41,000 and counting
41000 people have been held under the emergency rule.
- Where are they now?
- What are the charges against them?
- Are proper processes being followed?
- How many of these people are taken in wrongly?
- Who is speaking on their behalf?
One of the bigger part of the first speech of CA Fakhruddin was upholding of human rights in his watch. However, increasingly and alarmingly the trends are ominous that we are heading for a government which are not accountable to anyone and which are less and less transparent by the day. After the eviction of hawkers and the slum dwellers without proper alternatives and the curbing of media rights, the random arrests of people without warrants and charges are sending some very disturbing signals.
Barrister Mainul Hossain and Maj Gen Matin were laughing in front TV saying that “we only deal with Rui Katla mach, not chunoputis” (we only trade bigger fishes, no smaller fries). It was a scary sight of two unelected representatives flaunting their powers. I could tell that arrogance has already crept into these two guys. Now people who know these two person’s background know that they are no saint themselves to be the judge, jury and the executioner. Barrister Mainul Hossain’s paper New Nation regularly claimed that extremism is a consipiracy of India and termed anyone who criticized the government as anti Bangladeshi and they were the biggest backer of the government last 5 years whom they are accusing of corruption. Similarly, Maj Gen Matin, was the head of the most ineffective Anti Corruption Commission under the last government. On what ground now are they claiming moral authority? More importantly why isn’t anyone be able to ask tough questions to them? Are they accountable?
Why am I saying all this? After all, I was the one who was backing this government to the hilt. It is still for the same reason that I am writing this as well. It is in all our best interest that Fakhruddin government survives and provides a clean election to people of Bangladesh. However, when unchecked power is matched with zero transparency and accountability, you are bound to create a Frankenstein. That is just human nature. Seeing Major Matin on TV like that made me realise that the decay has started. So it is in the interest of the government, we need to make the CTG aware that they HAVE to be more transparent, accountable and respectable to human rights. When you have a government which is not answerable to anyone and extra constitutional, it is doubly important for them to keep it as transparent as possible. What that means is that every arrest should be made properly with documentation. Every arrested person should be treated as innocent until proven guilty. The government needs to work on the system, not the symptoms of the bad system. Fix the system and problem will be solved long term. Don’t get me wrong. I am very happy that some of the crooks are being taken to task. Just as I was when alleged war criminal Golam Azam was challenged in court for his citizenship. But that case done without proper documentation and preparation made sure that he got the citizenship for good. Similarly, people taken to custody without valid charges will get released eventually and will be back in full swing saying that the corruption charges were never proved in court.
By using the special powers act to detain people, the government is applying the same band aid solutions that failed many times before. Even if the intention is good, the process needs to be clean as well. Messy process ensures, messy recovery, if any at all.
Aptly put by Mahtab Haider in Himal Magazine this month.
There is a sense of heady exhilaration among Dhaka’s educated classes – a feeling that the interim government will indeed be able to translate rhetoric into reality and stem the country’s corruption and political acrimony in one fell swoop. Unable to curb their enthusiasm, a number of editors of influential national dailies – who assume they speak as the nation’s conscience – have already stamped their endorsement of the right of a government that – well-intentioned as it may be – is undemocratic and non-political, to make decisions on the people’s behalf. For their part, the political parties are playing the waiting game, intimidated by the possibility that the interim administration may punish dissent by probing the links some of them have to organised crime and big business.
In not internalising that this interim government, too, will have its own compulsions, the Bangladeshi intelligentsia may be setting itself up for disillusionment. The Bangladeshi Constitution demands that when a state of emergency is declared, the next parliament must amend the Constitution to ratify the actions undertaken during that emergency. When the interim government eventually lifts its state of emergency to hold elections, it will face becoming extra-constitutional and its members liable for prosecution unless the Constitution is changed by the next Parliament in order to retrospectively justify its actions and to legalise its members’ tenure. Amendments to the Constitution, however, can only be made through a two-thirds majority decision in Parliament. This will require the support of both major political parties, as neither is likely to hold a two-thirds majority on its own if existing alliances hold. It was similar circumstances that led former military dictator H M Ershad to form his Jatiya Party in 1986, which swept the sham elections he held and went on to amend the Constitution and legalise his rule.