Human rights defenders

IN 1994 a group of human rights activists realised the need for an organisation that would work relentlessly for protection and promotion of the people’s fundamental rights. While the ouster of the despotic regime in 1990 had put Bangladesh back on the path to democracy, election-related violence, arbitrary arrests, extrajudicial killings, torture in custody continued to undermine the people’s fundamental rights, they noted. Thus came the social human rights coalition Odhikar into being.
   ‘It was even before Odhikar had been formed that we, a group of left-leaning people, raised our voice against violations of human rights and criticised the government for its misdeeds and the law enforcers for their atrocities,’ says Adilur Rahman Khan, a founder member of the Odhikar executive committee then and the secretary of the organisation now.
   It was not until about a year of its formation that Odhikar had its first office on March 2, 1995. It was registered on March 25 the same year. ‘Every major date in the chronicle of Odhikar has been synchronised with one significant political event or the other. We had our first office on March 2. On this day in 1971 Swadhin Bangla Chhatra Sangram Parishad raised Bangladesh’s independence flag for the first time,’ says Adil.
   Thirteen years on since its inception, Odhikar remains firm on its agenda, braving hard times and in the face of threats of ‘dire consequences’ from different quarters.
   Odhikar deems every case that it takes up as a challenge, Adil says. ‘Our biggest source of inspiration is the working class. Movements of landless peasants, ethnic minority communities and progressive students have paved the path for Odhikar.’
   The consequences of the excesses by law enforcers being exposed by Odhikar have been unpleasant, to say the least, more often than not. Odhikar members have been severally threatened with death and even picked up by law-enforcement and intelligence agencies. ‘Even if you look out the window now, you may spot them,’ one official tells me at the Odhikar office.
   Odhikar’s Kushtia-based ‘human rights defender’ Hasan Ali, who carried out a number of fact-finding missions on extrajudicial killings, was picked by the Kushtia police on December 4, 2007 and remanded him for 10 hours.
   Top Odhikar officials were not spared either.
   ASM Nasiruddin Khan Elan, acting director of Odhikar, was taken to the naval headquarters on May 3 after he had led two fact-finding missions about the killings in navy custody of the Charfasson ward commissioner Dulal on February 20 and Farid of Tazumuddin upazila in Bhola on March 21. Odhikar officials claim that Elan was harassed for preparing reports on the incidents and even threatened with death.
   Despite direct and indirect pressures, Odhikar continues its fight against human rights violation. It has closely monitored the actions of the military-driven interim government since it assumed power under a state of emergency on January 11, 2007.
   Adil says Odhikar was the first non-governmental organisation to express its concern over the imposition of a state of emergency.
   In 2004, when the trend of extrajudicial killing was alarmingly on the rise, Odhikar began to monitor, and conduct fact-finding missions about, the instances of extrajudicial killings. Based on its report, the European parliament passed a resolution asking the government of Bangladesh to take measures for an end to extrajudicial killings.
   Odhikar runs a small office at Banani in the capital and has to deal with persistent funds constraints; however, with a network of 200 human rights defenders across the country, it carries on mission of unearthing instances of human rights violations and presenting those to the people.
   ‘The funding is not enough to support the extensive activities that we carry out countrywide,’ says Elan. ‘Moreover, whatever fund that we are eligible for is delayed by the government on one pretext or the other.’
   There have been instances when the validity of a particular fund expired because it was not released within the implementation timeframe, he says.
   All these struggles and hurdles in running its day-to-day operations have developed a stronger unity among the workers, Adil claims. ‘When there is no fund for the organisation to run, its members contribute from their income to sustain the organisation’s functionality.’
   Of late, alongside the emergency, the organisation is monitoring the anti-corruption cases, to identify whether fair trial with due process of law is maintained. The recent separation of judiciary has drawn its attention to monitor how effectively this is helping the people, how much this is facilitating people’s access to justice and how far the judges are independent or whether there is still any government control on the judiciary, says Adil.
   Some of the crucial writ petitions that Odhikar filed under the public interest litigations have been for the autonomy of Bangladesh Radio and Television in 2000 and against the Dhaka City Corporation in 2001 for attempting to bulldoze the Geneva Camp housing the Urdu-speaking inhabitants; both cases are pending.
   The organisation has strongly criticised the government for making provisions of tapping telephones in the Telecommunication (amendment) Act 2006 which undermine the people’s fundamental rights. Odhikar is one of the writ petitioners that pursued the High Court on May 18, 2006 to ask the government to explain the legality of the provisions for telephone tapping and why it should not be declared unconstitutional.
   ‘The proceedings of such cases involving questions of infringement of fundamental rights have been suspended under the ongoing state of emergency, declared on January 11,’ explains former attorney general AF Hasan Ariff, currently the president of Odhikar.
   The Khulna Metropolitan Police on May 27, 2001 arrested 15 youths from the city’s Labanchhara area where the then prime minister Sheikh Hasina went to lay the foundation stone of the Rupsha Bridge.
   The police, in the forwarding report, mentioned that the 15 minors between the age of 10 and 12 had been arrested under the Special Powers Act 1974 for suspected involvement in anti-state activities.
   Odhikar later found out that that the boys were students of a madrassah in Jessore and had come to the area for a picnic. They were picked up from the spot while waiting for their bus to arrive. Upon Odhikar’s challenge to the court against the legality behind their arrest, the High Court on July 29, 2001 issued a show cause notice to the government. The organisation eventually won the case when the High Court on October 24, 2001 declared their arrest under the Special Powers Act illegal.
   ‘Although we do not provide legal aid directly for every case that we take up but we coordinate the process and follow it up as part of fact finding,’ explains Elan.
   The Bangladesh Legal Aid and Services Trust is one of the organisations that Odhikar coordinates with for legal aid to victims of human rights violation.
   ‘In addition to human rights, Odhikar’s work on international justice campaign is commendable,’ says Dr Ahmed Ziauddin, convener of the Asian Network for the International Criminal Court in Belgium. ‘As a focal organisation for the South Asian region for the International Criminal Court, despite all limitations, Odhikar has excelled in many different ways. Its campaign to end torture and impunity in South Asia is yet another area that Odhikar has done considerable work as a host of SANTI, a South Asian Network that works to end torture and impunity.’
   ‘Odhikar as a human rights organisation would like to develop national and international network in the context of the critic of human rights as it has been discussed by human rights defenders around the world,’ believes Farhad Mazhar, an adviser of Odhikar and active human rights defender. ‘As an organisation working in a post-colonial society and state marginalised by the logic of capital Odhikar faces certain specific challenges. We would like to address these challenges in the light of universal principle of human rights without compromising the political, social, economic and cultural struggle of people.’
   The major challenge Odhikar faces now is rampant Islamophobia constructed within the paradigm of war against terrorism, he says. ‘We must play the role of a bridge between international human rights principle and the diversified cultural practices and social aspiration of the people who have been victimised during the colonial period and now targeted in new colonial scenario. So, Odhikar’s strategic side will be uplifting the human rights condition in Bangladesh so that Bangladeshi people could become an active member of the global community.’
   Saad Hammadi