Laws in Bangladesh make it easy for a police officer to arrest someone on a suspicion and try to pry some Information out, with which to conjure up a better excuse to hold the person in custody. Section 54 of the Code of Criminal Procedure 1898, which permits arrest on “a reasonable suspicion” of a crime, is perhaps the most commonly used provision. For police in Dhaka, section 86 of the Dhaka Metropolitan Police Ordinance is frequently used to make arrests without valid reason after dark wherever someone is found “without The section carries a summary any satisfactory answers”. One-year penalty, fine or both. A person can also be held in detention through provisions such as the Special Power Act 1974, through which the police can propose to the district commissioner (executive officer) who is also the district magistrate (judicial officer), that any person shall be detained for a certain period of time.
Universal Declaration of human Rights:
Article 3: Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.
Article 4: No one shall be held in slavery or servitude: slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms.
Article 9: No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.
Fundamental Rights in the Constitution of Bangladesh regarding human rights:
The fundamental rights of the people of Bangladesh have been ensured in the Constitution of the country. All past laws inconsistent with these rights were made void by the constitution, and it enjoined upon the state not to make any law inconsistent with this rights. Fundamental rights give the citizens dignity of life in an atmosphere of freedom and justice beyond the man made fetters that had constricted their physical and mental horizons. The fundamental rights in Bangladesh are listed under Articles 27 to 44 of part 111.
Article 35(5) of the constitution of Bangladesh: No person shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment or treatment.
Article 14(1) of the UN Convention against Torture and other cruel, Inhuman or Degrading treatment or punishment
Article 41: Every citizen shall have the rights to be secured in his home against entry, search and seizure, and to privacy of this correspondence and other means of communication.
Article 44: Every citizen have to rights to move the High Court Division in accordance with clause (1) of Article 102 for the enforcement of any of the fundamental rights conferred by part 111 of the constitution.
Human Rights situation in Bangladesh
2005 and 2006 was a bad year for national security in Bangladesh. Bombing marked nearly every day, and on one day in particular, August 17, 2005 four hundred booms exploded in 64 districts. The government’s tolerance towards is not a new phenomenon. Like;
Operation clean Heart, an anti-crime operation that ran national wide from October 2002 to 2003, led to the death of approximately 60 people, the miming of around 3000 individuals and arrest more than 45000 people.
Section 54(1) of the code of criminal procedure 1898: Any police officer may, without an order from a Magistrate and without a warrant, arrest first, any person who has been concerned in any cognizable offence or against whom a responsible complement has made or credible information has been received or a reasonable suspicion exist.
RAB and other security agencies are allowed to torture during custody and interrogation. As an example a young man who was arrested in Dhaka for protesting against the assault of an old man plainclothes RAB agents. He was severely tortured. As per record January- October 2005 an estimated 427 civilians died due to encounter killing by the law inforcement agencies and RAB
Torture, The Third Degree Method: Once a person is under custody, the police have a range of alternative ways to proceed. If the detainee can be accused of a serious offence like murder or storing illegal weapons then the investigating officer already be calculating how much money can be made and from whom it can be collected.
Voices of opposition are ever more at risk in Bangladesh; Human Rights Organizations also operate under the threat of assault from the authorities.
Corruption: In Bangladesh corruption is the one and only god of all public institutions. Each and every person has to think about how much money will be needed to get something done. Corruption starts from the top political leaders to most junior staff and its always takes `as a bribe. When a person goes to police station, the duty officer or others there will assess the complaint not so its merits but rather according to the identities of the two parties.
No the present caretaker Govt. has taking strong step to stop the corruption through different way. So the situation is better condition in all institution.
Rohingya Problem
Meanwhile, Bangladesh has become the unwitting victim of a massive human rights violation campaign in Burma (Myanmar). Thousands of Muslim refugees, perhaps more than 200,000 (the Muslim population of Burma is up to 16%), have been driven over the border. The refugees complain of killings, forced labour, forced destruction of their own homes and mosques, land confiscation, rape and various forms of torture.
The Bangladesh government has attempted to negotiate with Burma for the return of the refugees and has submitted lists of over 35,000 names, as requested by the Burmese authorities as a condition for return. The UNRCR has officially taken up the cause.
Child Labour
One of the human rights issues, which have attracted attention since Bangladesh ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, is child labour. Child labour has been on a dramatic increase e.g. it is common to see throughout the country.
Child labour is spreading without any restriction, even when those involved can be easily identified, e.g., rickshaw pullers, domestic work with low rate, and under-aged girls in the garment industry. Since it became within a decade the leading foreign exchange earner of the country, there is no interest in putting any kind of restrictions on the garment industry.
AIDS and sexual exploitation including homosexuality;
Reported cases of HIV/AIDS are growing at an alarming situation, with ever a million AIDS sufferers in Bangladesh, although this rise of AIDS is not confined to Bangladesh due to lack of medical facility and the government is doing nothing to prevent the spread of AIDS and is not prosecuting police who rape homosexual men.
Identified action points for moving ahead as a RBA leader:
- Organize orientation for staff and Programme participants on constitutional, fundamental & human rights.
- Organize orientation sessions on different conventions, treaties and declarations by external and internal experts.
- Ensure frequent discussion and motivational sessions with staff members to ensure right perceptions and attitude towards RBA.
· Enhance staff capacity and knowledge on RBA through organizing trainings, workshops and exchange visits.
- Organize quiz test for staff on RBA, relevant concepts and issues, conventions and treaties.
- Enhance motivational and leadership skills of staff through providing training.
- Develop RDRS core group on RBA at central, district and upazila level.
- Establish RBA forum at national, regional, district and upazila level.
- Establish legal advisory forum to extend legal support for RBA partners
- Organize regular meeting with network partners.
- Ensure frequent participation of media representatives and low enforcement agencies in different relevant meetings/workshops/seminars.
- Strengthen existing research & information cell of NBI on RBA.
- Ensure availability of relevant materials on RBA
- Continue maintaining good governance at organizational level.
Human rights in Bangladesh
2005 was a bad year for national security in Bangladesh. Nearly every day was marked by bombings, and on one day in particular, August 17, 2005, four hundred bombs exploded in all but one of the nation's sixty-four districts. Consequentially, Bangladesh's record for human rights, which was already in question, has deteriorated. Bangladeshi security forces continue to be accused by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch of grave abuses of human rights, including extrajudicial summary executions, excessive use of force and the use of custodial torture.. Reporters and defenders of human rights continue to be harassed and intimidated by the authorities, worsened by the impunity afforded in legislation in 2003 to the country’s security forces that shields them from prosecution and public scrutiny. The rights of such minorities as Hindus and Ahmadis are in a compromised state, and corruption is still a major problem, to the extent that Transparency International has listed Bangladesh as the most corrupt country in the world for five years running.
Extrajudicial killings
In the 2001 national elections to the Jatiyo Sangshad, the right-wing Bangladesh Nationalist Party gained a majority, largely on the basis of their policy commitment to fight crime and terrorism within Bangladesh. Two years later, as a part of this drive, the government established the Rapid Action Battalion, an elite 'anti-crime' unit composed of armed personnel from several of the existing security branches. Since the RAB was set up, it has been constantly alleged that extrajudicial killings and instances of custodial torture have surged.
Between January and October 2005, an estimated 300 civilians died due to 'encounter' killings, at the hands of law inforcement agencies and the RAB. Human rights groups have recorded many of these killings, and have demanded that each death be investigated, but the government have refused to meet these requests. The government has defended RAB for having cut serious crime by fifty percent, and have, as of 2006, dismissed international condemnation of RAB——against whom the European Parliament have issued a strong resolution by saying that 'encounter killings' happen all over the world.
The government's tolerance towards human rights abuses is not a new phenomenon. Operation Clean Heart, an anti-crime operation that ran nationwide from October 2002 to January 2003, led to the death of approximately sixty people, the maiming of around three thousand individuals, and the arrest of more than forty-five thousand. On the day that Operation Clean Heart was announced by the government as having ended, an ordinance was ratified that prohibited law-suits or prosecutions for human rights violations during that period, giving the armed forces and police impunity from being prosecuted for their actions.
Torture
RAB and other security agencies have been accused of using torture during custody and interrogation. One allegation of such came from a young man who was arrested in Dhaka for protesting against the assault of an old man by plainclothes RAB agents. He was later severely tortured. On July 27, 2005, two brothers from Rajshahi, Azizur Rahman Shohel and Atiquer Rahman Jewel, were arrested on fabricated charges, beaten with batons and subjected to electric shocks. It is alleged that this brutality stemmed from the brothers' family being incapable of paying a sufficient bribe. The brothers were tortured to such an extent that they were hospitalised at the Rajshahi Medical School Hospital under police custody.
Persecution of minority communities
Although Bangladesh is a party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, a covenant designed to ensure freedom of religion and of expression, it has tolerated violent assaults on religious minority communities by extremists.
In January 2004, the government succumbed to an ultimatum from their coalition partner, the Islami Okiya Jote, and from the extremist vigilante Khatme Nabuwat Movement to declare that Ahmadi people are not Muslims. Not wishing to lose its majority, Ahmadiyya publications were declared as banned nationwide by the government. A constitutional court suspended the ban, but Islamist groups are threatening legal challenge to this.
Attacks on the homes and places of worship of Ahmadiyya are still prevalent, but the government has chosen neither to prosecute those responsible, nor discipline police officers who failed to protect victims. Other religious minorities have come under attack, with abductions, desecration of religious sites, and forced conversions persistently reported. There have been many reports of Hindus having been evicted from their properties, and of Hindu girls being raped, but the police have refused to investigate, to this point. Due to this climate of religious persecution, several hundred thousand Buddhists, Hindus and Christians have quit the country.
Intimidation of Human rights defenders, journalists, and the opposition
Voices of opposition are ever more at risk in Bangladesh, as groups who document or speak out against the actions of the government have found themselves increasingly threatened and under attack. On January 27, 2005, Shah Abu Mohamed Shamsul Kibria, former Finance Minister and senior member of the secular Bangladesh Awami League, was assassinated. This followed a 2004 attempt to assassinate the leader of the Awami League, Sheikh Hasina, in a bomb and grenade blast. She survived, but twenty-three members of her party were killed. Other AL members, junior and senior alike, have reported harassment and intimidation.
Human rights organisations also operate under the threat of assault from the authorities and government supporters. On August 8, 2005, a group of BNP members attacked two human rights activists, who had been investigating torture against an Ahmadi. Journalists face the same fate: for three years, the organisation Reporters sans Frontières, has named Bangladesh the country with the largest number of journalists physically attacked or threatened with death. The government has no intention of protecting journalists, whereas Islamist groups continue to intensify their intimidation of the independent news media.
AIDS and Homosexuality in Bangladesh
Reported cases of HIV/AIDS are growing at an alarming extent, with over a million AIDS sufferers in Bangladesh. Whilst this rise of AIDS is not confined to Bangladesh in particular, the government is doing nothing to prevent the spread of AIDS and is not prosecuting police who rape homosexual men.
Politically vulnerable groups at risk of HIV infection, such as sex workers and men who have sex with men, have not been educated about the risk of AIDS, nor protected by the authorities, and they have found themselves regularly assaulted, abducted, raped, gang raped, and subjected to extortion by the police and by powerful criminals. Organisations have been established to stem the development of AIDS through education, but such projects have been curbed by police brutality towards members who work on them.