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Friday, February 15, 2008

[chottala.com] Bangladesh told to tackle torture - BBC

Bangladesh told to tackle torture
By Mark Dummett
BBC News, Dhaka

 
A Rapid Action Battalion personnel in Bangladesh
The Human Rights Watch says torture is rampant in Bangladesh
A US-based rights group has called on Bangladesh's caretaker government to tackle what it calls the endemic problem of torture in the country.

The Human Rights Watch says tens of thousands of people are being detained arbitrarily since the government imposed emergency a year ago.

Many of those arrested have been tortured, the group says.

The army-backed government came to power last year promising to reform the country's corrupt political system.

Human Rights Watch says that illegal detention and torture are rampant in Bangladesh and that the authorities are doing little to prevent them.

It claims that many of the people arrested under the emergency rules by the army and its intelligence organisation, the Directorate General of Forces Intelligence, or DGFI, have been tortured to extract confessions.

Human Rights Watch says that the two seem to act outside civilian control, thus appearing to be, it says, powers unto themselves.

'Unacceptable'

One alleged victim was Human Rights Watch's own researcher in Bangladesh, Tasneem Khalil, who was also a journalist for a leading Bangladeshi newspaper and CNN.

He has now published his first full account of how he was arrested at gun point in May last year and then taken to an interrogation centre which he believed was run by the DGFI.

There, he claims, he was repeatedly beaten and forced to confess to passing sensitive information on to foreign organisations.

Human Rights Watch believes that Mr Khalil was being punished for investigating cases of extra judicial killings by the security forces.

He was released after a day in custody and now lives in Sweden.

The government has not yet responded to Human Rights Watch's allegations, but when recently presented with similar claims, the interior minister, General MA Motin, said that torture was unacceptable and that the government would investigate all cases.

The army often states that it is working with the interim government and foreign donor countries to reform Bangladesh's institutions and return the country to democracy.

 
 
 
 
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[chottala.com] Torture victim exposes Bangladesh abuses - Reply to Mr. Ashgar

WRT:
 
Mr. Mohammad Asghar
 
That was obvious, nothing fishy.
 
He was made the target because of his involvement in the ground-breaking work
Link:
 
Much of these Torture and Extrajudicial Killings happened during BNP-Jamaat
Jote Sorker.
 
Because of his association with many in the Awami League, it is conceivable
that the modus operandi the custodial authority would require "plausible confession"
involving AL. As I have read before, Tasneem Khalil had some e-mail communications
with Sajeeb Wajed that contained low level political undertone.
 
In authoritarian regimes, torture extracts confessions from political dissenters,
so that they admit to "espionage or conspricy, manipulated by some targated
political party" or a foreign country.
 
Most notably, such a dynamic of forced confessions marked the justice system of the
USSR during the reign of Stalin (thoroughly described in Alexander Solzhenitsny's Gulag
Archipelago. The torture can also be for the sadistic gratification of the revenge prone
torturer because of Khalil's "Anti-RAB and Anti-Military" activities. 
 
The actual names of the top master-mind(s) behind the state-sponsored terrorism, torture
in custody and extrajudicial killings are yet to be exposed. However, it is very clear
from the various reports during last 10 years that the policy of torture and extrajudicial
killings, police cover-up and expediency are made at the highest level of the
government, not by any low level Interrogating officer or a rouge RAB commander.
 
The reign of terror and intimidation is the objective, but the decision making process
is still not fully understood due to lack of complete transperency.
 
The Odhikar web site : http://www.odhikar.org/   may shed some light in the matter.
 
Syed Aslam
 
 
On 2/15/08, msa40@aol.com <msa40@aol.com> wrote:

Tasneem Khalil's interviewer reports him saying:
 
[They dictated some points I should include, such as admitting that I was engaged in anti-state, anti-military, anti-RAB activity, and that I smuggled out sensitive national security information to foreign organizations. That I keep close ties with the opposition Awami League party [I am friends with many in the Awami League, but I was not a member and was not involved in party politics].
 
Comment: Why was he made to admit that he kept close ties with the opposition Awami League? Why BNP or Jamat-e-Islami were excluded from his forced confessional statement?  
 
Can we see something fishy here?
 
Regards,
 
Mohammad Asghar




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[chottala.com] Torture victim exposes Bangladesh abuses - CNN story

Related News in CNN:

Torture victim exposes Bangladesh abuses

  • Story Highlights
  • Journalist and rights activist Tasneem Khalil tells of beatings in Bangladesh
  • Khalil: The pain often came like shocks, they were beating me so hard
  • Rights group says tens of thousands of people detained in 2007
  • Next Article in World »
(CNN) -- Human Rights Watch on Thursday issued a first-person account of the incarceration and torture in Bangladesh of one of its consultants -- an outspoken human rights advocate, journalist and blogger.
art.khalil.family.gi.jpg
Tasneem Khalil holds his baby in an undated family photo.
"The Torture of Tasneem Khalil: How the Bangladesh Military Abuses Its Power Under the State of Emergency," recounts Khalil's 22-hour incarceration last May in the southern Asian country.
Khalil was blindfolded and taken at gunpoint from his home in front of his wife and infant child, according to the account. He was beaten and threatened during the ordeal, retold in the 39-page report.
Human Rights Watch says the report "highlights abuses under the country's state of emergency and the interim government's failure to restrain the security forces."
"I have a moral responsibility to tell this story," said Khalil, who has done free-lance reporting for news organizations including CNN.
"I'm going to tell my story again and again and again," Khalil told CNN. "It's not only my story."
Khalil is one of tens of thousands of people, the report says, who have been detained by security forces after a government with a "reform agenda" came to power in January 2007.
It says Khalil was punished for criticizing "the security forces' role in extrajudicial killings, torture, arbitrary arrests, and other abuses."
He described being taken to a small room that resembled a "torture cell" and being severely beaten. Then his interrogators took off his blindfold to have him write a "confession" of his crimes.
"I was sitting in front of a table and three batons were on the table along with some stationery. One was a wooden baton, about a meter long. The other two were covered with black plastic. Poking out of the end of these two were metal wires," Khalil recounted.

"I'm not sure if they used electricity on me. The pain often came like shocks, but they were hitting me so hard that I'm not sure whether it was just the force that hurt like this or if it was electricity."

Khalil is now a consultant for Human Rights Watch in Sweden, which gave him and his family asylum after the ordeal.
"Rampant illegal detention and torture are clear evidence of Bangladesh's security forces running amok," said Brad Adams, the Asia director of Human Rights Watch who was quoted in a news release about the report.
"Tasneem Khalil's prominence as a critical journalist may have prompted his arrest, but it also may have saved his life. Ordinary Bangladeshis held by the security forces under the emergency rules have no such protections."
Khalil was freed "after tremendous international and national pressure," the group said.
Human Rights Watch is calling for the government in Bangladesh "to make the protection of human rights as much of a priority as its fight against corruption."
"While few would dispute that corruption, organized crime, politicization of the bureaucracy and political violence had to be addressed in Bangladesh, the interim government must realize that reform cannot be built on midnight knocks on the door and torture," said Adams. "A peaceful democratic society requires respect for basic rights."
Adams said there have been "no serious attempts" to hold people accountable for torture and arbitrary detentions. It urged the international community to persuade the government to deal with these matters.
"The security forces have been arbitrarily detaining and torturing people, but there have been no serious attempts at holding those responsible for these criminal acts to account," said Adams. "Why hasn't the government made the protection of Bangladeshis from this scourge a priority? Are they reformers, or do they just say they are reformers?"
Bangladesh government officials could not immediately be reached for comment.
Khalil, contacted in Sweden by CNN, said he wants justice for himself and the many others who have gone through the same ordeal.
"I absolutely want to see the people responsible for my torture and for my detention tried in a court of law in a transparent way. I want justice," he said.
At the same time, he said, "I am fully aware this is not going to happen" at this time, given the mindset of the government. E-mail to a friend E-mail to a friend
CNN's Joe Sterling contributed to this report
All About BangladeshHuman Rights Watch
 
Source:
 
 
Also read:
 
New Charges of Torture in Bangladesh TIME
Bangladesh security forces slammed over 'torture tactics' AFP
Bangladeshi tells of 22 hours of torture Reuters India
Guardian Unlimited - BBC News
all 21 news articles »
Military torture of Bangladesh journalist alleged
Sify, India - Feb 13, 2008
The 39-page report, 'The Torture of Tasneem Khalil,' graphically details Khalil's 22-hour ordeal in May 2007 in Bangladesh's clandestine detention and ...
 
 
 
 Please read the Human Rights Watch report Khalil worked on,
Link:
 
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[chottala.com] Bangladesh bank offers loans to American poor

Bangladesh bank offers loans to US poor

By Daniel Pimlott in New York

Published: February 15 2008 19:09 | Last updated: February 15 2008 19:09

Bangladesh's Grameen Bank has made its first loans in New York in an attempt to bring its pioneering microfinance techniques to the tens of millions of people in the world's richest country who have no bank account.

The bank's entry into the US, its first in a developed market, comes as mainstream banks' credibility has been hit by the mortgage meltdown and many people are turning to fringe financial institutions offering loans at exorbitant interest rates.

"Now is a good time because of . . . the subprime crisis and that highlights the issue that the financial system is not perfect," Muhammad Yunus, the bank's Nobel Prize-winning founder, told the Financial Times.

Grameen has lent $50,000 in the past month to groups of immigrant women in Jackson Heights in New York's borough of Queens. During the next five years, it plans to offer $176m in loans within New York city, and then expand to the rest of the US.

In Bangladesh, Grameen lends to poor women seeking to start small enterprises who cannot borrow from banks because they do not have accounts or a high enough credit rating. The bank, which started with $27 in loans Mr Yunus made to 42 women in Bangladesh in 1976, has now made more than $6.5bn in loans to 7m people in the country.

In the US, about 28m people have no bank accounts and 44.7m have only limited access to financial institutions. People often do not hold bank accounts because they have had credit problems, have no access to a local branch or they distrust the mainstream financial system, said Jonathan Morduch, a microfinance expert at New York University.

Some microfinance experts doubt that Grameen could make an impact in the US where credit is widely available, and businesses and tax systems are much trickier to navigate than in developing countries.

After beginning with small loans to micro-entrepreneurs, Grameen plans to expand into other businesses such as remittances and mortgages.

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[chottala.com] Mr. Ahumanb - You are talking about pseudo(??????), Please explain

Mr. a.human.b
 
You are talking about pseudo(??????),
but who  "Human rights", "freedom of speech",
"modernist", "sickularist", etc. groups.
Can you openly discuss and explain your own
points of view on (1) Human rights
                         (2) Freedom of speech
                         (3) Modernist
                         (4) "sickularist" [What is this any way?]
 
You are saying "Their sole target is one and only one.
You know what?" It is difficult understand your innuendo !
Which side of the aisle you are on?
You can run, but can you hide?
SA
 
On 2/15/08, ahumanb <ahumanb@yahoo.com> wrote:
Beware of pseudo "Human rights", "freedom of
speech", "modernist", "sickularist", etc. groups. Their sole target
is one and only one. You know what?
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[chottala.com] The Torture of Tasneem Khalil - How the Bangladesh Military Abuses Its Power under the State of Emergency

Here is the link to Tasneem Khalil's story:
 
 
A pdf file is also attached [entire document].
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