UNHRC urged to intervene

Two rights organisations yesterday urged the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) to play a leading role in initiating reform in criminal justice institutions of Bangladesh to address the problems of extra-judicial executions and help the judiciary uphold UN human rights standards.

The Asian Legal Resource Centre (ALRC), a Hong Kong-based sister organisation of Asian Human Rights Commission, and Bangladeshi rights body Odhikar made the request through a written submission yesterday.

Noting that no judicial or administrative remedies are accessible for families of victims of extrajudicial killing, the statement said, "Hundreds of victims do not get access to the public justice system in Bangladesh, due to ongoing intimidation, threat, and further persecution."

It said extrajudicial executions had been gradually institutionalised in the last decade since the creation of the Rapid Action Battalion (Rab) in 2004. "First, the so-called "wanted criminals" began to be executed under the pretext of "crossfire".

"Later, political and other parties started hiring law-enforcement agencies for their "skills" to assassinate their rivals. And, now, the government uses extrajudicial executions against the opposition to weaken political counterparts," it added.

It said the prevailing culture of impunity, coupled with incapability of the criminal justice institutions failed to provide justice to the victim families, who also faced social stigma as law enforcement agencies branded their murdered relatives as criminals.

The organisations stated that successful prosecution against any extrajudicial executioners, all of who were members of law enforcement agencies, never took place.

"Rather authorities deny the aggrieved families access to the complaints mechanisms, through constant threat and intimidation," stated the submission.

They viewed the absence of a competent criminal justice system as the main reason behind the "gross" human rights violations and called on the UNHRC to reshape its mechanisms in Bangladesh and meet the needs of victims.

"The reforms of the justice institutions should result in enabling the people to trust the system; they should find it useful, efficient, and affordable."