Govt tightened grip on voices of dissent
Silencing critics, journalists, students, and activists did not subside in Bangladesh last year, rather the landslide victory of Awami League in December 2018 elections seemed only to have emboldened authorities in their crackdown, the Human Rights Watch said yesterday.
“Journalists faced pressure to self-censor or risk arrest,” said the New York-based global rights watchdog in its world report 2020.
The Digital Security Act, passed in October 2018 to replace the often-misused Information and Communication Technology Act, included harsher provisions that have been used to penalise criticism of the government, said the report prepared on the events last year.
The rights body said the Act effectively prohibits investigative journalism. However, the government refused to budge despite repeated calls to bring the law in line with Bangladesh’s international commitments to protect freedom of expression.
Authorities also increased internet censorship, it said, adding that the government blocked nearly 20,000 websites in February last year in what was described as an “anti-pornography” sweep, but which included a number of popular blogging sites.
According to the HRW, the government continued to deny enforced disappearances, extrajudicial killings, torture and other violations by Rab, police and other law enforcement agencies.
Security forces persisted with a long-standing pattern of covering up unlawful killings by claiming deaths occurred during a gunfight or in crossfire. Hundreds were killed in alleged “crossfire” exchanges, including during a drive against recreational drugs, it added.
The Bangladesh government ignored or dismissed key recommendations, particularly with regards to credible reports of electoral fraud in December 2018 elections, crackdown on free speech, and increasing cases of enforced disappearances and killings, the HRW said.
Indigenous rights activists continued to call for the full implementation of the Peace Accord in the Chittagong Hill Tracts. Over 20 years after the peace agreement, indigenous rights activists face threats of arrest, enforced disappearance, and violence.
Authorities failed to properly enforce laws to protect women and girls and have yet to pass legislation on sexual harassment. Bangladesh continues to have one of the highest rates of child marriage in the world, the report mentioned.
The government is committed to end marriage of girls under 15 by 2021, but there was little meaningful progress during last year, it added.
Instead, a special provision remained in effect that allows for child marriage in “special cases,” with permission of their parents and a court. The government failed to properly enforce policies protecting rights of hijras, the rights body said.
The HRW lauded that the government has kept its commitment under international law not to force returns of nearly 1 million Rohingya refugees to Myanmar.
It added that more women in Bangladesh entered the workforce and the country made another step towards gender equality when the High Court removed the requirement that Muslim women in Bangladesh declare whether they are virgins on their marriage certificate.
Comments