4,000 CHARGED IN GOV’T CRACKDOWN: BANGLADESH OPPOSITION

Tue 11 October 2022:

The opposition claims that thousands of party members have been accused of violent crimes in Bangladesh as part of a massive crackdown by the authorities, which has raised the concern of a well-known human rights organization.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s detractors have staged protests across the nation in recent months over power outages; her government faces a general election next year and is accused of violating human rights.

They are also demanding that a neutral, caretaker government preside over the elections.

Violence disrupted a few of the protests.

Sairul Kabir Khan, a spokesman for the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), said that since August 22, police had charged at least 4,081 named party supporters and leaders in what he called trumped-up or “fake” charges related to the violence.

Another 20,000 unidentified BNP supporters had also been charged, he added – a tactic that rights activists say gives police sweeping power to harass any opposition supporters who may or may not have attended a rally.

Five activists have been killed and more than 2,000 injured at the protests, Khan told AFP news agency.

Police had not intervened when BNP rallies came under violent attack, mostly by stick-wielding activists of the ruling Awami League party, but “if we retaliate, then they start reacting”, he said.

“The police are not a neutral force,” Khan added.

Police say four people have died in at least three protests but accused the opposition of triggering the violence.

Khan’s comments came as New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Monday raised concerns over “mass arrests and police raids of opposition party members’ homes”.

“While police have carried out mass arrests of opposition supporters, those affiliated with the ruling party appear to have impunity for violent attacks,” it said.

Meenakshi Ganguly, HRW’s South Asia director, said this set “an ominous tone for the upcoming parliamentary elections”, which are set for December 2023.

Speaking to Anadolu Agency over the telephone, Bangladesh’s Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan called the HRW report “100 percent political propaganda”.

“Our human rights situation is far better than many other countries,” he said.

Khan said no opposition political party leaders and activists were victims of oppression by the government.

Due to their involvement in hundreds of enforced disappearances and thousands of extrajudicial killings, the Rapid Action Battalion and seven top security officials from Bangladesh were sanctioned by the US in December.

Dhaka asserts that many criminals were killed in gunfights with police and denies being responsible for any forced disappearances of opposition supporters and leaders.

The US sanctions have been mostly disregarded by the government, which has been in power since 2009. Last month, one of the sanctioned officers was promoted to national police chief.

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

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