US report ‘heavily underplayed’ Dhaka’s accountability system over agencies

GBNews24 Desk//

The government on Sunday said the US human rights (HR) country report “heavily underplayed” Bangladesh’s existing system of accountability over law enforcement agencies while Dhaka remains “intensely engaged” with the UN mechanism and US recommendations to protect human rights.

“The Report appears to encourage creating a society of lawlessness to destabilize the society and the Government,” a statement of foreign ministry said, BSS reports.

It added that the legal system of Bangladesh does not allow killing by arbitrary use of firearms.

The statement pointed that the death sentences to the 16 RAB officials in the Narayanganj seven-murder case and recent death sentences to two police officials in the Major Sinha murder case in Cox’s Bazar are examples of accountability and non-impunity to law enforcers.

“The magistrate requires members of the law enforcement agencies to account for every single use of firearms, without lawful explanation of which faces legal action,” it added.

Besides, it said, no act of arrest by the law enforcement agencies goes unaccountable bypassing the magistrate of the court.

“In each case, the magistrate decides whether an arrest is lawful or not. Therefore, the law enforcers don’t enjoy the immunity of commissioning ‘Arbitrary Arrest’,” said the statement.

Saying that the sources of the report are questionable, the statement said, there are also few factual errors in the Report.

As an example, the ministry said, “though we do not endorse their information, the Ain o Salish Kendra (ASK) mentioned 275 extrajudicial killings in January-May 2018 period, while the US report wrongly cited ASK in mentioning that there were 606 extrajudicial killings in May-June 2018.”

The statement, however, said the Bangladesh government does not deny the fact that there are indeed a lot of areas of development to ensure better protection and promotion of human rights, and Dhaka is continuing to make steady strides towards that end.