Journos, rights defenders continue to be harassed

Dozens of people were made to disappear and journalists and human rights defenders were continued to be attacked and harassed in Bangladesh. Police and other forces committed torture with impunity, says Amnesty International.

The London-based human rights watchdog released the findings in "Amnesty International Report 2014/15" yesterday, which documented the state of human rights in 160 countries and territories during 2014. Some key events from 2013 were also reported.

The report says: "The exact number of people who were forcibly disappeared was not known; some estimates suggested over 80.

"Of the documented cases of 20 people subjected to enforced disappearance between 2012 and 2014, nine people were subsequently found dead. Six had returned to their families after periods of captivity lasting from weeks to months, with no news of their whereabouts until their release. There were no news about the circumstances of the other five," the report said.

It said three Rab officers were detained and investigated for their alleged involvement in abductions and killings of seven people in Narayanganj last year. A total of 17 Rab members were arrested in this connection later on, it said.

"Amnesty International welcomed the investigation as a move towards holding law enforcement officials accountable for alleged human rights violations. However, concerns continued that the government might drop the cases if public pressure to bring them to justice lessened," it added.

The AI said the government's use of section-57 of the Information and Communication Technology Act severely restricted the right to freedom of expression.

"Section-57 of the ICT Act criminalised a wide array of peaceful actions such as criticising Islamic religious views in a newspaper article or reporting on human rights violations," it said.

"More than a dozen media workers, including journalists, said that they had been threatened by security agencies for criticising the authorities. The threats were usually in phone calls directly to the journalists, or via messages to their editors. Many journalists and talk show participants said they exercised self-censorship as a result," it added.

"Torture and other ill-treatment was widespread and committed with impunity. Police routinely tortured detainees in their custody. Methods included beating, suspension from the ceiling, electric shocks to the genitals and, in some cases, shooting detainees' legs," it said.

At least nine people died in police custody between January and July 2014, allegedly as a result of torture, it said.  Violence against women remained a major human rights concern, it added.