The violation of human rights by the fascist regime of Sheikh Hasina in Bangladesh reached a new and ugly height. As the regime cannot reach the political dissidents living abroad, it goes for their innocent relatives in the country. Harassment, arrest, torture and jail terms for them are in the routine works of its fearsome Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) and police. Fake charges under the draconian Digital Security Act (DSA) are instantly stamped. A few succumbed to the police brutalities. The vast majority remain silent for fear of their lives.
In October 2020, a bipartisan Congressional Committee recommended sanction against the RAB, which committed hundreds of extrajudicial murders and enforced disappearances in Bangladesh.
Innocent Relatives Targeted
The latest victims are Nusrat Shahreen Raka, a housewife, and her three underage children. They were picked up on October 6, 2021 from their Dhaka residence. She is presently under interrogation–“torture” in Bangladesh parlance. Their crime? Ms. Shahreen Raka is the sister of dissident journalist Dr. Kanak Sarwar who runs a very popular TV channel in New York in which prominent Bangladesh origin personalities routinely give their views exposing the various wrongdoings, corruptions and illegal activities of the regime back home.
Dr. Sarwar is a member of the Coalition for Human Rights and Democracy in Bangladesh (CHRD Bangladesh). He relentlessly fights, through his media channel, for the restoration of the democratic values in Bangladesh. That invited trouble for him and his extended family members from the fascist regime.
Most Bangladeshis term Sheikh Hasina as the “illegal Prime Minister” because she has been holding the position, under Indian orchestration, by enforcing fraudulent elections since 2008. In exchange, India reaps free geo-political and economic benefits out of Bangladesh.
Journalist Assaulted in New York
On September 22, 2021, the local branch of the ruling Bangladesh Awami League arranged a press briefing in New York to eulogize its leader. A journalist of NCN, a US TV network, was brutalized because he questioned the utility of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s extravaganza in the two-week long, 141-member trip to attend the UNGA.
No Criticism Tolerated
Reporters Sans Frontier (RSF) named Sheikh Hasina as one of the 37 world leaders who buried press freedom in their countries. More than 2500 journalists were arrested and 15 of them died in custody. The Digital Security Act 2018 saw the arrest of some 200 persons so far for criticizing the regime and its leaders, a few of them succumbing to torture. Even a small parody line on Hasina or her father Mujib was good enough to fetch months or years of torturous jail terms. The Odhikar, a Bangladesh Rights Watch Agency, and other international rights organizations reported that between 2009 and 2020, Sheikh Hasina’s fascism committed 2,537 extrajudicial killings. They included about 2350 by direct shots and 180 by torture. About 800 people died in jails, suspected to be from torture. More than 600 persons disappeared and are still missing. The political violence that surpassed all previous records, took the lives of 2,221 people and severely injured 127,257. Public lynching and gang-rapes were common, in which most perpetrators belonged to the ruling coterie.
The CHRD Bangladesh immediately posted a protest statement, which gives additional details about the arrest of Ms. Shahreen and her brother Dr. Sarwar.
The CHRD Bangladesh makes an urgent appeal to the administration of President Joe Biden, who repeatedly assured human rights, democracy, election security and anti-authoritarianism, among others, to be cornerstones of his foreign policy objectives, for an urgent intervention against repeated gross human rights and democracy violations in Bangladesh.