Amnesty International Report 1995 - Bangladesh

Dozens of prisoners of conscience were held under the Special Powers Act (SPA) or on criminal charges for exercising their right to freedom of expression. Political prisoners tried under anti-terrorist legislation may not have received a fair trial. Torture in police stations and jails continued, allegedly resulting in at least 40 deaths. At least six people were sentenced to death. No executions were reported. From late February opposition parties boycotted parliament and demanded fresh elections under a neutral caretaker government. Prime Minister Khaleda Zia rejected this demand as "unconstitutional and undemocratic". Frequent demonstrations by opposition parties and Islamist groups involved a high level of political violence. In December all opposition members resigned from parliament. In the Chittagong Hill Tracts, several rounds of talks between government and tribal representatives failed to bring a political solution. A cease-fire was periodically extended and sometimes broken. Following an agreement between India and Bangladesh, repatriation of some of the 56,000 tribal refugees from India began in February when over 1,800 people returned. Around 3,300 more refugees returned in July and August, even though land and homes had been restored to only a few of the returning refugees. A demand by tribal representatives for international supervision of their repatriation and rehabilitation was not conceded. A commission set up to investigate the possible extrajudicial execution of 12 to 20 tribal people in Naniarchar in November 1993 (see Amnesty International Report 1994) had not published its report by the end of 1994. In April the Home Minister said that all political cases brought under the previous government would be dropped and that 109 cases had already been withdrawn. These cases related to political opponents of the previous government who had frequently been arrested on false criminal charges. The Suppression of Terrorist Activities Act of 1992 lapsed on 5 November and an ordinance provided for comple-tion of prosecutions already begun under the Act. A law reform commission, announced in April, had not been established by the end of the year. Feminist writer Taslima Nasrin received death threats from Islamic clerics after she was quoted as saying that the Koran should be revised. The clerics offered cash rewards for anyone killing her. Islamist groups engaged in violent protests demanding the death of all "apostates", including several journalists, and ransacked the offices of the newspapers Janakantha and Banglar Bani. Journalists were injured and newspapers burned. Non-governmental organizations which provide training, healthcare and legal aid particularly to women were attacked by Islamist groups on the grounds that such services alienate women from their Islamic lifestyle. The Islamist groups demanded that the country's small Ahmadiyya religious minority be declared non-Muslim and that a blasphemy law carrying the death penalty as the maximum punishment be introduced. Violent clashes ensued between secular and Islamist groups during which several people died. In June the government brought charges against Taslima Nasrin under Section 295a of the Bangladesh Penal Code for having "maliciously and deliberately outraged the religious sentiments of the people". She went into hiding after a warrant for her arrest was issued and left the country in August after she had been granted bail. Also in June, similar charges were brought against four editors of Janakantha in connection with an article which described how village clerics misinterpreted Koranic verses and misled illiterate villagers. Three of the journalists were arrested, but were released on bail after about three weeks. The trial of all four began in late 1994. The SPA, which allows detention without charge or trial for an indefinite period, continued to be used to detain dozens of people, including prisoners of conscience. The High Court declared about 80 per cent of SPA detention orders issued during the year to have been unlawful. Abul Hasnat, a barrister and member of the Jatiya Party, was detained under the SPA in November 1993. After the High Court ruled the detention order unlawful, he was released on 8 January but immediately rearrested. He was detained for a further 120 days under the SPA. By September, 663 people were officially reported to have been arrested under the Curbing of Terrorist Activities Act since the beginning of the year. They included members of political parties, trade unionists and student activists. Scores faced trials which may have fallen short of international fair trial standards; the Act permits the trial of people in absentia, limits defendants' rights to present a full defence, rules out bail during pre-trial detention, and provides punishments of five years' imprisonment to the death penalty for offences including harassment of women and obstructing traffic. The vagueness of the Suppression of Terrorist Activities Act led to it being used to harass political opponents. Three student activists of the Bangladesh Chhatra League, affiliated to the Awami League, were arrested under the Act in March, and 13 others in June in Rangpur; all were accused of shoplifting. Local residents believed that the students had been charged for political reasons. One of them, 19-year-old Ashrafuddin Alam, died on 11 July in Rangpur jail in suspicious circumstances. Torture, consisting mostly of beatings by police, continued to be reported. During demonstrations police often indiscriminately beat peaceful protesters. In July police injured some 15 journalists in Chittagong who were covering a rally. Over 40 people died in police and judicial custody allegedly as a result of torture. Five men died in the mental ward of Sylhet prison in February. Their bodies reportedly bore marks of injuries and at least two appeared to have been strangled. Prison staff said one of the men had died in a scuffle and the others had died of natural causes. A similar official explanation was given when three prisoners died in Comilla jail in April within days of each other. A human rights group in Bangladesh which investigated the deaths said they had been the result of torture. On 20 August Abdul Khaleque died in Tejgaon police station in Dhaka on the day of arrest. His father filed a complaint that he was beaten to death; an investigation was set up but its findings had not been made public by the end of 1994. The government took no effective measures to stop unlawful trials and arbitrary punishments imposed by village mediation councils or salish which have no legal authority to hear criminal cases. On 11 May Sapnahar, a 13-year-old girl who had become pregnant after being raped in 1993, was tried by salish in Dhamsa village, Brahmanbaria district. The alleged rapist was acquitted for want of four adult Muslim male witnesses, which are required under Islamic law to prove rape. Sapnahar's pregnancy was considered sufficient evidence to "convict" her of unlawful sexual intercourse. She was "sentenced" to be publicly flogged 40 days after delivery, but a women's rights group intervened and gave her shelter. An investigation was reportedly ordered by the Inspector General of Police but had not begun by the end of the year. Six other cases of "conviction" of women by salish had been reported by October. Police apparently condoned killings of political activists by failing to intervene during clashes between rival political groups. In July at least six people were killed when members of the Jamaat-e Islami, Islamic Society, and the All Party Students Unity clashed in Chittagong during demonstrations and police failed to protect peaceful participants. Perpetrators of human rights violations and abuses were rarely brought to justice; only two instances were reported. A police constable, charged with the attempted rape of a seven-year-old girl in February 1992, was sentenced in March to seven years' imprisonment by a court in Sirajganj. In February, nine participants of the salish which had sentenced a couple to death by stoning in January 1993 were sentenced to seven years' imprisonment in Moulvibazar; all nine filed an appeal. At least six people were sentenced to death, all of them for murder. No executions were reported. A government bill to extend the death penalty for the offences of trafficking in women and children was pending in parliament. Amnesty International urged the government to release all prisoners of conscience immediately and unconditionally, including journalists held solely for exercising their freedom of expression. It repeatedly appealed to the government to ensure the safety of writers, journalists and people associated with non-governmental organizations who were threatened by Islamist groups. In February Amnesty International issued a report, Bangladesh: Further reports of extrajudicial executions by security forces in 1993. It described three incidents in 1993 in which between 30 and 40 unarmed civilians had been extrajudicially executed by members of the security forces. In August Amnesty International appealed to parliamentarians not to support a re-enactment of the Suppression of Terrorist Activities Act, due to lapse in November. In October Amnesty International issued a report, Bangladesh: Fundamental rights of women violated with virtual impunity, and urged the government to safeguard effectively women's rights which had been frequently abused by Islamist groups. No substantive response was received from the government during the year.