Three ministers on Thursday turned down the assessment of the Amnesty International on Bangladesh’s human rights situation in its annual report, terming it error-ridden and lopsided one.
Home minister MK Alamgir said, the figure given by the Amnesty International on the number of the incidents of extra-judicial killings, disappearances and killing was not correct. “Even then the number presented by the AI is lower than the previous years,” he said while talking to a Bengali daily.
However he said that the government has received the AI report positively.
Regarding the incidents of extra-judicial killing, he said that there was also a confusion regarding the definition of extra-judicial killing.
“In the USA the law enforcers shot a person to death during interrogation in connection with the bombing incident in Boston Marathon. Is it an extra-judicial killing? So before terming an incidents as extra-judicial killing, we have to analyse the perspectives,” he argued.
“ In a democratic country the law enforcers are working to protect the lives and property of the people. If police open fire at dacoits while they are fleeing after looting people’s property then how does one define it?, he asked.
He said that the incidents of attack on the minority people in the country during this government is much lower than those took place during the rule of Khaleda Zia.
He said that such report can contribute to the exercise of human rights protection of people.
While talking to reporters at Comilla Circuit House at noon, State Minister for Law Quamrul Islam termed the report ‘one-sided, confusing and unacceptable’.
On the other hand, State Minister for Home Affairs Shamsul Hoque Tuku said what the Amnesty International stated in its annual report about the extrajudicial killings, secret killings and torture on minorities in Bangladesh was not based on proper information.
In its annual report 2012 released on Wednesday, the human rights organisation said some 30 extrajudicial killings and 10 forced disappearances were perpetrated in Bangladesh in 2012.
Quamrul claimed that the Amnesty International has intentionally been depicting the country’s human rights situation as worse for the last few years, especially since the present government assumed power, to destablise the government and create confusion.
Claiming that the information about the extrajudicial killings and attacks on the worship places of the minority communities is not right, he said extrajudicial killings were perpetrated much lesser during the current regime than the past.
“We think what they tried to term extrajudicial killings is not extrajudicial killings. Deaths in clashes with police or the law enforcers cannot be called extrajudicial killings.”
-With The Independent input
