Human Rights
Letter from 6 members of European Parliament reflects views of signatories, Ambassador tells UNB
Six Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) have urged High Representative/Vice-President of the European Union (EU) Josep Borrell Fontelles to ensure free, fair, and impartial general election – possibly under a polls-time neutral, caretaker government – in Bangladesh.
The MEPs are Ivan ŠTEFANEC (EPP, Slovak Republic), Michaela ŠOJDROVÁ (EPP, Czech Republic), Andrey KOVATCHEV (EPP, Bulgaria), Karen MELCHIOR (Renew, Denmark), Javier NART (Renew, Spain) and Heidi HAUTALA (Greens/EFA, Finland).
Read more: Religious leaders shocked at congressmen's letter to Biden
In a letter to the EU High Representative, the six MEPs also called for ending what they say “violation of human rights, release of Begum Khaleda Zia, and engagement of the government with the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and other major political parties to find out a sustainable and democratic solution to the ongoing crises.”
The Embassy of the European Union in Dhaka, however, sees this letter as the views of the six MEPs who signed the letter.
“I would just note that this letter reflects the views of the 6 MEPs who signed it,” EU Ambassador to Bangladesh, Charles Whiteley, told UNB.
Read: State of Christians in Bangladesh: Archbishop Emeritus Patrick D'Rozario rejects 6 US congressmen’s letter to Biden
EU has strong reasons to stand with the people of Bangladesh as a long-time partner in trade and development cooperation, the signatory MEPs believe.
“Thus, the EU needs not only to remain in constant dialogue with Bangladesh’s authorities on human rights agenda, but also to produce tangible outcomes,” the letter reads.
They mentioned potential measures such as restriction of entry into the EEA zone for those responsible for and complicit in human rights abuses, or regular reminding of the conditions for the GSP+ incentive to which Bangladesh is a bidder may be evaluated.
Read: Exaggeration, inconsistency in Congressmen’s letter: Shahriar Alam
“In this regard, we would appreciate to know more about the results of the EU-Bangladesh Joint Commission and Subgroup on Good Governance and Human Rights and the plans to work on the Bangladeshi authorities on these (and possibly other),” the letter reads.
Lawmakers say UK’s planned law to deport Channel migrants breaches rights obligations
A committee of British lawmakers said Sunday that the U.K. will break its international human rights commitments if it goes through with government plans to detain and deport people who cross the English Channel in small boats.
Parliament's Joint Committee on Human Rights said the Illegal Migration Bill "breaches a number of the U.K.'s international human rights obligations and risks breaching others."
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Scottish National Party lawmaker Joanna Cherry, who chairs the committee, said the law would leave most refugees and victims of modern slavery with no way of seeking asylum in Britain.
"By treating victims of modern slavery as 'illegal migrants' subject to detention and removal, this bill would breach our legal obligations to such victims and would risk increasing trafficking of vulnerable people," she said.
The committee urged the government to make sweeping amendments to the bill, including exempting trafficking victims and curbing the government's power to detain people indefinitely. The government, which had pledged to "stop the boats," is unlikely to heed the recommendations.
The legislation bars asylum claims by anyone who reaches the U.K. by unauthorized means, and compels officials to detain and then deport refugees and migrants "to their home country or a safe third country," such as Rwanda. Once deported, they would be banned from ever re-entering the U.K.
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Britain's Conservative government says the law will deter tens of thousands of people from making perilous journeys across the Channel and break the business model of the criminal gangs behind the trips. Critics, including the United Nations' refugee agency, have described the legislation as unethical and unworkable.
The parliamentary committee questioned whether the law would act as a deterrent and said it "could lead to people taking other, potentially more dangerous, routes into the UK."
The bill has been approved by the House of Commons, where the governing Conservatives have a majority, but is facing opposition in Parliament's upper chamber, the House of Lords. The Lords can amend the legislation but not block it.
Also Read: EU+ saw 1 million asylum applications, including record 34,000 from Bangladeshis, in 2022
More than 45,000 people, including many fleeing countries such as Afghanistan, Iran and Syria, arrived in Britain in small boats last year, up from 8,500 in 2020.
The government has housed many of those awaiting asylum decisions in hotels, which officials say costs taxpayers millions of pounds (dollars) a day. Authorities have said they plan to place new arrivals in disused military camps and a barge docked on the southern English coast.
Protect human rights in every area, President to National Human Rights Commission
President Mohammed Shahabuddin on Tuesday asked the National Human Rights Commission of Bangladesh (NHRCB) to play an effective role in protecting human rights in every area.
The president said this when an eight-member delegation of the NHRCB called on the President at Bangabhaban.
Press secretary to the President Joynal Abedin briefed the reporters after the meeting.
The delegation submitted its annual report-2022 to him.
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Shahabuddin stressed on taking effective measures immediately in case of violation of any human rights at any corner of the country.
He also put emphasis on the continuation of the follow-up activities of all human rights violations.
Chairman of the NHRCB Kamal Uddin Ahmed, who led the delegation, apprised the president of the various aspects of the report.
Shahabuddin said everyone involved in the protection of human rights should conduct their respective tasks in such a way that the people can understand the significance of the NHRC here.
The president appreciated the overall activities of the commission.
UN urges Afghanistan’s Taliban to end floggings, executions
A U.N. report on Monday strongly criticized the Taliban for carrying out public executions, lashings and stonings since seizing power in Afghanistan, and called on the country's rulers to halt such practices.
In the past six months alone, 274 men, 58 women and two boys were publicly flogged in Afghanistan, according to a report by the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, or UNAMA.
“Corporal punishment is a violation of the Convention against Torture and must cease,” said Fiona Frazer, the agency's human rights chief. She also called for an immediate moratorium on executions.
The Taliban foreign ministry said in response that Afghanistan’s laws are determined in accordance with Islamic rules and guidelines, and that an overwhelming majority of Afghans follow those rules.
“In the event of a conflict between international human rights law and Islamic law, the government is obliged to follow the Islamic law,” the ministry said in a statement.
The Taliban began carrying out such punishments shortly after coming to power almost two years ago, despite initial promises of a more moderate rule than during their previous stint in power in the 1990s.
At the same time, they have gradually tightened restrictions on women, barring them from public spaces, such as parks and gyms, in line with their interpretation of Islamic law. The restrictions have triggered an international uproar, increasing the country’s isolation at a time when its economy has collapsed — and worsening a humanitarian crisis.
Monday's report on corporal punishment documents Taliban practices both before and after their return to power in August 2021, when they seized the capital of Kabul as U.S. and NATO forces withdrew after two decades of war.
The first public flogging following the Taliban takeover was reported in October 2021 in the northern Kapisa province, the report said. In that case, a woman and man convicted of adultery were publicly lashed 100 times each in the presence of religious scholars and local Taliban authorities, it said.
In December 2022, Taliban authorities executed an Afghan convicted of murder, the first public execution since they took power the report said.
The execution, carried out with an assault rifle by the victim’s father, took place in the western Farah province before hundreds of spectators and top Taliban officials.
Zabihullah Mujahid, the top government spokesman, said the decision to carry out the punishment was “made very carefully," following approval by three of the country’s highest courts and the Taliban supreme leader, Mullah Hibatullah Akhundzada.
There has been a significant increase in the number and regularity of judicial corporal punishment since November when Mujahid repeated comments by the supreme leader about judges and their use of Islamic law in a tweet, the report said.
Since that tweet, UNAMA documented at least 43 instances of public lashings involving 274 men, 58 women and two boys. A majority of punishments were related to convictions of adultery and “running away from home," the report said. Other purported offenses included theft, homosexuality, consuming alcohol, fraud and drug trafficking.
In a video message, Abdul Malik Haqqani, the Taliban’s appointed deputy chief justice, said last week that the Taliban’s Supreme Court has issued 175 so-called retribution verdicts since taking power, including 79 floggings and 37 stonings.
Such verdicts establish the right of a purported victim, or relative of a victim of a crime to punish or forgive the perpetrator. Haqqani said the Taliban leadership is committed to carrying out such sentences.
After their initial overthrow in the U.S. invasion of 2001, the Taliban continued to carry out corporal punishment and executions in areas under their control while waging an insurgency against the U.S.-backed former Afghan government, the report said.
UNAMA documented at least 182 instances when the Taliban carried out their own sentences during the height of their insurgency between 2010 and August 2021, resulting in 213 deaths and 64 injuries.
Many Muslim-majority countries draw on Islamic law, but the Taliban interpretation is an outlier.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has called a Taliban ban on women working an unacceptable violation of Afghan human rights.
On April 5, Afghanistan's Taliban rulers informed the United Nations that Afghan women employed with the U.N. mission could no longer report for work. Aid agencies have warned that the ban on women working will impact their ability to deliver urgent humanitarian help in Afghanistan.
The Taliban previously banned girls from going to school beyond the sixth grade and women from most public life and work. In December, they banned Afghan women from working at local and non-governmental groups — a measure that at the time did not extend to U.N. offices.
Under the first Taliban regime from 1996 to 2001, public corporal punishment and executions were carried out by officials against individuals convicted of crimes, often in large venues such as sports stadiums and at urban intersections.
House China panel turns focus to plight of Uyghurs
Two women who experienced life in Chinese “reeducation” camps for Uyghurs told lawmakers Thursday of lives under imprisonment and surveillance, rape and torture as a special House committee focused on countering China shined a light on human rights abuses in the country.
Qelbinur Sidik, a member of China's ethnic Uzbek minority who was forced to teach Chinese in separate detention facilities for Uyghur men and women, told lawmakers of male Uyghur detainees held chained and shackled in cells so tiny they had to crawl out when authorities summoned them. “They were called by numbers for interrogations. And then you would hear horrible screaming sounds from torture,” she said.
Innocent female Uyghur detainees were held by the thousands, heads shaved, in gray uniforms, Sidik said. Guards tortured the women by electric shocks and by gang rape, sometimes combining both.
Reeducation camps intended to drain the Uyghur inmates of their language, religious beliefs and customs forced men and women into “11 hours of brainwashing lessons on a daily basis,” testified Gulbahar Haitiwaji, a Uyghur who spent more than two years in two reeducation camps and police stations.
“Before eating, we have to praise them, say that we are grateful ... for China's Communist Party and we are grateful for (President) Xi Jinping,” Haitiwaji said. “And after, to finish eating, we have to praise them again.”
Accused of “disorder” and detained with 30 to 40 people in a cell meant for nine, the Uyghur woman said, she and other female detainees were chained to their beds for 20 days at one point.
Detention left her gaunt. Freed and sent to France thanks to a pressure campaign by her family there in 2019, she was given more food by Chinese authorities before her release, so her appearance would not speak of her mistreatment.
In parting, Chinese officials warned Haitiwaji that “whatever I had witnessed in the concentration camp I should not talk about it,” she said. “If I do, they will retaliate against my family back home.”
The U.S. and many other governments, the United Nations, and human rights groups accuse China of sweeping a million or more people from its Uyghur community and other predominantly Muslim ethnic minority groups into detention camps, where many have said they were tortured, sexually assaulted, and forced to abandon their language and religion. China denies the accusations, which are based on evidence including interviews with survivors and photos and satellite images from Uyghur's home province of Xinjiang, a major hub for factories and farms in far western China.
The accusations also include draconian birth control policies, all-encompassing restrictions on people’s movement and forced labor.
Read more: To China’s fury, UN accuses Beijing of Uyghur rights abuses
“For a long time, some U.S. politicians have repeatedly used Xinjiang-related issues to stir up rumors and engage in political manipulation under the pretext of human rights, in an attempt to tarnish China’s image and curb China’s development,” said Liu Pengyu, a spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in Washington.
The Chinese government's actions in Xinjiang were about “countering violence, terrorism, radicalization and separatism,” the embassy spokesman insisted.
The early focus on the plight of Uyghurs by the Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party is designed to show the Chinese government's true nature, said Rep. Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin, the committee's Republican chairman.
“They are the first-hand witnesses to the systemic, unimaginable brutality, witnesses to the attempted elimination of a people, a culture, a civilization,” Gallagher said Thursday.
Between 1 million to 2 million members of China’s Uyghur minority have been held in mass internment centers, said Adrian Zenz, a researcher on the Xinjiang camps at the Washington-based Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation. More exact estimates are not possible, given China’s concealment, Zenz said.
Expert witnesses praised U.S. actions, including passage of a bill on forced labor and the levying of penalties on companies shown to be using the forced labor of Uyghurs. They denounced businesses and investors still profiting from suspect supply chains and possibly complicit Chinese enterprises there.
Nury Turkel, chairman of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom and a Uyghur-American, said crimes against humanity cannot be treated merely as an area of disagreement or an irritant in a bilateral relationship. “Genocide is defined as an international crime for a reason,” Turkel said. “Confronting is not an option," it's a necessity, he said.
Chinese technology is enabling and facilitating total control and collective punishment of vulnerable populations, Turkel said.
And Naomi Kikoler, director of the Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide, which is affiliated with the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, urged the U.S. to start working with allies in a more comprehensive way to confront China on the abuses in Xinjiang.
Read more: UN cites possible crimes vs. humanity in China’s Xinjiang
“The United States alone cannot prevent these crimes,” Kikoler said. “We must work with other governments, Uyghur civil society and the private sector to develop a swift, coordinated and global strategy to protect the Uyghur community. Thus far no such strategy exists.”
The hearing comes following Chinese President Xi's trip to Russia to show support for President Vladimir Putin, underscoring just how badly U.S. relations with China have deteriorated.
“What we're seeing here is increasingly a de facto alliance against America and our allies to try and undercut our interests,” Gallagher said.
The formation of the special China committee this year was a top priority of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., but close to 150 Democrats also voted for the committee’s creation, and its work has been unusually bipartisan so far.
Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi of Illinois, the ranking Democrat, said more needs to be done to protect the Uyghurs and the new committee can help lead the way. “Make no mistake, CCP leaders are absolutely listening to us closely this evening,” he said, adding: “Let's make sure the CCP hears us loud and clear. Their genocide must end.”
Haitiwaji, the ethnic Uyghur woman testifying before the committee, said she is speaking out because she feels an obligation to speak for those still languishing in detention centers. She called on lawmakers to follow the example of Canada, which has adopted a policy of accepting 10,000 Uyghur refugees from around the world.
“Please rescue Uyghur and other Turkic refugees, like Canada has done,” she said. “Please stop American companies from continuing to be complicit in surveilling our people and profiting from their labor.”
US human rights report one-sided: Hasan Mahmud
Information and Broadcasting Minister Hasan Mahmud on Wednesday termed the US human rights report on Bangladesh as one-sided since its information came from the biased sources.
“They collected this information not only from one source, but from several anti-government and biased sources. Therefore, this report is one-sided”, said the minister.
The minister made these remarks while exchanging views with reporters after a meeting with Bangladesh Federal Union of Newspaper Press Workers and Bangladesh Newspaper Employees Federation at the conference room of the secretariat.
“However, we are not renouncing the entire report as it contains many good points as well. But all the issues mentioned in the report about our human rights, election, and democracy are one-sided”, Hasan said.
He said Bangladesh never faced any incident like Capitol riot by supporters of former US President Donald Trump.
The minister said that before raising questions about election, they should pay heed to their own election system. “There are still many questions about their election.”
Read more: PM: During BNP’s regime, human rights were violated at every step
Responding to a question on US allegations about extra-judicial killings in Bangladesh, the minister said, “In a country where on average one thousand people are killed by the police every year, how much moral right do the country have to raise questions about other countries?”
Information and Broadcasting Ministry joint secretary Md. Kawsar Ahmed, Bangladesh Newspaper Employees Federation president Md. Bazlur Rahman, Secretary General Md. Khairul Islam and many others also participated in the meeting.
Bangladesh, China hold consultations on multilateral human rights issues
Yang Xiaokun, Special Representative for Human Rights of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China, on Tuesday met Foreign Secretary Ambassador Masud Bin Momen and discussed on multilateral human rights discourse and also on possible areas of cooperation.
Earlier, on 13 March, China and Bangladesh held first-ever official consultations on multilateral human rights issues in Dhaka.
Yang Xiaokun led the Chinese delegation, while Toufiq Islam Shatil, Director General (United Nations Wing), Ministry of Foreign Affairs, led Bangladesh side.
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The wwo sides exchanged views on their national human rights philosophy and achievements, ongoing developments, and mutual cooperation on human rights in the UN multilateral framework.
They discussed ways and means to further enhance the existing cooperation in a number of areas in the human rights domain, especially under the auspices of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva. Two sides also discussed the situation of forcibly displaced Rohingya people.
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China and Bangladesh expressed their principled position of maintaining strong adherence to the Charter of the United Nations and expressed willingness to continue such consultations in the future with the view to enhance multilateral cooperation.
UN observes 1st International Day against Islamophobia
The United Nations on Friday commemorated the first International Day to Combat Islamophobia with a special event in the General Assembly Hall, where speakers upheld the need for concrete action in the face of rising hatred, discrimination and violence against Muslims.
The observation followed the unanimous adoption of an Assembly resolution last year that proclaimed March 15 as the international day, calling for global dialogue that promotes tolerance, peace and respect for human rights and religious diversity.
As the UN secretary-general said the nearly two billion Muslims worldwide – who come from all corners of the planet – "reflect humanity in all its magnificent diversity. Yet, they often face bigotry and prejudice simply because of their faith."
Also, Muslim women can also suffer "triple discrimination" because of their gender, ethnicity, and faith.
The high-level event was co-convened by Pakistan, whose Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari underlined that Islam is a religion of peace, tolerance and pluralism.
Although Islamophobia is not new, he said it is "a sad reality of our times" that is only increasing and spreading.
"Since the tragedy of 9/11, animosity and institutional suspicion of Muslims and Islam across the world have only escalated to epidemic proportions. A narrative has been developed and peddled which associates Muslim communities and their religion with violence and danger," said Zardari, also chair of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation Council of Foreign Ministers.
"This Islamophobic narrative is not just confined to extremist, marginal propaganda, but regrettably has found acceptance by sections of mainstream media, academia, policymakers and state machinery."
UN General Assembly President Csaba Kőrösi said Islamophobia is rooted in xenophobia, or the fear of strangers, which is reflected in discriminatory practices, travel bans, hate speech, bullying and targeting of other people.
He urged countries to uphold freedom of religion or belief, which is guaranteed under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
"All of us carry a responsibility to challenge Islamophobia or any similar phenomenon, to call out injustice and condemn discrimination based on religion or belief – or the lack of them," he added.
Read more: Top UN woman urges Muslims: Move Taliban into 21st century
Kőrösi said education is key to learning why these phobias exist, and it can be "transformative" in changing how people understand each another.
The growing hate that Muslims face is not an isolated development, UN Secretary-General António Guterres said.
"It is an inexorable part of the resurgence of ethno-nationalism, neo-Nazi white supremacist ideologies, and violence targeting vulnerable populations, including Muslims, Jews, some minority Christian communities and others," he added.
"Discrimination diminishes us all. And it is incumbent on all of us to stand up against it. We must never be bystanders to bigotry.”"
Stressing that"we must strengthen our defences," Guterres highlighted UN measures such as a Plan of Action to Safeguard Religious Sites. He also called for ramping up political, cultural, and economic investments in social cohesion.
Read more: No militant act undercover of Islam: PM
"And we must confront bigotry wherever and whenever it rears its ugly head. This includes working to tackle the hate that spreads like wildfire across the internet." he added.
‘What about our human rights?’
Three generations of human rights violation victims – under the Bangladesh Nationalist Party and Jamaat-e-Islami governments – brought out a rally in Dhaka today to highlight the ordeals faced by the families.
The focus of the rally was to provide a wholesome perspective on phases of human rights violations in Bangladesh to address the “one-sided narrative that gives the impression that the current government is responsible for all human rights violations in the country.”
It is unfortunate that many global organizations like UN agencies and Western powers often buy into this narrative peddled by certain groups with vested interest, the rally organisers were of the view.
“BNP-Jamaat and their international allies make much of the few cases of human rights violations during the present government. Conveniently, they overlook the long history of unthinkable human rights violations during the BNP-Jamaat regime. Their unwillingness to even listen to the other victims says all there is to say. What about the three million Bengalis killed and quarter million women raped during the Liberation War? UN has not yet recognized the 1971 atrocities as genocide,” Tarana Halim, president of Bangabandhu Sangskritik Jote, said from the rally.
Families of those killed during the largescale atrocities perpetrated by Pakistan army and their local collaborators during the Liberation War were in the rally. Other participants included families of senior Awami League leaders – killed after the brutal assassination of the Father of the Nation in 1975 – and victims of extra-judicial killings and hangings by the first military regime headed by General Ziaur Rahman, founder of BNP.
Myanmar mired ever deeper in crisis as human rights spiral backwards: Türk
Nearly two years on from Myanmar's military coup against the democratically-elected government, the country has sunk deeper than ever into crisis, undergoing a wholesale regression in human rights, UN human rights chief Volker Türk said recently.
"By nearly every feasible measurement, and in every area of human rights – economic, social and cultural, as much as civil and political – Myanmar has profoundly regressed," he said Friday.
"Despite clear legal obligations for the military to protect civilians in the conduct of hostilities, there has been a consistent disregard for the related rules of international law."
"Far from being spared, civilians have been the actual targets of attacks – victims of targeted and indiscriminate artillery barrages and air strikes, extrajudicial executions, the use of torture, and the burning of whole villages," the head of OHCHR added.
The OHCHR said at least 2,890 people died at the hands of the military and others working with them, of whom at least 767 were initially taken into custody.
This is almost certainly an underestimate of the number of people killed by the military.
A staggering 1.2 million people of Myanmar were internally displaced, and over 70,000 left the country – joining more than a million others who fled, including the bulk of the country's Rohingya Muslim population, who suffered decades of sustained persecution and attacks, the OHCHR said.
Over 34,000 civilian structures, including homes, clinics, schools and places of worship, were burned over the past two years, the rights office said.
Since February 1, 2021, the military has imprisoned the entire democratically elected leadership of the country and, in subsequent months, detained over 16,000 others – most of whom face specious charges in military-controlled courts, in flagrant breach of due process and fair trial rights, linked to their refusal to accept the military's actions, the OHCHR said.
"There must be a way out of this catastrophic situation, which sees only deepening human suffering and rights violations on a daily basis," Türk said. "Regional leaders, who engaged the military leadership through the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) agreed a Five-Point Consensus that Myanmar's generals have treated with disdain."
"Two of the critical conditions that were agreed – to cease all violence and to allow humanitarian access – have not been met. In fact, we have seen the opposite. Violence has spiralled out of control and humanitarian access has been severely restricted."
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