Part of my series
DOTR, in which fragile democracies around the world are examined in an effort to see if they can be saved.
The modern
history of this country is brutish and short. Emerging from the disastrous breakdown of India in the 1940's, the land today known as Bangladesh was the poorer and neglected half of the nation of Pakistan.
A popular uprising in 1971 led to full independence and the creation of the modern nation of Bangladesh. The opposition movement was led by Ziaur Rahman, who later became the military dictator of the country from 1976 to 1981, when he was killed by army officials.
Despite a dictatorship, the newness of being a sovereign state in the modern era, and the vast majority (88.3%) of the population being Muslim, since 1991 Bangladesh has actually countered many of these potential obstacles and emerged as a democratic nation. Bangladeshis have the right to vote and the current government consists of a coalition of parliamentary parties, led by the BNP party (Nationalists).
It doesn't take much to bring down a democracy, and I feel that Bangladesh is currently weathering some strong political storms which threaten to tear it to shreds.
As reported on Flogging the Simian, in April 2004 the BNP-led government in Dhaka (the capital) ordered a massive crackdown on opposition marchers:
DHAKA, Apr 26 (OneWorld) - In a flagrant violation of human rights and Constitutional guidelines, last week
the Bangladesh government arrested nearly 15,000 people in the capital Dhaka, in a bid to foil an agitation by the country's opposition party.
Worse, almost all those arrested were aged between 15 and 30 years, and were not even remotely connected with politics.
Many of them had just arrived in the capital from other districts for job interviews, some to consult doctors or give examinations, while some were just visitors. Others were ordinary citizens of Dhaka arrested enroute to work.
Standing outside the Dhaka Central Jail, 40-year-old widow Kulsum, cries, "My son is only 15 and he works in a factory. He does not belong to any party."
Recounting that day's incidents, she protests, "They just took him and I don't know how I can get him back. I don't have any money for his bail."
Invoking a controversial law that allows the police to arrest anyone for suspicious movement, the police launched this highly politicized drive on the night of April 18 in Dhaka and other major cities. But the drive is mainly concentrated in Dhaka.
The drive was spurred by an attempt to foil a series of agitation programs by the opposition Awami League that announced April 30 as the last day of the ruling Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) government.
Half of the innocents arrested were released after a few hours or a couple of days in jail.
But 7785 of them are still undergoing an inhuman ordeal in the over-crowded Dhaka Central Jail which has the capacity to accommodate just 2600 prisoners. When the drive was launched, the central jail was already packed with 10,000 prisoners.
At the lower judiciary, which is run by the directives of the country's executive, hordes of arrested persons are undergoing another round of mindless ordeal. The huge pressure of cases has lengthened court procedures, leaving people waiting in cramped lock-ups in the intense heat without food and water.
The conditions here are so pathetic that many of them collapse everyday.
In a mockery of the law, in some cases, the magistrates neglected to give the arrestees any chance to utter a word in their defense.
Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) Commissioner Ashraful Huda says these people were netted for suspicious movement. "We released half the arrested persons after examining their cases. The arrests were made upon intelligence reports that some people might try to sneak into the capital to carry out subversive activities," adds deputy commissioner, Golam Rasul.
But a circular of the Special Branch of police issued Saturday to all police offices across the country seeking a 12-hourly report on the arrests, clearly demands a report on the total number of Awami Leaguers or their sympathizers.
Interestingly, the mass arrests also gave the police a chance to make a windfall in bribes. Many reported paying the law-enforcers large sums to get them off their back. Kohinoor Begum of Maghbazar area recalls how she was picked up and then released by the police in exchange for money last Wednesday.
As she elaborates, "I am a private tutor who was picked up from the Maghbazar house of an Awami League leader where I normally stay. I was confused and frightened. I begged them for mercy. But they said they would only let me off if I paid them money. I told them I was a poor woman who lacks extra cash. Even then, I had to pay them a large amount of money to free myself."
Likewise, a 16-year-old boy said on condition of anonymity that he was arrested and remanded from the Airport Rail Station in the southern port city of Chittagong. Later his brother had to pay a large sum of money to free him.
Some of the victims also alleged they were robbed by the police after their arrest.
Currently, policemen of 22 stations in the city continue to raid bus and train stations to catch innocents, even arresting people by halting motor vehicles.
The daily scene infront of the Dhaka Central Jail is near unbelievable. Hundreds of people squat in front of the gate, many with tears in their eyes, hoping their dear ones will soon come out of jail.
Freshly released after two days of ordeal inside jail, Shahid, a youth from the old part of Dhaka, shudders, "I was forced to keep standing in a dark and dingy room crammed with over 1,000 people. I could not even sleep for a moment."
The Awami League was in power during earlier days of the nation (esp. when it was part of Pakistan). The head of state (Sheikh Hasina Wajed - a woman) from 1996-2001 was a member of the Awami League as well.
The current Prime Minister (head of state) is Khaleda Zia, the widow of Ziaur Rahman, the country's national hero (indeed Dhaka's main airport is named after him). Ms. Zia was Prime Minister from 1991-1996 and has been in power (again) since 2001. Her BNP-led coalition barely eked out a majority in the 2001 elections.
What concerns me is the BNP's desire to hang onto power at any cost:
In Parliament Sunday, Prime Minister Khaleda Zia defended the mass arrests, terming them a necessary measure to foil the conspiracy to oust the elected government.
She claimed, "The government has taken necessary steps to ensure the security of people's lives and public property as this is the government's responsibility."
Awami League chief Sheikh Hasina earlier clarified that her party's April 30 deadline for the fall of the BNP government did not envisage the use of force to unseat the government.
Hasina says her party wants to unseat the BNP through an agitation.
What Ms. Hasina is calling an "agitation" is a populist clamoring for new elections, which might lead to a shift in power. One of the major "threats" to the ruling coalition is a non-profit humanitarian organization called Proshika.
I will let Proshika introduce themselves to you in their own words:
Vision
PROSHIKA envisages a society in Bangladesh which is economically productive and equitable, socially just, environmentally sound, and genuinely democratic.
Mission
PROSHIKA's mission is to conduct an extensive, intensive, and participatory process of sustainable development through empowerment of the poor.
Objectives
PROSHIKA's objectives are: i) structural poverty alleviation; ii) environmental protection and regeneration; iii) improvement in women's status; iv) increasing people's participation in public institutions, and v) increasing people's capacity to gain and exercise democratic and human rights.
What PROSHIKA Does
These objectives are achieved through a broad range of programmes in education and training leading to income and employment generation, health education, building of health infrastructure, and environmental protection and regeneration. The programmes are supported by research activities and advocacy campaigns which increasingly call for cooperation with like-minded development partners at the national and international levels. Thus the network of activities in which PROSHIKA is involved links the poorest of the poor with like-minded development actors worldwide.
Bangladesh is indeed a very poor country. Proshika's main impetus for change is their use of "microloans", wherein a relatively small amount of money (say $100) is loaned to a woman for her to buy a sewing machine. Using her business plan, she pays back the loan in small increments, eventually paying it off and at the same time establishing for her an independent source of income.
Despite having a whole raft of female Prime Ministers, many Bangladeshis are uncomfortable with leg 3 of Proshika's platform (improvement in women's status), and the BNP has been agitating to clamp down on Proshika since the return to power in 2001. The gov't has moved to freeze Proshika's assets during investigations into allegations of "fraud", thus trying to cripple the organization before it has even been charged with a crime. Additionally, Proshika's 9,000 employees and 12 million clients make it a potent force for political organization.
After the mass arrests in April 2004, the government moved quickly to further restrict Proshika.
In fear of the gov't, they had gone into hiding but on May 22, Proshika president Dr. Qazi Faruque Ahmed and vice-president David William Baswas were arrested for embezzlement. The arrests caused a large-scale wave of panic to grip Proshika employees. Many, fearing arrest or crackdown from the government, quit their jobs:
Director General of the NGO Affairs Bureau Mizanur Rahman last night declined to comment on the fate of the people related with Proshika. "We don't think about that," he told The Daily Star yesterday.
The alliance government kept Proshika on its toes, blocking the donor funds, arresting workers, raiding offices and threatening it with cancellation of registration.
The whole Proshika family came under unbelievable stress when the BNP-led coalition government accused the NGO of playing a role in an Awami League 'conspiracy' to topple the government.
Proshika's Acting President Mahbubul Karim could not be reached, and Director Zainul Abedin refused to predict the future of Proshika. "Do not involve me in this, no way."
However, Md Abu Sayed, a co-ordinator at Proshika said, "We cannot think of an alternative leader for Proshika other than Kazi Faruque. If he is not there, the organisation is going to suffer terribly."
Most of the low-level Proshika employees who were harassed and arrested were women.
Being arrested and forced to stay in Dhaka's Central Jail is akin to a separate punishment unto itself - a horrifying one. Two weeks after their arrests, Dr. Ahmed and Mr. Biswas were still being held without bail on the fraud charges. From here:
How many people know who David Biswas is and what he has gone through over the last ten days or so? If you don't know, let me fill you in.
Mr. Biswas is the vice president and a founder of Proshika, an NGO with over ten million beneficiaries and eight thousand employees, and is one of the many Proshika senior staff members now being prosecuted pursuant to allegations of misuse of the NGO's funds and improper involvement in political activity.
Mr. Biswas is a dignified man in his late fifties, married with two children, and with a fine reputation in the non-profit sector as a decent man and honest professional that spans several decades.
In 1998, Mr. Biswas suffered a stroke which has left him wholly paralysed on his left side from the waist down, as a result of which he is unable to move or walk without assistance, and indeed needs assistance to perform even the most basic of tasks.
Mr. Biswas also suffers from hypertension and diabetes, for which he takes insulin shots twice a day, and has a heart condition. In plain English, Mr. Biswas is not a man in the best of health.
Pursuant to the government's case against Proshika senior staff, Mr. Biswas was arrested on May 22 and incarcerated in Dhaka Central Jail on the 23rd, where he remains to this day pending the outcome of his trial.
Due to his medical conditions, Mr. Biswas is being kept in the prison hospital. However, resources in the hospital unit appear to be in short supply, and he has been given no access to any kind of wheelchair or other equipment to help him move around, except to see his lawyers, and is dependent on the goodwill of other inmates to even move.
Despite his medical conditions, he has no access to regular medical treatment. He is receiving his twice-daily shots of insulin, but the insulin is kept at room temperature and not refrigerated as it needs to be, and he is unable to receive daily testing as is also necessary.
Worst of all is the fact that he until recently he did not have access to a commode to perform lavatory functions -- he only had use of the latrine facilities that other inmates must also use. I do not have to describe to you the unsanitary nature of these prison latrines, which must be unpleasant for anyone to use. However, for a disabled man, it is impossible to use such facilities in anything approaching a hygienic and safe manner.
The latrines are, of course, at ground level, and the ground, as you can imagine, is filthy. Imagine for a moment the indignity a disabled man must go through to have to use such a facility. Please recall that Mr. Biwas is paralysed on one-side from the waist down. He cannot squat -- he must lie himself down in the filth that covers the ground.
Repeated pleas for access to a commode, or indeed to allow a commode to be brought into the prison for his use, were finally granted last week, after he had been forced to use the prison latrines for the first ten days of his incarceration. Think about that for a moment. Ten days.
The obvious question that arises with respect to Mr. Biswas's incarceration, is why a man in his condition has not been granted bail. It is clearly stated in the penal code that bail may by granted in all cases other than capital offences and those punishable by life imprisonment. Mr. Biswas is therefore bailable at the discretion of the court.
As a disabled man, with a family, reputation, and long-standing ties in the community, Mr. Biswas is no flight risk. Dhaka Central Jail clearly cannot provide for his medical care, and even seems to have had a hard time providing him with the bare minimum of acceptable facilities.
One cannot help suspect that Mr. Biswas is being denied bail in order to harass or punish him. But for what?
Some members of the government appear to have targeted Proshika from their first days in office. They have reportedly sworn to get even with Proshika for the NGO's alleged political mobilisation against the four-party alliance during the 2001 elections.
As if that wasn't enough, Amnesty International also reported that Dr. Ahmed and Mr. Biswan were in grave risk of being tortured as well. Both Mr. Biswan and Dr. Ahmed are still in prison.
Through a legalistic maneuver, a court granted bail bail to Dr. Ahmed last week but stil kept him behind bars (he was only granted bail on 9 of the charges).
Then today we find out that the government has new charges for Proshika and Dr. Ahmed - "sedition":
Aid worker charged with sedition
The authorities in Bangladesh have filed sedition charges against the head of one of the country's largest and most influential aid groups.
Qazi Faruque Ahmed and six co-workers are accused of plotting to overthrow the government.
Mr Ahmed is alleged to have planned the mobilisation of tens of thousands of people to take part in a big anti government demonstration in April.
His lawyers argue that the charges against him amount to "harassment".
'Political destabilisation'
Mr Ahmed is president of Proshika, one of the largest non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in the world, employing thousands of people in poverty alleviation, education and development projects.
His organisation helps around two million poor women with small loans, training and education.
But according to the government, Proshika is also involved in unlawful political activities, and is trying to destabilise the country.
Mr Ahmed is alleged to have hired thousands of people during anti-government protests in Dhaka earlier this year in an effort to unseat the government.
His organisation has frequently spoken out against two Islamic parties within Bangladesh's governing coalition, who they say are opposed to women working outside of their homes.
The latest charges against Mr Ahmed come as he tries to win bail in other criminal cases registered against him, including allegations of fraud.
His lawyers argue that none of the charges against him is concrete, and that he is being harassed by the authorities.
"The government has filed 15 cases against him in a single day, and this sedition charge is no different from the others," said his lawyer Rokanuddin Mahmud.
Last month the human rights group Amnesty International called for Mr Ahmed's release, saying that he was at "grave risk" of torture by police wanting to extract confessions.
Amnesty pointed out that officials from Proshika have been the target of government persecution since the general elections in 2001.
It said the authorities had blocked donor funds to Proshika and raided its offices because of the alleged financial irregularities.
According to the indictment, Proshika, the non-profit organization, is accused of hiring thousands of protesters for the April march. Say what?
There also seems to be some kind of confusion about who is going to prosecute this case, and preliminary reports indicate that the charges were authorized by Home Ministry itself.
Folks, the government of Bangladesh is dependent on a lot of foreign aid, including from the United States. Donald Rumsfeld was in Bangladesh on June 6, 2004 to meet with the Prime Minister and her government. Pressure from international agencies and other governments is critically necessary at this point to keep Bangladesh from spiraling away from their democratic values.
Certain world leaders have stated that the current occupation of Iraq is part of a greater effort to instill democracy and freedom in places where it hasn't taken root very well. Bangladesh is also one of those places. No, they don't have any nuclear or biological weapons, and they have a (so far) democratically elected government, but they still need our help. Please consider emailing Prime Minister Zia directly about this.
If you would like to contact Proshika directly, click here.
Peace
-Soj