Logging Disappearances: Rights groups, activists face legal hassles
Human rights organisations and activists, who work to document incidents of enforced disappearances, operate under the burden of judicial harassment as they face a bevy of legal cases and police investigations.
Md Abdul Kaium of Mymensingh works to document cases of human rights violations, and more specifically enforced disappearances, as the district representative of several national organisations.
In a case filed under section-23 of the Digital Security Act on January 17, 2022, Kaium is accused of publishing defamatory posts on three Facebook pages that he does not even own.
If convicted on all charges, Kaium could be sentenced to 22 years in prison and fined Tk 30 lakh.
A local madrasa teacher is suing him. Some of the posts are about him.
"I have never made those posts. This case is being pursued because I organise different programmes about enforced disappearances and I am in close contact with victims," claimed Kaium.
His claim is supported by the forensic report provided by the Criminal Investigation Department of police. The police found that Kaium was in no way related to the Facebook pages, and the websites corresponding to the Facebook pages were simply accessed by him as a user.
"I was picked up by the Detective Branch on the afternoon of May 11, 2019, from Mymensingh. I had been called by the complainant to his madrasa to collect the bill for some website development I did for him. When there, he offered the payment in dollars, which seemed odd to me, so I refused," narrated Kaium.
"When I came out of the madrasa, I was suddenly accosted by the DB who accused me of owning black-market dollars," he continued. They alleged that Kaium had committed identity theft and received the payment as a result of blackmail.
He was in custody for three days before being produced before the Mymensingh Judge Court on May 14, 2019. He was released on bail on July 3 that year, Kaium said.
"Police said that I was arrested in Trishal and the case was filed with Trishal Police Station, whereas I was in Mymensingh," Kaium said.
The state and ruling party obstructed the work of at least 65 percent grassroots human rights defenders, a survey conducted by the Centre for Governance Studies recently found.
One in five had been harassed by law enforcement agencies, according to the report, which surveyed 50 rights defenders from 36 districts.
A quarter of them were obstructed by the ruling party, while one in 10 had been harassed by intelligence agencies, said the report titled "Who defends the defenders? The predicament of human rights activists in Bangladesh".
Human rights organisation Odhikar has been accused of running "a distorted report" on the May 6, 2013, police action on a Hefajat-e-Islam rally in the capital's Motijheel.
The verdict in the case filed 10 years ago is scheduled to be delivered on September 7.
"The organisation never ran such a report. The police filed the case but have not submitted any evidence showing that Odhikar published any such report or list," said the organisation's lawyer Ruhul Amin Bhuiyan.
"They have shown a list of 61 supposedly deceased people, which they got from the computers of Odhikar seized by the police. But this was just a draft document. In fact, the list itself says that the majority of the names are yet to be confirmed [as deceased]," he continued.
While arguing on the matter in court on August 24, the lawyer pointed out that the investigation officer only probed eight people out of the 61 to see if they were dead or alive.
While the organisation is dealing with the trial, its registration as NGO was scrapped last year.
The reprisal against Odhikar is primarily for their liaison with the United Nations Working Group of Enforced and Involuntary Disappearance, experts working in the field alleged.
This UN body collects names and cases of victims of enforced disappearances and raises the issue with member states and asks for investigations.
The UN body itself wrote to the government and termed the court case "a smear campaign".
The Centre for Governance Studies survey also found that three human rights defenders became victims of enforced disappearances for their work while 12 were assaulted.
The Centre for Governance Studies itself has been operating under increased scrutiny, said its Executive Director Zillur Rahman.
The police took the organisation's staffers in for questioning at least twice, he alleged. "There are no specific charges. They are investigating our ties with our donors, and are using the probe to intimidate," claimed Zillur.