin Elan under Section 57 of the ICT Act and Sections 505 (c) and 505A of the Penal Code for allegedly “distorting images by using photo shop and publishing a fabricated report, which enraged public sentiment”. The charges were brought in relation to Odhikar fact-finding report on the police operation carried out against Hefazat-e Islam activists on May 5-6, 2013 in Dhaka. If found guilty, the two human rights defenders face up to 14 years in jail or a Tk10,000,000 (about 93,660 €) fine under the ICT Act and seven years’ jail term under the Penal Code.
On September 11, 2013, the Cyber Crimes Tribunal issued an arrest warrant against Mr. Nasiruddin Elan.
On October 8, 2013, the High Court Division of the Supreme Court of Bangladesh granted a six-month interim bail to Mr. Adilur Rahman Khan. On October 9, 2013, the Office of the Attorney General filed an application before the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court, requesting to stay the High Court’s order granting bail to Mr. Khan. However, the Chamber Judge decided on the same day to uphold the High Court Division’s decision. The Observatory recalls that the bail petition filed by Mr. Khan’s lawyer was earlier rejected three times in the same case. On October 11, 2013, at 10.30 am, Mr. Khan was finally released on bail from Kashimpur Jail number 1.
On November 6, 2013, Mr. Nasiruddin Elan and his lawyers appeared before the Cyber Crimes Tribunal and appealed for bail in the above-mentioned case. However, Judge Shamsul Alam rejected the plea for bail and ordered that Mr. Elan be arrested and taken to Dhaka Central Jail.
On November 24, 2013, the High Court Division of the Supreme Court of Bangladesh granted a six-months ad interim bail to Mr.Elan, who was finally released from jail on December 1, 2013.
Action requested:
Please write to the authorities in Bangladesh, urging them to:
i. Guarantee, in all circumstances, the physical and psychological integrity of Messrs. Adilur Rahman Khan and Nasiruddin Elan, of all Odhikar members as well as of all human rights defenders in Bangladesh;
ii. Put an end to any kind of harassment - including at the judicial level - against Messrs. Adilur Rahman Khan and Nasiruddin Elan, all members of Odhikar as well as all human rights defenders in Bangladesh;
iii. Conform with the provisions of the UN Declaration on Human Rights Defenders, adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations on December 9, 1998, especially:
-its Article 1, which states that “everyone has the right, individually and in association with others, to promote and to strive for the protection and realisation of human rights and fundamental freedoms at the national and international levels”, as well as
-its Article 12.2, which provides that the State shall “take all necessary measures to ensure the protection by the competent authorities of everyone, individually and in association with others, against any violence, threats, retaliation, de facto or de jure adverse discrimination, pressure or any other arbitrary action as a consequence of his or her legitimate exercise of his or her rights”;
iv. Ensure in all circumstances respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms in accordance with international human rights standards and international instruments ratified by Bangladesh.
Addresses:
·Ms. Sheikh Hasina, Prime Minister, Office of the Prime Minister, Gona Bhaban, Old Sangsad Bhaban, Tejgaon, Dhaka, Bangladesh. Fax: +880 2 8113243, Email: pm@pmo.gov.bd
·Mr. Muhiuddin Khan Alamgir, Minister for Home Affairs, Ministry of Home Affairs, Bangladesh Secretariat Building 4, Dhaka, Bangladesh, Email: mkalamgir@yahoo.com;minister@mha.gov.bd;
·Barrister Shafique Ahmed, Minister for Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs, Ministry of Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs, Bangladesh Secretariat, Dhaka, Bangladesh, Email:info@minlaw.gov.bd
·Mr. Hasanul Haq Inu, Honourable Minister, Ministry of Information, Building # 4 (8th floor), Bangladesh Secretariat, Dhaka-1000, Bangladesh. E-mail: adv_mahbubey@yahoo.com
·H.E. Mr. Abdul Hannan, Ambassador, Permanent Mission of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh to the United Nations in Geneva, 65 rue de Lausanne, 1202 Geneva, Switzerland, Fax: +41 22 738 46 16, E-mail: mission.bangladesh@ties.itu.int
Embassy of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh in Brussels, 29-31 rue J. Jordaens, 1000 Brussels, Belgium, Fax: +32 2 646 59 98; Email: Appeals@fidh-omct.org
- Tel and fax OMCT + 41 (0) 22 809 49 39 / + 41 22 809 49 29
- Tel and fax FIDH + 33 (0) 1 43 55 25 18 / +33 1 43 55 18 80
Properties
Date: January 10, 2014
Activity: Human Rights Defenders
Type: Urgent Interventions
Country: Bangladesh
Subjects: Human Rights Defenders, Threats, intimidation and harassment
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Urgent Interventions / November 29, 2013 - Bangladesh: Help us put an end to the harassment against Adilur Rahman Khan and Nasiruddin Elan, Secretary and Director of Odhikar!
Urgent Interventions / November 16, 2013 - Bangladesh: Alarming escalation of threats to human rights defenders
Reports and Publications / November 10, 2013
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