Rejoinder to the editorial styled 'The vanishing acts'
The editorial styled 'The vanishing acts' published in The Daily Star on 4 October 2011 has come to our notice. While appreciating your timely effort to highlight the serious human rights concern in regard to 'disappearance', we noticed that the editorial has misquoted the Chairman of the National Human Rights Commission in writing-
'This phenomenon certainly worrying and we strongly endorse the sentiments of the rights body as well as the Chairman of the NHRC, that the matter has taken an alarming proportion after the assumption of office by the AL led grand alliance.'
The NHRC chairman has termed the situation alarming but did not mentioned that it has taken an alarming proportion after the assumption of office by the AL led grand alliance, as the Commission does not have any statistics to claim so. In this regard, let's highlight the report by your reporter Rashidul Hassan titled- Rights worry over 'disappearances', published on Monday, October 3, 2011, on which your editorial is based. The report reads-
Speaking at a discussion in the capital yesterday, Human Rights Commission Chairman Mizanur Rahman said, "We are concerned over police and Rab personnel taking away people. Some just disappear while some end up being bodies dumped on roads.
"We never wanted this Bangladesh. This cannot be the spirit of our Liberation War; this is certainly violation of human rights."
"Human rights cannot be protected without assistance from the state. Unfortunately, the state itself violates human rights, and yet we have to turn to it for redressing the situation," said a lamenting Mizanur.
Under this circumstance, we think the editorial might provide rather a wrong message. At this point we would like to make it clear that no doubt 'disappearance' is a matter of concern and continuous news on 'involuntary disappearance' is a serious human rights concern. The NHRC do not assess the situation with numbers, rather we consider a single case is also a serious human rights violation and we sought for the number 'O' in this regard.
We thank you for your continuous support.
Comments