The Ministry for Home in Bangladesh has announced that the project Human Rights Defenders Training and Advocacy Programme, which is supported by the RCT and implemented by the Bangladeshi human rights organization Odhikar is to shut down, effective immediately. No reason has been given for this action.
The Ministry for Home in Bangladesh has announced that the
project "Human Rights Defenders Training and Advocacy Programme",
which is supported by Rehabilitation and Research Centre for
Torture Victims in Copenhagen and implemented by the Bangladeshi
human rights organization Odhikar is to shut down, effective
immediately. No reason has been given for this action.
The purpose of the project is to train human rights defenders in
Bangladesh in the UN Convention against Torture and its Optional
Protocol as well as putting focus on the fact that torture
committed by the authorities is prohibited both by national and
international law.
The project is part of an EU financed project. It was initially
approved by the Bangladesh NGO Affairs Bureau on 28 April 2009 and
accordingly started the project activity.. Just four months into
the project, on August 31, the Ministry of Home decided to shut it
down.
Killings and torture is the brutal reality that faces human rights
defenders in Bangladesh. With the immediate closure of the project,
it seems that the present government does not want to deal with the
widespread torture and wants to prohibit Odhikar from exposing the
human rights perpetrators, Adilur Rahman Khan, Secretary for
Odhikar, says.
He is afraid that the government in Dhaka deliberately tries to
drain Odhikar of resources, rendering it impossible to continue the
work against torture, human rights violations and impunity.
- Even though Bangladesh has been a member of the UN Human Rights
Council and has ratified the UN Convention against Torture, the
country has rather a poor human rights profile. Torture undertaken
by police and other authorities is extremely common and within the
last 10 years, Odhikar has registered and documented numerous
assaults, Adilur Rahman Khan states.
Concurrently, the Bangladesh government explains how - in
connection with its application for membership of the UN Human
Rights Council in Geneva - it feels obligated to promote and ensure
rights for all citizens, as well as how the country has been on the
forefront in the human rights field, both regionally and
internationally.
Odhikar - which means "rights" in Bangla - has been in existence
since 1994 and works with documentation and fact-finding about
human rights violations, including torture, in the poor South Asian
country. Also international observers - among these Amnesty
International - criticize the country for repeated violations of
basic human rights. The support to the now shut down project is
RCT's first concrete co-operation with Odhikar.
To obtain permission to continue the project, Odhikar has written
to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, Minister for Home Affairs Sahara
Khatun, Minister for Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs Shafiq
Ahmed, Minister for Foreign Affairs, Dipu Moni and the Director
General, Mustak Hassan Iftekhar from the NGO Affairs Bureau. The
organization has also asked the international society, including
RCT, for help.
RCT has written to the Danish embassy in Dhaka and asked them to
take action. "We encourage the embassy to react strongly and ask
the Ministry of Home for an explanation to this sudden and negative
decision on their part", writes Jan Ole Haagensen, Director of the
RCT international department, in the letter.
For further details go to http://www.odhikar.org
For further information, please contact Simon Ankjærgaard, phone
+45 36 93 86 57 or e-mail sa@rct.dk
Written by Simon Ankjærgaard, Communication officer at
RCT
Translated by Stina Thurø