Human rights in Bangladesh (there aren’t any)
More on Tasneem. From the Guardian.
“Rampant illegal detention and torture are clear evidence of Bangladesh’s security forces running amok”, said Brad Adams, [HRW’s] Asia director…Tens of thousands of people were arrested in the weeks that followed the declaration of a state of emergency, and security forces have been accused of flouting standard arrest and detention procedures. Khalil said there was now a culture of “self-censorship” in the country, and people were afraid of the consequences of speaking out. “I am taking a calculated risk in speaking out because I still have family in Bangladesh,” he said. “But I feel it is important that people know what is really going on in my country.”
From CNN (Tasneem has reported for them at times).
Human Rights Watch on Thursday issued a first-person account of the incarceration and torture in Bangladesh of one of its consultants – an outspoken human rights advocate, journalist and blogger…”Tasneem Khalil’s prominence as a critical journalist may have prompted his arrest, but it also may have saved his life. Ordinary Bangladeshis held by the security forces under the emergency rules have no such protections.” Khalil was freed “after tremendous international and national pressure,” the group said.
Tens of thousands of other Bangladeshis aren’t so fortunate. We’ll have to pay attention to Bangladesh. Two, three, many human rights advocates and bloggers – the thing to do is outnumber them. Bastards.
“Tens of thousands of other Bangladeshis aren’t so fortunate.”
As Tasneem says “I absolutely want to see the people responsible for my torture and for my detention tried in a court of law in a transparent way. I want justice,” he said.”
Now that he is residing in Sweden he will hopefully be able (from a distance) to give a swipe at the cruel system that prevails in Bangladesh. As the tens of thousands of Bangladeshis who suffer at the hands of these monsters surely need someone of his determination to stand up for them.
If my memory serves me correctly, Evginia Ginzburg her memoir of life in Stalin’s Russia ‘Into the Whirlwind’ (1967) said that by about 1935, people in Russia had stopped communicating. The ‘self-censorship’ ran that deep, because the danger was too great that what you said, even to family members, would come to the notice of the secret police.
The consequences of this for the whole society: economic, political, social, were enormous, and enormously bad.
It will be likewise for Bangladesh if there is no domestic groundswell against it.