ASIAN HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION – URGENT APPEALS PROGRAMME
Urgent Appeal Case: AHRC-UAC-104-2013
11 August 2013
——————————
BANGLADESH: Human rights defender, Mr. Adilur Rahman Khan arbitrarily detained
ISSUES: Arbitrary arrest and detention; ill-treatment; fabricated charges; freedom of expression and opinion; human rights defender; corruption; impunity
——————————
Dear friends,
The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received information that the Detective Branch of Dhaka Metropolitan Police has arrested Mr. Adilur Rahman Khan, one of most respected human rights defenders in Bangladesh and the Secretary of Odhikar. A group of plain clothed men picked up Mr. Adilur from his residence at?10:20 p.m., on 10 August 2013. Neither Adilur, nor the family was informed why they were taking Adilur into custody and where they were taking him. Later, media in Bangladesh have published reports, quoting police officers Adilur was arrested in relation to a case registered at Gulshan Police Station, for offenses punishable under the Information and Communications Technology Act, 2006. However, the Gulshan police has informed Odhikar that they had no case registered against Adilur at the station, and that the officers there learned about Adilur’s arrest through the media. There is serious concern about Adilur’s safety in custody. Please intervene immediately in this case, so that Adilur remains safe in custody and released without delay. Continue reading “Stifling the whistleblower”
Category: Elections
Government?s self-publicity with public money
by ?Taj Hashmi in The Daily Star
It is time to protest the ruling Awami League?s self-publicity through billboards at a staggering cost of more than Tk.3 crore (one senior minister would possibly say taxpayers? Tk.3 crore is ?rubbish? as he ?rubbished? the 4,000 crore stolen by Hall-Mark). I am really shocked and saddened by the government?s overwhelming ?billboard campaign? ? whose impact will be grossly under-whelming though ? and the deafening silence of our civil society, intellectuals, politicians and youths over this scandalous act of the ruling party. The removal of commercial billboards to the detriment of commercial firms by the government is also shockingly unwarranted.
Continue reading “Government?s self-publicity with public money”
NARAYANGANJ GODFATHER & FAMILY BEHIND TAQI'S GRUESOME KILLING
COME AND JOIN 29TH MARCH PROTEST RALLY! RAISE YOUR VOICES, ITS NOW OR NEVER!!
Shongkhubdho Nagorik Shomaj: Protest Rally Against Taqi Murder on Wednesday March 29 at 4pm at Raju Bhashkorjo, Dhaka University.
Seventeen year-old Tanwir Muhammad Taqi, a meritorious A-level student, was found dead on March 8, 2013, two days after he had gone missing, on the banks of the Sitalakhya river in Narayanganj. He had been brutally murdered.
I have seen photos of his dead body, they bear the marks of gruesome torture. Other activist friends Taslima Akhter (photographer, garment labour activist), Shahidul Alam (photographer) and Saydia Gulrukh (anthropologist) who have, like me, seen the photographs, have spent sleepless nights.
Taqi (name spelt variously in the press) was admired and loved and not known to have enemies.
But his father, Rafiur Rabbi did, and does. A public figure widely respected for his honesty, fearlessness and uncompromising stance, Rabbi has led innumerable social and people power movements; cumulatively, they challenge the tight grip of Shameem Osman and his family, who are Narayanganj’s “godfathers”, who have ruled the port city for 3 generations through payoffs, kickbacks, violence and terror.
Narayanganj city’s popular mayor Dr Selina Hayat Ivy and Rabbi (convenor, Narayanaganj Ganajagoron Mancha; vice president Narayanganj Nagorik Committee; convenor, district level National Committee to Protect Oil, Gas, Mineral Resources, Power and Ports?) ? have publicly held Shameem Osman and his family responsible for the killing, the most recent of nearly fifty over the last one and a half years.
The reign of terror must STOP! Play your part. Come and join the rally.
In solidarity,
Rahnuma Ahmed, writer, columnist
Professor Naseem Akhter Hussain, Jahangirnagar University
Professor Anu Muhammad, Jahangirnagar University
Masud Imran, teacher, Jahangirnagar University
Mahmudul Sumon, teacher, Jahangirnagar University
Nasrin Khandoker, teacher, Jahangirnagar University
Arup Rahee, singer, poet
Shipra Bose, development activist
Taslima Akhter, photographer
Udisa Islam, journalist
The Ugly Truth
The Bombs-Away?Election
Many Americans are rightly disgusted by the non-choice they are offered in the presidential race every four years. This year is no different despite the serious problems that the United States faces at home and abroad. Mitt Romney has no actual plan to fix the economy, and the record of President Barack Obama over the past four years speaks for itself. Romney is a big-government Republican, while Obama is an even-bigger-government Democrat. Either will increase the deficit to the bankruptcy point; Romney through more spending on arms, soldiers, and wars, Obama with a sorely needed health-care program that will break the bank because it was created in collusion with the health-care and insurance industries and makes no effort to limit costs. Continue reading “The Ugly Truth”
Conspiracies of convenience: what's behind the film fracas?
On both sides of the ongoing clash of bigotries and stupidity, the Prophet Muhammad is incidental to the true motives of the antagonists
By Hani Shukrallah, Thursday 13 Sep 2012. English Ahram
I’m not a conspiracy theorist, but I strongly sense conspiracy in the whole sordid “film maligning the Prophet” fracas, which, in a few hours, claimed the lives of three American diplomats and delivered a devastating blow to the Arab revolutionary upsurge, and to the new democratic and pluralistic awareness that both lay behind that upsurge and was its most precious product. Let me hasten to explain, however, that I use the questionable term, conspiracy, not in the sense that everyone from the makers of the film to the hysterical demonstrators that attacked the American missions in Cairo and Benghazi are in cahoots; nor do I base my argument simply on “who benefits most”, which almost invariably is the conspiracy theorist’s most crucial analytical tool.
What I really mean by “conspiracy” here is that the Prophet Muhammad is in fact wholly secondary to the real motives of the various parties to the ugly and bloody brawl. Yet, somewhat like the conspiracy theorist, I base my argument more on a reading of the events and their context, rather than on concrete, tangible facts. Continue reading “Conspiracies of convenience: what's behind the film fracas?”
To Barack Obama
by Babui/Arjun
You have tried to be appeaser,
You have tried to kiss their feet,
You’ve turned your back on backers,
And so, you’ve known defeat.
Perhaps it’s how you’d risen,
Ascending far too fast.
You’ve catered to the Powers,
But Powers never last.
You fought the fight for healthcare,
In which you did believe,
But prudence was your tactic,
Which little did achieve. Continue reading “To Barack Obama”
Many faces of war 1971: A muktijodhdha speaks
1971. ?71. Ekattor. Is it a number? A word? A history? To any Bangladeshi, it embodies the pride of our nation, the struggle for our independence, the pain of loss, the humiliation of being violated, the joy of victory.
Continue reading “Many faces of war 1971: A muktijodhdha speaks”
Many faces of war 1971
Drik cordially invites you to a photography exhibition “Many faces of war 1971”?at Suhrawardi Uddan, Dhaka (in front of Shikha Chironton) on 26 March 2012? at 11:00 am.
The exhibition will remain open to the public till 31 March, 2012.
The exhibition is an outcome of ?Archiving 1971? programme by Drik.
Related links:
Archiving 1971
India’s secret war in Bangladesh
Bangladesh war: The article that changed history
Bangladesh’s quest for closure
Remembering December 1971
The War That Time Forgot
March 12 Rally
The government was hell bent on preventing the opposition rally. Trains, buses and launches were all stopped. Ordinary passengers were beaten up and prevented from off loading at stations and ferrys. The police were out in full force in the city, checking on people to make sure they were not opposition supporters heading for the rally.
Continue reading “March 12 Rally”
Birth Pangs of a Nation: video
The Bangladeshi War of Liberation, like all other wars, has a contested history. The number killed, the number raped, the number displaced, are all figures that change depending upon who tells the story.
But in our attempt to be on the ?right side? of history, we often forget those who ended up on the wrong side. Those who have gone, those who were permanently scarred, mentally, physically, socially, don?t really care about our statistics. The eyes that stare into empty space, knowing not what they are searching, the frail legs, numbed by fatigue, drained by exhaustion, yet willed on by desperation, the wrinkled hands, seeking a familiar touch, a momentary shelter, longing for rest, do not care about the realpolitik of posturing superpowers.