Stop using pepper spray on demonstrators
Photo: STAR
We shudder with fear to observe that the law enforcers of this country are now using pepper spray on demonstrators. Policemen have first launched this weapon by splashing this chemical on teachers who staged demonstration demanding their inclusion in the MPO list. They were not involved in any subversive activities. Yet the police sprayed pepper gas on the unpaid teachers, which claimed a schoolteacher's life. The application of this kind of liquid pepper-gas flouts both domestic and international law. Because, Bangladesh ratified CWC (Chemical weapons Convention) in April 1997 which strongly prohibits the use of this kind of lethal spray on anyone. Bangladesh passed The Chemical Weapons (Prohibition) Act in parliament in 2006. So, by using this lethal gas, the government itself is violating domestic and international laws. It is very difficult for us to discern what was wrong with those poor teachers and why the government was behaving rudely with these unpaid nation-builders instead of sympathising with them. It is natural that people in a democracy demonstrate to press their demands but it appears quite unnatural when the government stifles the demonstrators, which indicates nothing but neo-fascism. If the law enforcers violate the law of the country and turn inhuman and brutal, there will be none to abide by law.
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