Adilur Rahman still in prison!
Adilur Rahman Khan, secretary Odhikar and an advocate of Supreme Court of Bangladesh, was arrested under Section 54 on 10th August without warrant for allegedly violating some provisions of the ICT Act. His bail petition has been rejected but the HC stayed the remand order wanting him to be interrogated at the jail gate. His petition for grant of division has also been rejected. In effect, he has been languishing in the jail for more than 17 days to his long drawn misfortune.
Section 54 is applied based on suspicion rather than on material grounds. The onus, therefore, is entirely on law enforcers to specify the charges being framed against him. When there is no well-defined and specified charges as yet, and no bail nor division has been granted to him, this amounts to clear curtailment of his freedom and civil liberties. More than a month had elapsed since Odhikar replied to the letter of information ministry on the figure quoted in the rights body's website, leaving us to wonder what necessitated the belated action against Adilur Rahman.
It is not merely a coincidence that ICT Act has been amended post facto whereby some non-cognizable offences in the original law have been made cognizable and wide powers given to the police to arrest anybody without warrant.
All this erodes the credibility and image of the country, both nationally and internationally. So, we demand Adilur's immediate release, otherwise this will convey a sense of illegality and betrayal of public trust in law as the protector of human rights.
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