Category: Bangladesh

MYANMAR/BANGLADESH: Rights, dignity, and future of genocide survivors at stake

42nd Session - September 20`9, ALRC AT THE UN, Bangladesh, Burma / Myanmar, Human Rights Council, Oral Statements September 19, 2019September 19, 2019 admin 0 Comments

A Joint Oral Statement to the 42nd Regular Session of the UN Human Rights Council by the Asian Legal Resource Centre (ALRC) and Lawyers’ Rights Watch Canada (LWRC) Mr. President, The Asian Legal Resource Centre and Lawyers’ Rights Watch Canada thank the Special Rapporteur for her oral update. The Council is well aware of the grave human rights violations in Myanmar perpetrated by the Tatmadaw and other state- and non-state actors. Reports of the Special Rapporteur and the two other international mandates reiterate the international crimes against Rohingya, and violence against ethnic minorities in Shan, Kachin, and Karen states. Without effective international accountability, impunity continues. We join the calls to […]

BANGLADESH: Seized state power and institutional collapse key behind continued enforced disappearances

42nd Session - September 20`9, ALRC AT THE UN, Bangladesh, Written Submissions August 29, 2019August 29, 2019 admin 0 Comments

Despite continued outcry of the victims’ families to return their loved-ones Bangladesh’s law-enforcement agencies continue committing the crime of enforced disappearances. Under the incumbent government of Sheikh Hasina 532 people became the victims of enforced disappearances between January 2009 and July 2019. The Asian Legal Resource Centre (ALRC), in its Written Statement to the United Nations Human Rights Council prior to the 39th Regular Session in September 2018, reported that 432 people were disappeared under Sheikh Hasina’s government till July 2018. In last 12 moths, between the 39th and the 42nd Regular Sessions of the Council, an additional 100 people have become victims of enforced disappearances in Bangladesh. The ALRC […]

BANGLADESH: Human rights groups urge government to implement recommendations on torture and other abuses after damning UN review

Bangladesh, Joint Statements August 14, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

14 August 2019: Following serious concerns expressed by the UN Committee against Torture (CAT) about torture in Bangladesh, seven human rights organizations call on the Bangladeshi government to recognize the magnitude of the problem and address and implement the nearly 90 recommendations made by the UN body. On 9 August 2019, the CAT published its Concluding Observations following the first-ever review of Bangladesh’s implementation of the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment , a treaty to which Bangladesh became a state party in 1998. The CAT is a body of independent experts tasked with monitoring the compliance by state parties to the Convention against […]

BANGLADESH: Free expression and free assembly cost high price

41st Session - June 2019, ALRC AT THE UN, Bangladesh, Human Rights Council, Written Submissions June 24, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

A Written Submission to the 41st Regular Session of the United Nations Human Rights Council by the Asian Legal Resource Centre The United Nations Human Rights Council and its Special Procedures play a pivotal role in advocating for the people’s freedom of expression and freedom of peaceful assembly in the world, where authoritarianism and right wing political propaganda are on the rise. The Council, unfortunately, in fact, accommodates Member and Observer States who maintain double standards. Bangladesh – an incumbent Member of the Council – often speaks like a soothsayer while the State muzzles the freedom of expression and opinion of its citizens inside the country. The Asian Legal Resource […]

BANGLADESH: Judiciary abdicates independence

41st Session - June 2019, ALRC AT THE UN, Bangladesh, Human Rights Council, Written Submissions June 24, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

A Written Submission to the 41st Regular Session of the United Nations Human Rights Council by the Asian Legal Resource Centre The Asian Legal Resource Centre (ALRC) has been consistently expressing its serious concerns over the dysfunctional justice institutions of Bangladesh – an incumbent Member of the United Nations Human Rights Council. The victims’ right to fair and speedy trial and the lawyers scope of contributing to the process of justice ceases to exist in the country under an illegitimate authoritarian government. The Asian Legal Resource Centre (ALRC) has been consistently expressing its serious concerns over the dysfunctional justice institutions of Bangladesh – an incumbent Member of the United Nations […]

BANGLADESH: Criminalisation of torture goes hand in hand with institutionalisation

40th Session - March 2019, ALRC AT THE UN, Bangladesh, Written Submissions February 20, 2019February 20, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

A Written Submission to the 40th Regular Session of the United Nations’ Human Rights Council by the Asian Legal Resource Centre The United Nations Human Rights Council’s faulty electoral system has adopted Bangladesh as a member of the highest global rights body from 2019 to 2021 despite the State’s deliberate failure to fully cooperate with the Council. Bangladesh’s re-election to the Council has taken place at a time when the country’s government is hiding its catastrophic domestic human rights records behind the showcase of accommodating the Rohingya refugees, who fled to escape a systemic genocide in Myanmar. The Asian Legal Resource Centre (ALRC) has been consistently submitting analytical documentations to […]