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BANGLADESH: Army-backed Arrests Worry Rights Groups

Farid Ahmed

DHAKA, Feb 5 2007 (IPS) - The detention of over a dozen high-profile politicians by the military-backed interim government in Bangladesh, on Sunday, has raised a storm of protests by rights groups and the country’s two main political parties.

Those taken into custody include former ministers and legislators from the Awami League party of former prime minister Sheikh Hasina Wajed and from the rival Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) of Begum Khaleda Zia, who stepped down as prime minister in October on completion of a five-year term in office.

Among influential ex-legislators picked up in the pre-dawn swoop was media tycoon Musaddek Ali Falu, political secretary to Khaleda Zia. Falu runs the TV channels NTV and RTV and is the owner of the ‘Amar Desh’ (Our Country), a Bengali language daily.

After more than two months of political turmoil and street violence by the supporters of the two parties, President Iajuddin Ahmed declared a state of emergency on Jan. 11 and, on the following day, an interim government headed by Fakhruddin Ahmed took over the administration.

The new dispensation, which replaced a caretaker government that was to have overseen general elections slated for Jan. 22, immediately launched a massive drive across the country netting corrupt politicians and businessmen and reclaiming government lands occupied by influential people.

“We haven’t seen the police or army detain any top politician or a minister after the fall of the military dictator H.M. Ershad in 1990,” Shahnaj Hossain, a teacher, told IPS in Dhaka.

Over the last three weeks, the security forces comprising the army, the paramilitary Bangladesh Rifles and the elite Rapid Action Battalion have joined police in detaining over 5,000 people.

”Sunday’s raids were the biggest raids in three weeks when we’ve detained over a dozen of former ministers and lawmakers,” a senior government official told IPS.

But the detentions have been controversial since the politicians were picked up from their homes without any warrant of arrest. An eminent lawyer Kamal Hossain said politicians should not be made the target for ”indiscriminate arrests”.

”There is no doubt that cleansing in politics is necessary and politicians, perceived to be corrupt, need to be taken care of,” Nurul Kabir, editor of the ‘New Age’, a leading English language daily published from Dhaka, told IPS.

”What is missing in the detentions is a transparent process and specific charges formulated within the framework of law – if corrupt politicians eventually go unpunished due to lack of adequate legal proof, the whole purpose of streamlining politics and economy would be defeated,” Kabir said.

Others reported detained were Nazmul Huda, a former communications minister, Salauddin Qader Chowdhury, parliamentary affairs advisor to Khaleda Zia, Amanullah Aman, a former state minister for labour and manpower, Mir Nasir Uddin Ahmed, a former state minister for civil aviation and tourism, Iqbal Hasan Mahmood, a former state minister for power, Ruhul Kuddus Talukder Dulu, a former deputy minister for land, and former lawmakers Naser Rahman, Manjurul Ahsan Munshi and Abdul Wadud Bhuiyan of the BNP.

Naser is also the eldest son of former finance minister and senior BNP leader Saifur Rahman.

Among leaders of the Awami League detained were Mohammad Nasim, a former home minister, Mohiuddin Khan Alamgir, a former state minister for planning, Salman F Rahman, a leading businessman and also advisor to Sheikh Hasina, and Pankaj Devnath.

“Members of the joint forces stormed into our house at about 1:00am and asked my husband to go with them,” Laila Akhter Bithi, wife of Nasim, told the local press. ‘’They failed to produce any warrant for arrest when we asked them why he was being taken away.”

The teams also raided the homes of a number of middle-rung leaders of both the Awami League and the BNP but failed to arrest them. Most of them have been staying away from their homes since the joint forces began the drive, their families claimed.

The two political parties, bitter rivals for many years, demanded that the government produce the detained political leaders in court. ‘’Produce the political leaders, who were arrested by the joint forces across the country, in the court,” the BNP secretary general Abdul Mannan Bhuiyan said in a statement on Sunday. “All concerned should make sure that nobody is deprived of the right to get justice.”

”We have no objection if real criminals and corrupt persons, who have plundered public money, are arrested. But we call on the joint forces not to harass innocent leaders of the party only because of their political identity,” acting general secretary of the Awami League Obaidul Kader said.

Noted writer and scientist Muhammad Zafar Iqbal said corrupt leaders of all political parties should be brought to book and not just of the Awami League or the BNP.

“Jamaat leaders are also corrupt, but none of them has been arrested,” Iqbal said. The fundamentalist Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh shared power with the BNP in the last elected government.

A functionary of the Communist Party of Bangladesh, Ruhin Hossain, told IPS: “The actions of the security forces must be transparentà we’ve heard of the arrest of many people, but government is yet to come up with the details or whereabouts of those people.”

“Many of the arrested people have not been produced in a court of law and their families even did not get any chance to meet them,” he said.

The leading rights group Odhikar (Rights) expressed its concern over the widespread arrests and in its monthly report claimed that 32 people died in custody in January. The report also claimed that six people were killed in custody until the promulgation of emergency and at least 24 people were killed from Jan. 12 to 31.

Citing Odhikar and other local groups, the New York-based Human Rights Watch has accused Bangladeshi security forces of carrying out unlawful executions, besides the arbitrary arrests.

Trouble began with the Awami League and its allies accusing the BNP and the Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh of appointing partisan or controversial people to top positions in the Election Commission and of stuffing the voter lists with 14 million fake names. To press their demands for changes in voter rolls and the reconstitution of the commission they launched a series of shutdowns and street demonstrations which quickly turned bloody.

On Sunday night the President appointed former bureaucrat A.T.M. Shamsul Huda as chief election commissioner, while the interim government pledged to reform the election commission before the rescheduling of general elections.