Enforced disappearances: Ensure cops don’t harass families

The United Nations called on the government to ensure that human rights defenders and the families of victims of enforced disappearance do not face any harassment from law enforcement agencies.

"Immediately cease reprisals against human rights defenders and relatives of forcibly disappeared persons for their activism and co-operation with international human rights bodies and UN mechanisms," it said in a statement yesterday.

Following announcement of sanctions imposed by the US against top Rab officials on December 10 last year, Bangladesh authorities have reportedly launched a campaign of threats and harassment against relatives of forcibly disappeared persons, human rights defenders and civil society actors.

Relatives were threatened and forced to sign blank sheets of paper or pre-written statements indicating that their family member was not forcibly disappeared and they had deliberately misled police.

"This is unacceptable," the UN said in the release, signed by the UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances.