The Bangladesh government, in a circular of its Home Ministry, has declared that the country’s current police chief Mr. Benazir Ahmed, a patent human rights offender and a US-sanctioned individual, was chosen to participate in the 3rd UN Chief of Police Summit (UNCOPS) to be held from 31 August to 01 September 2022 in New York. This decision is a clear challenge to the U.S. Treasury Department and State Department sanctions which were placed on him and on the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB).
Pursuant to an Executive Order (E.O. 13818), the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), imposed a sanction on him as the former Director General of the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), the elite forces of Bangladesh, on December 10, 2021- symbolically on the International Human Rights Day.
Under the E.O. 13818, RAB has been designated for being a foreign entity that is responsible for or complicit in, or has directly or indirectly engaged in, serious human rights abuses.
The international communities and the U.S. authorities are aware that Mr. Benazir Ahmed, in his position as the Director General of RAB, appeared as a mercenary of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s fascist regime and acted as a lynchpin of the country’s law enforcement apparatus. He blatantly abused his power in his commitment to strengthening the absolute grip of Sheikh Hasina’s authoritarian and autocratic rule in which he has a vested interest as a beneficiary and a crony.
In this regard, he ruthlessly throttled fundamental liberties, brutally dismissed democracy and human rights and invincibly committed heinous crimes against the people of Bangladesh. Taking advantage of his position and power, Mr. Benazir Ahmed notoriously acted as the mastermind of untold political repression and thereby effectively silenced the opposition and intimidated the people of Bangladesh.
Mr. Ahmed has ordered massive extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, crackdowns, open street shootings, door-to-door late-night sudden combing operations and mass arrests without warrants. He has also ordered the torture and killing in custody of political opponents. Bangladesh’s nascent democracy is now bleeding at the merciless hands of this egregious human rights violator.
The United States authorities, like the other international communities, who are seriously concerned about fundamental liberties, democracy and human rights of all citizens of the world, are well aware of the menacing personality, character, tendency and power of Mr. Benazir Ahmed as the former Director General of RAB and his currently promoted position as the Chief of the Police Forces of Bangladesh. He is a certain threat to peace, safety, security, democracy and human rights, not only in Bangladesh, but everywhere in the world including, the United States. As such, the U.S. authorities have included him on the list of globally sanctioned individuals.
Under the same E.O. 13818 as mentioned above, Mr. Benazir Ahmed, as the Director General of RAB (January 2015 to April 14, 2020), has been designated as one of the foreign persons who are or have been a leader or official of RAB, an entity that has engaged in, or whose members have engaged in, serious human rights abuses in their tenure.
In line with the above-mentioned Executive Order, the U.S. Department of State on the same International Human Rights Day announced visa restrictions under Section 7031(c) of the FY 2021 Department of State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Appropriations Act on Benazir Ahmed due to his involvement in gross violations of human rights, making him ineligible for entry into the United States.
CHRD Bangladesh respectfully remembers the assuring statement of the U.S. authorities, pursuant to the above sanction in connection with the International Human Rights Day last year, as stated by Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Mr. Wally Adeyemo, “On International Human Rights Day, the Treasury is using its tools to expose and hold accountable perpetrators of serious human rights abuse. Our actions today, particularly those in partnership with the United Kingdom and Canada, send a message that democracies around the world will act against those who abuse the power of the state to inflict suffering and repression.” [see https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/jy0526].
CHRD Bangladesh cannot expect that U.S. authorities will allow such a blatant criminal such as Mr. Benazir Ahmed to put his blood-stained footprints on American soil.
We strongly urge the U.S. authorities to deny Mr. Ahmed permission to enter the U.S. We also urge the authorities of the United States to expand their sanctions list to include the other high profile cronies of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s fascist regime who are on the U.S. records as accountable for committing serious crimes and gross human rights violations, and for destroying the institutions of the rule of law, justice, and democracy.
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