Issue 47 Vol II, September 15, 2007

C O M M E N T

Bangladesh: Abuses Grow in Crackdown on Protests

THE Bangladesh government must respect international human rights standards as it enforces a curfew and seeks to police demonstrations, Human Rights Watch has demanded.  It reiterated that anyone detained under the emergency regulations must be charged with a cognizable criminal offense or released, and that anyone mistreated in detention should be able to seek and obtain an effective remedy before competent authorities.

The demonstrations currently taking place in Bangladesh come after eight months of repressive emergency rule, which has restricted the rights to protest and to seek a legal remedy, and fails to respect basic due process rights. Two top political leaders, both former prime ministers along with many other political leaders are in jail. The authorities have detained more than 250,000 people since the caretaker government took over in January 2007.

Sophie Richardson, Asia advocacy director at Human Rights Watch said, "What sparked these protests is the ongoing repression of emergency rule, and the government's heavy-handed response is like oil on a fire,". "While the protesters should remain peaceful and must exercise restraint to prevent loss to life and property, the government should immediately address some of their legitimate concerns instead of arbitrarily arresting people, beating detainees and fueling anger."

The recent unrest was sparked by an incident on August 20, when soldiers beat up a student as he was allegedly obscuring their view at a soccer match. Furious students protested against the attack, and demanded the immediate removal of an army camp located on the Dhaka University campus. The protests soon spread and became violent, resulting in one death. The government imposed a curfew on August 22 and suspended cell phone services during curfew hours.

Since then, the armed forces have carried out several raids on the Dhaka campus and elsewhere, detaining academics and students, including four university teachers, presumably on the grounds of alleged involvement in the rioting.

Journalist associations in Bangladesh have alleged that law enforcement officers have harassed journalists during curfew hours. Several newspapers and television networks reported that security forces beat their journalists while they were gathering information on the demonstrations, and some journalists were detained and beaten in custody. The Daily Star newspaper, for example, said that on August 23 two policemen beat its reporter Kamrul Hasan Khan with sticks on the university campus. Police also beat reporters from the daily Samakal, from a private TV channel Baisakhi and from the online news portal were detained in police stations. Many of these journalists were attacked despite carrying press identification, which is supposed to serve as a curfew pass.

Several web news portals and blogs have reported that army personnel have detained and beaten journalists and students. Sanjeeb Hossain, describing the arrest of his father, Dr. M. Anwar Hossain, a professor at Dhaka University, said that soldiers took him away around midnight and refused to tell the family where he was being taken or when he would be returned.

HRW said that the authorities are trying to silence political protest through arbitrary arrests and restricting freedom of expression. The government can take steps to make sure a protest is peaceful, but it must above all respect its human rights obligations when doing so.

Since the imposition of emergency rule, Bangladeshi armed forces have been responsible for abuses such as arbitrary detention, torture and deaths in custody. The emergency laws limit access to effective remedies, including the right to bail and the right to challenge the lawfulness of a detention.

The caretaker government was established in Bangladesh on January 11, 2007, and was largely welcomed by Bangladeshis and international actors seeking relief from widespread corruption, political tension and severe human rights abuses that had emerged in recent years. The promise to hold free and fair elections was applauded. However, the caretaker government has presided over serious human rights violations since taking office.

Some kinds of violations, such as torture and extrajudicial killings in the form of alleged "crossfire killings," were serious problems before the caretaker government came to power, and have continued under its administration. Other violations, which stem from emergency rules that undermine basic due process rights, or the large number of arbitrary arrests and detention without proper judicial oversight, are a direct result of the caretaker government's policies. While certain restrictions on some rights during properly declared states of national emergency are permitted under international law, it is far from clear that the measures under the government’s emergency law are limited to "the extent strictly required by the exigencies of the situation."

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Amend contempt  law to protect  rights of accused

THE Indian law Commission has taken a serious note of the impact of television interviews and contended that such interviews have the "danger of dramatic impact" on the mind of the court. It has recommended changes in the Contempt of Courts Act 1971 to protect the rights of the accused and ensure the proper conduct of trial.

Taking exception to the media interviewing witnesses and commenting on cases during trial, the Law Commission in its latest report titled "Trial by Media", has also emphasised the need to sensitise journalists through proper training in certain aspects of the law. "What is going on in the media may indeed be highly objectionable. Merely because it is tolerated by the courts, it may not cease to be contempt," the Commission noted in the report.

The Commission, headed by Justice M Jagannadha Rao, said: "In our country the lack of knowledge of law of contempt currently shows that there is extensive coverage of interviews with witnesses." This is "highly objectionable even under the current law" of contempt if such interviews are conducted after the charge sheet is filed, the panel said.

The commission felt that there was considerable interference with the due administration of criminal justice and this needs to be remedied by Parliament. Terming direct or indirect comments on the merits of a case as "an extreme form of trial by the newspaper", the Commission observed that in such cases the newspaper usurps the function of a court by depriving the safeguards of procedure and the right to cross-examine.

The Commission  observed that the very procedure of parading the accused for identification by witnesses is rendered useless after their photographs are published or broadcast by the media.

"Publishing photographs may hinder proper identification in an identification parade. There are various other aspects such as judging the guilt or innocence of the accused or discrediting witnesses which could be contempt," the Commission cautioned.

It also disapproved of the "recent phenomenon of media interviewing the potential witnesses and the publicity that is given by the police".

However, the Commission said some "bare facts" may be mentioned to satisfy public curiosity, even if charges are pending in court. "But (an) in-depth interview with witnesses can create problems," it said.

The Commission took special note of the impact of television interviews and cited the observation of the Phillimore Committee to contend that such interviews have the "danger of dramatic impact" on the mind of the court.

"The 'grilling' on television of a person involved in a case can seem to take the form of cross-examining in court. It could obviously create the risk of affecting or distorting the evidence he might give at the trial. Such interview can be regarded as trial by television," it said.

Taking a dim view of the quality of coverage of courts and crime by the media, the Commission also recommended legal training for reporters.

They need to be trained in certain aspects of laws related to freedom of speech, human rights, law of defamation and contempt, it said.

"These subjects should be included in the syllabus for journalism and special diploma or degree courses on journalism and law should be started," it said.

Many accused in high profile cases -- like the BMW case, Uphaar tragedy and Jessica Lal murder case -- have often complained and even petitioned courts that they had become attractive targets of the media, which has been "interfering in the administration of justice" through the unbridled coverage of their cases.

The channels and newspapers, on the other hand, have claimed they were "bringing justice" to victims by maintaining pressure in cases involving accused with money and power. Truth is clearly somewhere in between.

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Free Trade, a Yoke on the Poor Countries

FEAR of the poor under developed countries are proving right. In fact, the new free trade agreements being signed up between rich and poor countries are proving far more detrimental to the poor than anything envisaged within the ambit of World Trade Organisation.

"Poor countries are being forced into very deep tariff cuts," Emily Jones, author of the Oxfam report 'Signing Away the Future' told IPS. "These are often being reduced to zero under reciprocal so-called free trade agreements they are being forced to sign with rich countries." Oxfam said in a report.

Poor countries are being manipulated by all kinds of means to  open up their markets to subsidised agricultural products from the EU and other rich countries of north America. There are already more than 250 regional and bilateral agreements in existence and many more are under negotiation, the report noted. Regional and bilateral trade deals now govern more than 30 percent of world trade, and 25 developing countries have now signed free trade agreements with developed countries. Oxfam noted that on “An average of two bilateral investment treaties are signed every week.”Virtually no country, however poor, has been left out."

it also felt that “In an increasingly globalised world, these agreements seek to benefit rich-country exporters and firms at the expense of poor farmers and workers, with grave implications for the environment and development," it says. The United States and the EU are pushing through rules on intellectual property that reduce poor people's access to life-saving medicines, increase the prices of seeds and other farming inputs beyond the reach of small farmers, and make it harder for developing-country firms to access new technology. Governments in these poor under developed countries are forced sometimes even through corrupt means and sometimes through arms twisting to sing these agreement. They show themselves powerless against such moves.

Many are signing up to these so-called economic partnership agreements for fear of losing preferences. Many of these countries have been offered export preferences in return for dropping tariffs against imports from developed countries.

The North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) has caused 1.3 million job losses in Mexico in ten years. Increased exports to the United States have failed to generate growth, and some studies show that the real wages in 2004 were less than in 1994. Indian cotton farmers have suffered huge losses as that country was forced to import American cotton.

The rules on liberalisation of services in such agreements threaten to drive local firms out of business, reduce competition, and extend the monopoly power of large companies, the report says.

"When Mexico liberalised financial services in 1993 in preparation for NAFTA, foreign ownership of the banking system increased to 85 percent in seven years, but lending to Mexican businesses dropped from 10 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) to 0.3 per cent, depriving poor people living in rural areas of vital sources of credit."

Governments in developing countries usually come under strong political pressure to sign up to such deals "But a lot depends also on the type of development models that governments present to their people.

"Colombia and Peru have been signing up to these agreements. Others are more reluctant. "You now have a small country like Bolivia and many new governments across Latin America beginning to challenge the logic of free trade agreements."

Oxfam demands include:

- Recognise the special and differential treatment that developing countries require in order to move up the development ladder.

- Enable developing countries to adopt flexible intellectual-property legislation to ensure the primacy of public health and agricultural livelihoods and protect traditional knowledge and biodiversity.

- Exclude essential public services such as education, health, water and sanitation from liberalisation commitments.

- Recognise the right of governments to regulate the entry of foreign investors to promote development and the creation of decent employment, and include commitments to enforce core labour standards for all workers.

- Ensure mechanisms for extensive participation of all stakeholders in the negotiating process, with full disclosure of information to the public, including the findings of independent impact assessments.

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LETTER

THE two articles, 'The Decades of Our Discontent' by Gobind Thukral and 'Young India: The Corporeal Fable' by Mickey Sharma on the occassion of India's 60 years of Independence made interesting yet paradoxical statements. If Thukral pointed out the reality then Sharma spoke about the need to rejuvenate India by mobilising the youth. Though both these articles voice differences they still discuss the reality that India is not a happy, energetic nation. The main problem the nation faces for many of its lacunae is the fact, that we Indians are unable to reveal any sense of pride for our nation. Instead of displaying our homogenity as Indians we are continuosly perpetuating parochialism and linguistic jingoism. Till the time we stand upright and have a feeling of patriotism the country may not be able to display any notion of the 'Shining India' portrait.

Kalpana Rao
27A, II Street, Kumaran Nagar Lawspet
Puducherry 605008

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