Rights violation still unabated: Odhikar
Human rights violation including extra-judicial killing, torture, and cruel treatment in the custody of law-enforcement agencies and violence against women and children continue unabated in Bangladesh.
Rights organisation Odhikar revealed it Thursday in its three-yearly mid-term assessment and report on the universal periodic review “Bangladesh from February 2009 to February 2011”.
Odhikar cites several reasons behind the violation including lack of political will, denial by the government authorities, and corruption and impunity.
The government within three weeks into assuming office in January 2009 sent a delegation led by Foreign Minister Dipu Moni to Geneva to the first Universal Periodic Review (UPR) of Bangladesh at UN Human Right Council, says Odhikar.
The foreign minister made a series of pledges to the Human Rights Council there. Bangladesh will have to appear with its progress report at the end of the government's tenure, as there is a review of the human rights records of all the 192 UN member states in every four years.
According to Odhikar statistics, 279 accounts of extra-judicial killings took place from February 04, 2009 to February 03 this year. Independent and impartial investigations and effective measures were not taken to prosecute persons found responsible for such deaths.
From February 04, 2009 to February 03 this year, 147 people were allegedly tortured and among them 40 died in custody, Odhikar report says.
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