Security for Sheikh Hasina and her sister

THE cabinet approved on July 6 a draft law titled "Father of the Nation's Family Members Security Act 2009" aimed at providing a special blanket security cover to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and her sister Sheikh Rehana, and made the draft law operative from the same day pending the parliament passing it later.
Details of the act have not been made public as yet but as speculation is rife that the new law is going to be a repeat of the "Father of the Nation's Family Security Act 2001" which the previous AL government passed just 23 days before it was due to step down on completion of its tenure.
The earlier act which, had authorised Sheikh Hasina to take possession of Gano Bhaban, the then prime minister's official residence, a sprawling state property allotted to her by the state, and Sheikh Rehana, to own a house likewise in Dhanmondi in addition to their being entitled to full-time security by members of Special Security Force, transportation facilities, and a host of other perks and privileges at state expense, was scrapped by the BNP-led government soon after it came to power. AL observed an eight-hour general strike in Dhaka protesting the government move to scrap the law.
No matter how much the government may try to justify the new act, it is and it will remain a questionable law for the simple reason that it seeks to create a new privileged class, hitherto unknown, namely family members of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.
On principle, any law which seeks to discriminate between people on grounds of birth or family descent is a bad law, and it must not have a place in our statute books.
There is nothing wrong with providing state security to important political leaders and personalities even when they are not in power. Examples of such state protection extended to former presidents and prime ministers abound in democracies all over the world.
The government could very well beef up the existing security measures for ensuring added safety and protection of the prime minister, considering threats posed to her life by extremist elements. But to enact a law specifically for a particular family, and to provide a range of such state facilities and privileges to this family on life-long basis is a violation of the principle of equality and democratic rights of people in a democracy which we all cherish and promise to uphold.
We do hold Bangabandhu in high esteem for his great qualities as a leader who united the entire 75 million people of this country and led them to freedom and independence from Pakistani colonial rule in 1971. He was a great man who preferred to live a simple life and never asked for anything more than he could give to his people. Surely it would amount to sullying the name of this icon if his daughters should choose to use his name for gaining any mileage, political or otherwise.
People voted the AL led grand alliance into power in the last December election with such overwhelming majority against the background of total lawlessness, crime, and corruption raging across the country during the five years of the BNP- JI alliance government at a scale never seen before.
They expected genuine democracy from this government as a policy of change promised before election. The daughter of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Sheikh Hasina, must rise above personal and party interest. She must not back down from her pre-election pledges of giving us democracy and seek any political mileage beguiling under the cover of this undemocratic law. She must undertake essential democratic reforms so that democracy strikes roots in our politics and in our system of governance. For the last six months, the government has done little to suggest that democracy, and not expediency is its ultimate goal.

Brig. Gen. (retd) Shamsuddin Ahmed is a former Military Secretary to the President.