EDITORIAL: Enforced disappearances usually associated with military dictatorships are also widely used by civilian governments to stamp out nationalist rights movements and suppress political dissent.
Thousands of civil rights activists and relatives of the disappeared holding placards with pictures of their loved ones staged a protest march in Bangladesh on the August 30 International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances, demanding information about the whereabouts of hundreds of people who have gone missing under Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s rule.
Her government, like other perpetrators of this abhorrent practice, denies any enforced disappearances, claiming that some of those reported missing drowned in the Mediterranean while trying to reach Europe. Even if this absurd explanation is accepted, it still merits the question why is that her critics had to flee the country to find refuge abroad? A better explanation for those vanished comes out from a Human Rights Watch report.
Noting that security forces committed over 600 enforced disappearances since Sheikh Hasina was sworn into office as prime minister for second term in 2009, it says while others were later released by courts some 100 remain missing, or reported to have “died during an armed exchange with security forces” — the perpetrators’ common answer for extra-judicial killings.
It is a burning issue in this country as well. Thousands have gone missing during over two past decades with the relatives running from pillar to post to seek their recovery or at least information about their situation. One of the reasons Balochistan remains restive is the problem of enforced disappearances.
While the suffering and anguish of their families continue to be ignored by those at the helm, interventions by courts have also been of little help. Back in 2011, under Supreme Court’s orders a Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearances was constituted with a mandate to “trace whereabouts” of the missing persons.
The commission registered over 8,279 complaints, of which about 6,047 were disposed of. It showed that the persons in question were either confirmed dead (like whose tortured and mutilated bodies were found dumped in different areas of Balochistan?), had returned home, or were incarcerated in an internment centre or a jail (without access to due process).
The ‘disposed of’ number also included complaints ‘deleted’ due to ‘technical faults’ such as an incorrect name or address. Many petitioners thus remained unheard. There was no accounting either for the rest of the 2,232 missing.
During hearings of a case in June of last year, the then Islamabad High Court chief justice Athar Minallah remarked that the commission had failed to discharge its duties, adding that “we have repeatedly said enforced disappearances are a heinous crime and sheer violation of the fundamental rights laid down in the Constitution.”
Yet despite superior judiciary’s observations and directives, secret detentions of political opponents, including a prominent journalist Imran Riaz Khan, have continued with impunity. Sadly, the outgoing coalition government not only overlooked attacks on individual and collective constitutional rights of the people but actively lent a helping hand by enacting highly controversial laws. In so doing they have further weakened the democratic project. They might regret it at some point if and when the shoe is on the other foot.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2023
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