Bangladesh: Crackdown as Elections Loom
Allegations of Partisan Election Commission
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Police rush Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) supporters at a protest on February 9, 2018, Dhaka, Bangladesh.EXPAND
Police rush Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) supporters at a protest on February 9, 2018, Dhaka, Bangladesh. © 2018 Allison Joyce/Getty Images
(New York) – Bangladesh security forces have been arresting and intimidating opposition figures and threatening freedom of expression in advance of national elections on December 30, 2018, Human Rights Watch said today. The United Nations, European Union, United States, India, China, and others should press the government of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wazed to create conditions conducive to a free and fair vote and to prevent campaign violence.
Human Rights Watch research from October to early December found repeated instances of arbitrary security force arrest and detention of protesters and political opposition figures, and acts of violence and intimidation by members of the ruling party’s student and youth wings. The crackdown, and the broad and vaguely worded laws that facilitate it, are contributing to an environment of fear. Institutions including the judiciary and the national election commission do not appear to be fully prepared to independently and fairly resolve disputes around campaigns and elections, such as on registration, candidacies, and results.
“The Awami League government has been systematically cracking down on independent and opposition voices to ensure that the ruling party faces no obstacles to total political control,” said Brad Adams, Asia director. “Members and supporters of the main opposition parties have been arrested, killed, even disappeared, creating an atmosphere of fear and repression that is not consistent with credible elections.”
The Bangladesh authorities should end the crackdown on the political opposition and on free expression ahead of the national elections to ensure Bangladeshis their internationally protected right to choose their government.
Serious problems with the electoral process include surveillance, intimidation, detention, and politically motivated prosecution of key opposition members including party polling agents. Other major concerns include a crackdown on independent media and repressive laws restricting speech, association, and assembly.
There is a blanket of fear spreading over this country and I don’t know when we are going to be freed.
The intensified crackdown began in September. According to the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), the authorities have brought more than 300,000 politically motivated criminal cases against its party members and supporters and thousands have been arrested. Supporters of the joint opposition group Oikya Front (United Front) have been targeted. Members of the Jamaat-e-Islami political party, which is disqualified from running for elections, have also been arrested. According to a Jamaat spokesperson, 1,858 of its members were arrested between November 1 and December 13.
Allegations against opposition leaders appear arbitrary. BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir is facing 46 cases. A standing committee member, Mirza Abbas, faces 42 cases. And the BNP candidate Saiful Alam Nirob, who is running against the home minister, is facing 267 cases.
While Chief Election Commissioner KM Nurul Huda said he wanted to ensure “everyone follows the electoral code of conduct,” opposition parties accuse the commission of backing the ruling party. For instance, while only three ruling Awami League candidates were disqualified, 141 from the BNP were rejected.
Anticipating that there might arbitrary disqualifications, the BNP nominated multiple candidates in most constituencies. Lt. Gen. (ret.) Mahbubur Rahman, a member of the BNP standing committee, told the Daily Star, “We feared that the government would create many obstacles, like influencing the Election Commission to cancel nomination papers of our candidates to keep us away from the election.”
With candidates starting to campaign, scores of people have already been injured during political rallies in clashes between rival party supporters. All party leaders should call upon their supporters to refrain from violence. The government should order security forces to use proportionate measures to prevent the imminent threat of death or serious injury, to play an impartial role, and to promptly investigate all credible complaints of violations.
Article 25 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), to which Bangladesh is a party, states, “Every citizen shall have the right and the opportunity … to vote and to be elected at genuine periodic elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret ballot, guaranteeing the free expression of the will of the electors.”
“Governments concerned for Bangladesh’s future should denounce abuses leading up to the elections, which will deny voters their rights,” Adams said. “The Awami League, which came into office unchallenged five years ago, has since made a mockery of democratic rights, and now donors should make every effort to restore human rights protections.”
Barriers to Genuine Elections in Bangladesh in 2018
After boycotting the previous national elections of 2014, the main opposition parties of Bangladesh have said that they will participate in the December 30 elections, even though the government rejected their demand for a neutral authority to conduct elections, as in 2014. The primary opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) is backing a civil society-led initiative to form a political coalition called the Oikya Front (United Front).
However, as Bangladesh waits to vote, repressive measures including widespread surveillance and a crackdown on speech have contributed to a widely described climate of fear, extending from prominent people to ordinary citizens. This and other actions by the ruling Awami League government have created conditions that will undermine the credibility of the elections.
Targeting Political Opposition
Thousands of cases, under a variety of laws, have been filed against leaders and supporters of opposition parties, especially the BNP. The authorities have similarly targeted several of those involved in an effort by civil society leaders to form the Oikya Front. Jamaat-e-Islami, the largest Islamic political party, although disqualified from contesting, alleges that hundreds of its activists have been detained without reason.
The BNP has filed a lawsuit challenging the charges against its members, contending that accusations against many of them are identical, with little more than names, dates, and locations of the purported incidents changed in an otherwise fixed format. It alleges that likely candidates and the party’s polling place monitors are among those charged. According to BNP Senior Joint Secretary General Ruhul Kabir Rizvi, nearly 300,000 leaders and activists have been implicated in 3,000 such “false and fabricated” cases.
In many cases, the charges appear to be groundless. In fact, numerous cases have come to light in which accused people are either dead or were abroad or hospitalized at the time of the alleged offense. On October 17, a year to the day after he died, Zasim Uddin Chaudhary, a BNP supporter, was charged with throwing gasoline bombs in Chittagong. Nasrul Islam, who was indicted on September 5, had died five days earlier. Mintu Kumar Das, a Dhaka BNP leader charged with blocking a road on September 11, died in 2007.
Following reports of charges of “planning subversive activities” against people who are dead, abroad, or paralyzed, the inspector general of police, Mohammad Javed Patwary, ordered unit commanders to investigate how these mistakes had been made.
A number of opposition candidates have been attacked in recent days. On December 12, Afroza Khanam Rita, a BNP candidate from Manikganj-3, was attacked while visiting a shrine, allegedly by youth-wing members of the ruling Awami League. In Thakurgaon, the motorcade of BNP Secretary General Fakhrul was attacked on December 11, while he was campaigning. Vehicles accompanying another BNP candidate, Sharifuzzaman Sharif, were attacked on December 10.
Reports of campaign violence, mainly targeting opposition candidates and their supporters, are rapidly multiplying. In many cases the police reportedly denied any knowledge of the incidents.
Several of those arrested during the recent crackdown have said that they were physically abused in custody. In four of the six cases Human Rights Watch investigated, detainees said that they were beaten up after they had been taken to court and then sent back to police custody instead of jail. In the other two cases, the abuse occurred during illegal detention. The abuses described include beating with fists, plastic pipes, or sugar canes; crushing body parts against the floor; and partial drowning.
On March 6, Zakir Hossain Milon, the 38-year-old president of the BNP for the Tejgaon district in Dhaka, was arrested while returning from a “human chain” protest demanding fair elections outside the National Press Club, and later transferred to Shahbagh police station. When he was taken to court on March 11, he told relatives that he had been tortured “a lot,” and asked them to “take care of my [two] kids, I don’t know what’s going to happen.” He died in jail the following day. His family said that his body was covered with black marks and his fingernails had been removed.
Supporters of the Jamaat-e-Islami party, including members of its student wing Islami Chhatra Shibir, have been arrested, and witnesses said that many have been held in secret detention and tortured. A member of Jamaat’s student wing told Human Rights Watch that while he was in the custody of the police Detective Branch earlier in 2018, his interrogators used a stapler on his ears, beat him severely with sticks including on the leg joints and hands, subjected him to simulated drowning, and told him he would be shot.
Denying Freedom of Expression and Association
The pre-election crackdown has been accompanied by suppression of dissent and criticism. A leading member of civil society told Human Rights Watch: “In terms of media space and civil society space, I don’t think we’ve ever had such a bad situation. Even under previous military regimes people had the right to speak up.”
The authorities have used a number of broadly worded laws arbitrarily to constrain journalists, restrict free speech of ordinary citizens, and target the government’s opponents and critics.
https://www.hrw.org/news/2018/12/13/bangladesh-crackdown-elections-loom
ISI's involvement with certain politicians. Lol as if ISI(and by extension Pak) would have anything to gain by having a pro Pak government in BD.
