Dhaka, Jul 7 – Branding the Human Rights Watch (HRW) as a ‘hired organisation’, Awami League leader Hasan Mahmud on Friday said it is working for a party and a quarter to push the government into an awkward situation questioning its activities. “It’s a hired organisation. The statement of BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia and that of Human Rights Watch (HRW) are the same and identical,” he said while addressing a press conference at the Chittagong press club.
The ruling party arranged the news conference protesting the New York-based international human rights organisation’s report on enforced disappearances and secret detentions in Bangladesh.
Hasan Mahmud, AL publicity and publication secretary, alleged that though the HRW is a US-based organisation, it never publishes any report on the human rights violation in United States or Israel.
He also said it opposes the death sentences of the war criminals in Bangladesh but did not utter a single world when Awami League’s 21,000 leaders and activists were murdered during the 2001-2006 period.
Claiming that the HRW publishes reports on the Bangladesh issues based on information provided by controversial journalists, including David Burgman, he said, “David Burgman rendered unconditional apology to the International Crimes Tribunal for his wrong comment about the war crimes trial.”
District (North) AL president and former ambassador Nurul Alam Chowdhury and central organising secretary Mahibul Hasan Chowdhury were also present at the press conference.
According to an 82-page HRW report titled ‘“We Don’t Have Him”: Secret Detentions and Enforced Disappearances in Bangladesh,’ 90 people fell victim to enforced disappearance in Bangladesh in 2016 and 21 of them were killed while 48 disappearances were reported in the first five months of 2017.
It claimed that Bangladesh law enforcement authorities have “illegally detained” hundreds of people since 2013, including scores of opposition activists, and held them in “secret detention”. – UNB
