The utter and deliberate denial of life and opportunity to others forfeits one's own claim to continued membership in the community. The preciousness of life in a community must be so highly honoured that those who do not honour the life of others make null and void their own right to membership in the community.

This is an ever-forwarding argument used by the advocates of capital punishment, which even the Greeks and Romans invoked for a wide variety of offences.

Socrates and Jesus were perhaps the most famous people ever condemned for a capital crime in the ancient period. However, even the strongest proponents of capital punishment in the modern day states never ever argue in favour of utter and deliberate denial of life without recourse to judicial proceedings.

The United Nations Human Rights Charter in Article 11 has made it explicitly clear that, "everyone charged with a penal offence has the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law in a public trial at which he has had all the guarantees necessary for his defence."

The constitutions of all the present day states, including that of the People's Republic of Bangladesh in Article 35(3), have incorporated the very essence of the aforesaid declaration.

Even in societies where the judiciary can rightfully boast of being the finest organ of the state, and the members of the community possess unflinching trust in its deliberations, the opponents of capital punishment argue that the denial of right of life is irrevocable, and the errors of justice cannot be rectified.

If an innocent person has been hanged, the judge and the whole legal machinery involved have, thereby, been made a party to the very crime they seek to punish. Their opposition to capital punishment in no way reflects their leniency towards the perpetrators of crimes.

Extrajudicial denial of right to life, in the context of so-called "crossfire," and custodial death have been omnipresent phenomena in the erstwhile BNP-led governance in Bangladesh, especially after the formation of the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB).

In the definition of an Act passed by the US Congress in 1991, the term "extra judicial killing" means "a deliberate killing not authorized by a previous judgment pronounced by a regularly constituted court affording all the judicial guarantees which are recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples."

During the tenure of the past government when the HR activists, at home and abroad, raised voices against the deliberate denial of life by the law enforcing agencies, the government leaders termed them as "conspirators," and accused them of "tarnishing the image of the country."

On May 9, 2006, Bangladesh was elected a member of the newly formed Human Rights Council (HRC) of the United Nations. Prior to election to HRC, Bangladesh had drafted a document highlighting a few points in support of her candidacy.

Those points reflected the universal aspirations of the people of Bangladesh, irrespective of the government of the day. Two of them were as follows:
1. Bangladesh's deep commitment to the promotion and protection of human rights of all of its citizens emanates from its constitutional obligation.
2. At the national level Bangladesh, a democratic and pluralistic polity, is fully committed to the principles of good governance, democracy, rule of law and promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedom of all her citizens, with particular attention to the rights of women, children and minorities.

Deplorably, the government of that day continued with its unabated disregard for the commitments, and the extrajudicial killings went on. The CG, formed with Dr. Iajudddin Ahmed as CA on October 29, 2006, did not apply any brakes to this blatant violation of rule of law.

The current interim government, headed by Dr. Fakhruddin Ahmed, formed after the declaration of state of emergency commands the support and respect of everyone who wants to see Bangladesh prosper as a democratic modern state, with full adherence to rule of law and human rights.

Dr. Fakhruddin has indeed assembled a team of very competent individuals, each of whom has shone in full bloom in his arena.

Incidentally, it includes four Ph. Ds (one of them was my class mate, and we were neck and neck for the first position in the class), a remarkable feat in the history of the CG.

The CA, in his maiden speech to the nation, boldly and unequivocally made his intention clear as regards holding a truly free and fair election, reflecting the full aspirations of the people.

In briefly touching upon every aspect of society and governance, he did not forget to underscore the need for "upholding human rights," "establishment of rule of law and justice on firm ground," and his government's resolute commitment to be guided by the "rules of the United Nations" in dealing with national and international terrorism.

In the last few days, during the commendable drives of the law enforcing agencies to nab the criminals, regrettably, a number of people have been killed, either due to custodial torture or in the name of "crossfire," a combination of a blatant lie on the part of the state, and cold-blooded murder by the members of the law enforcing authority.

The victims' political identities -- most of them, ironically, were the workers of the party whose apex leader had initiated, and boastfully supported, the extrajudicial killings -- do not, in any way, lighten the responsibility of the state to stop this extreme act of violation of human rights.

On May 9, 2006, after Bangladesh got a berth in HRC, Dr. Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury, the then ambassador and permanent representative of Bangladesh to the United Nations, described the results as "a great victory for Bangladesh and Bangladeshis."

He went on to say that "today every Bangladeshi should have a reason to feel proud." At that time, Dr. Chowdhury parroted as a mouth-piece of a government responsible for having the worst record of human rights in our history.

Incidentally, today Dr. Chowdhury is a member of the policy making team that has empowered him to give his endeavour, however little, to the system that could reflect the true intent of his words of boastings that he had phrased only eight months ago.

In the words of the UN General Assembly President, Jan Eliasson, while declaring the election results: "I find it very important that all member states have made pledges and commitments to human rights which they are expected to live up to, and also that they have accepted, by their membership in the Human Rights Council, to be reviewed, that their human rights record is to be reviewed."

This mandate puts the council member states in direct human rights radar-screen of the UN, vis-à-vis their pledges and commitments.

Would it not be natural to ask our current CG, and specially the honourable CA, to reassert the state's commitment to the international community by giving back the most fundamental right of each of its own citizens, no matter how notorious a perpetrator of crimes he may be, the right which has been magnificently reaffirmed in article 35(3) of its own constitution?

Dr. Mozammel H Khan is the Convener of the Canadian Committee for Human Rights and Democracy in Bangladesh.