Dhaka: Bangladesh’s new authorities on Wednesday opened an investigation into hundreds of enforced disappearances by security forces during the rule of ousted premier Sheikh Hasina, the government said.
It includes the notorious Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) paramilitary force, accused of numerous rights abuses, and which was sanctioned by the United States for its role in extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances.
Human Rights Watch last year said security forces had committed “over 600 enforced disappearances” since Hasina came to power in 2009, and nearly 100 remain unaccounted for.
Many of those detained were from Hasina’s rivals, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party and Jamaat-e-Islami, the country’s largest Islamist party.
Hasina’s government consistently denied the allegations, claiming some of those reported missing had drowned in the Mediterranean while trying to reach Europe.
Hasina fled to India by helicopter on August 5 after weeks of student-led protests forced her to quit, ending her iron-fisted 15-year rule.
The five-member committee, headed by retired high court judge Moyeenul Islam Chowdhury, will also investigate other paramilitary police units, including the Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB), a government order late Tuesday said.
The UN rights office says both the RAB and BGB forces have “records of serious human rights violations, including enforced disappearances and torture and ill-treatment.”
The commission, ordered to begin work by the interim government led by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus, has 45 working days to submit its report.
Sanjida Islam Tulee, a coordinator of a group campaigning for the release of people detained under Hasina, welcomed the commission.
“Most importantly, the report needs to be published fully and no information is kept hidden,” Tulee told AFP, who heads the group called Mayer Daak, meaning “The Call of the Mothers.”
Tulee, who along with those who searching for missing relatives met earlier this month with Yunus asking for action, said she wanted the commission to listen to every family without discrimination.
She said they wanted the return of those missing, and for those responsible to face justice.
More than 600 people were killed in the weeks leading up to Hasina’s ouster, according to the United Nations rights team’s preliminary report, suggesting the toll was “likely an underestimate.”
The day after she fled, families gathered outside a military intelligence force building in Dhaka waiting desperately for their relatives.
But only a handful have been confirmed as released.
Bangladesh probes enforced disappearance by security forces under ousted Hasina
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Bangladesh probes enforced disappearance by security forces under ousted Hasina
- Human Rights Watch says security forces committed “over 600 enforced disappearances” since Hasina came to power in 2009
- Many of those detained were from Hasina’s rivals, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party and Jamaat-e-Islami, the country’s largest Islamist party
New hope in Rohingya camps as Bangladesh’s Nobel-winning leader pledges support
COX’S BAZAR: Mohammad Jamal heard about Dr. Muhammad Yunus long before the economist became the head of Bangladesh’s new government last month. Like many other Rohingya refugees, he is now pinning his hopes on the Nobel prizewinner changing his life.
An internationally renowned microfinance pioneer who in 2006 was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his work, Yunus was appointed to lead Bangladesh’s interim administration following the ousting of veteran prime minister Sheikh Hasina.
With strong ties to the international community, donors and Western governments, he has promised reforms and also support to the 1.2 million Rohingya refugees that Bangladesh is hosting.
“We have heard of Dr. Yunus earlier many times. He raised his voice for our wellbeing in different international media earlier also. Since he is a Nobel laureate, people know him across the world as well (as) in Bangladesh. He is a very good person,” said Jamal, a 27-year-old living in a refugee camp in Cox’s Bazar.
A coastal district in Bangladesh’s east, Cox’s Bazar became the world’s largest refugee settlement with the arrival of hundreds of thousands of Rohingya fleeing death in neighboring Myanmar during a military crackdown in 2017.
Referred to as ethnic cleansing and genocide by various UN agencies, International Criminal Court officials, human rights groups and governments, the global outrage over the violence against the Rohingya initially brought robust aid to Bangladesh to help it support them, but it has rapidly declined over the years, especially since the COVID-19 pandemic.
The World Food Programme last year even resorted to reducing the value of its food assistance to those living in Cox’s Bazar camps.
As Yunus has been credited with lifting millions of Bangladeshis out of poverty through his microlending programs, the Rohingya believe he will find a way to help them, too.
“Refugee life is not a dignified one. For everything, we need to ask or depend on aid. If we could be provided with some livelihood training and then informal working opportunities, it would make us self-reliant to some extent,” said Amena Begum, a 38-year-old mother of three.
“I heard that he spent years of his life for the well-being of the rural people, especially for empowering the women. So, I hope that he will take some initiatives for changing the fate of the Rohingya women also.”
In his first major government policy address in late August, Yunus pledged that his government “will continue to support the million-plus Rohingya people sheltered in Bangladesh” and that it needs the “sustained efforts of the international community for Rohingya humanitarian operations and their eventual repatriation to their homeland, Myanmar, with safety, dignity and full rights.”
Despite multiple attempts from Bangladeshi authorities, a UN-backed repatriation and resettlement process for the Rohingya has failed to take off for the past few years, as in Myanmar they are denied the most basic rights.
Currently, it is also not possible as violence in their home Rakhine state has escalated in recent months amid fighting between Myanmar’s ruling junta and the Arakan Army, a powerful ethnic militia.
With a new wave of those fleeing Myanmar for Bangladesh, Yunus earlier this month called for a fast-tracked third-country resettlement of Rohingya — a plan that has been on the table for years but has so far resulted in insignificant response abroad.
But before that happens, refugees hope there are ways in which Yunus’s government will improve on the previous regime’s handling of the crisis.
With Bangladesh not being a signatory to the 1951 UN Refugee Convention, the Rohingya do not have access to formal education and cannot be legally employed to earn their livelihood.
“As a Nobel peace laureate, I hope he will stand beside the genocide survivors and oppressed Rohingyas, (that) he will provide us with better education opportunities until we get the chance of repatriation,” said Mohammad Rizwan, 26-year-old Rohingya volunteer and activist in Cox’s Bazar.
“As a Nobel laureate, he understands the importance of the rights for human beings and the agony of having a life without rights. That’s why we are expecting that, Dr. Yunus will do something new for us.”
India’s Modi to visit US for Quad meeting, UN summit
NEW DELHI:Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will take part in the Quad Leaders’ Summit hosted by US President Joe Biden and attend the UN’s Summit of the Future in New York as part of his upcoming visit to America, the Ministry of External Affairs said on Thursday.
Modi’s three-day visit to the US will begin on Sept. 21 in Wilmington, Delaware — Biden’s hometown — for the Quad meeting comprising also Japan and Australia.
“The Quad has a very, very full and substantive agenda on this occasion,” India’s Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri told journalists at a press conference in New Delhi.
Misri added that the leaders would also cover health security, climate change, critical and emerging technologies, maritime security and counter-terrorism.
“This upcoming visit offers … the Quad leaders the opportunity to review progress achieved in the last one year and set the agenda for the next year.”
Modi is expected to hold bilateral meetings with Biden, Japanese PM Fumio Kishida and Australian PM Anthony Albanese on the sidelines of the Quad summit.
This is the fourth leaders’ summit of the Quad — a four-state strategic security dialogue — which positions itself against China’s growing-assertiveness in the Asia-Pacific region.
Modi’s US trip will also see the 74-year-old premier attend a gathering organized by the Indian diaspora in Long Island, New York, as well as a business roundtable with leaders of US tech companies.
“The prime minister will also be attending a business roundtable with CEOs of leading US companies in the cutting-edge areas of artificial intelligence, semiconductors, quantum computing and biotechnology,” Misri said, adding that details of attendees are still being finalized.
On his last day in the US, Modi will speak at the UN’s Summit of the Future, where world leaders are expected to address current and emerging global challenges.
India’s foreign ministry did not confirm that Modi would meet with former US President Donald Trump as a part of the visit, after the Republican presidential nominee announced it on Wednesday.
In 2019, Trump joined Modi at a “Howdy Modi” rally in Houston, Texas, that drew about 50,000 people and was billed as one of the largest receptions of a foreign leader in the US.
When Trump made his inaugural visit to India in February 2020, Modi hosted him in his home state of Gujarat, where the “Namaste Trump” welcome event was attended by around 100,000 people.
Portugal tackles last of deadly northern forest fires
- The wildfires, which sprang up over the weekend fed by crushing heat and strong winds, have killed five people, four of them firefighters
- Another 77 people were injured, 12 of them seriously
AGUEDA, Portugal: Portugal’s firefighters have mastered most of the deadly forest fires in the north of the country, according to official data Thursday.
And improving weather conditions have raised hopes that they could extinguish the last of the blazes by the end of the day.
The wildfires, which sprang up over the weekend fed by crushing heat and strong winds, have killed five people, four of them firefighters. Another 77 people were injured, 12 of them seriously.
By late morning on Thursday the civil protection service website said 1,200 firefighters were battling the six remaining fires in the northern districts of Aveiro and Viseu.
A day earlier, 3,900 firefighters were tackling 42 active fires, supported by more than a thousand vehicles and around 30 aircraft.
But overnight, the teams brought several blazes in villages in the Aveiro region covering a front of around 100 kilometers (60 miles) under control.
Temperatures have dropped since the weekend and rain is forecast for Friday.
But there has been extensive damage in the north and center of the country, much of it to the eucalyptus groves there.
One estimate issued Wednesday by the Copernicus observatory said at least 15,000 hectares (37,000 acres) of vegetation had been destroyed.
And data from the European Forest Fires Information System (Effis) said the total area hit by the recent fires came to 100,000 hectares: 10 times more than the area burnt since the beginning of summer.
Dozens of houses were also destroyed or damaged.
Outgoing NATO chief urges allies ‘to be willing to pay the price for peace’
BRUSSELS: NATO’s current military spending target will not be enough to protect the alliance as it braces for an increasingly assertive Russia, Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg is expected to say in his farewell speech later on Thursday.
“We have to be willing to pay the price for peace. The more money, the stronger our defenses, the more effective our deterrence, the greater our security,” Stoltenberg will say according to prepared remarks.
“The good news is that we have delivered on the pledge we made ten years ago (to spend 2 percent of GDP on defense). But the bad news is that this is no longer enough to keep us safe.”
Stoltenberg, a former prime minister of Norway who has led NATO since 2014, will hand over to Dutch former Prime Minister Mark Rutte on Oct 1.
Taliban in control of 39 Afghan embassies globally
- No international government has formally recognized Taliban administration three years after they seized power
- Many countries, especially Western nations, have urged Taliban to ease restrictions on women for recognition
The Taliban administration is in control of 39 Afghan embassies and consulates globally three years after it took over Afghanistan and the previous Western-backed government collapsed, the acting foreign ministry said on Thursday.
No international government has formally recognized the Taliban administration, though China and the United Arab Emirates have officially accepted its ambassadors in their capitals.
Many governments, especially Western nations including the United States, have said the path to any formal recognition of the Taliban will be stuck until they change course on women’s rights and re-open high schools and universities to girls and women and allow their full freedom of movement.
The Taliban say they respect rights in accordance with their interpretation of Islamic law and that restrictions on its banking sector and a lack of recognition are hindering its economy.
After the collapse of Afghanistan’s republic government in 2021, foreign embassies were thrown into disarray with many issuing documents such as visas and passports that in some cases the Taliban have said should not be recognized.
The Taliban has appointed its own diplomats to head several embassies, including ambassadors accepted in Abu Dhabi and Beijing and a charge d’affaires in neighboring Pakistan. At some missions, diplomats appointed under the previous government work with Taliban authorities.
“Thirty-nine embassies and diplomatic affairs obey the central authority, namely the Ministry of Foreign Affairs,” said the Taliban’s acting foreign minister Amir Khan Muttaqi at a press conference in Kabul.
He added that his ministry had sent dozens of diplomats to 11 countries in the past year, including Turkiye, Russia, Iran and Pakistan.
Muttaqi said Afghanistan would send a new ambassador to Uzbekistan this week and expected Russia to remove the Taliban from its list of terrorist organizations “soon.”
In July, the Taliban said it was cutting ties with at least 14 Afghan diplomatic missions, adding it would not honor passports and visas issued by those embassies, mostly based in Europe.
Fatimah Amjad
Editors Pakistan
OnlinePK
Taliban in control of 39 Afghan embassies globally
REUTERS
The Taliban administration is in control of 39 Afghan embassies and consulates globally three years after it took over Afghanistan and the previous Western-backed government collapsed, the acting foreign ministry said on Thursday.
No international government has formally recognized the Taliban administration, though China and the United Arab Emirates have officially accepted its ambassadors in their capitals.
Many governments, especially Western nations including the United States, have said the path to any formal recognition of the Taliban will be stuck until they change course on women’s rights and re-open high schools and universities to girls and women and allow their full freedom of movement.
The Taliban say they respect rights in accordance with their interpretation of Islamic law and that restrictions on its banking sector and a lack of recognition are hindering its economy.
After the collapse of Afghanistan’s republic government in 2021, foreign embassies were thrown into disarray with many issuing documents such as visas and passports that in some cases the Taliban have said should not be recognized.
The Taliban has appointed its own diplomats to head several embassies, including ambassadors accepted in Abu Dhabi and Beijing and a charge d’affaires in neighboring Pakistan. At some missions, diplomats appointed under the previous government work with Taliban authorities.
“Thirty-nine embassies and diplomatic affairs obey the central authority, namely the Ministry of Foreign Affairs,” said the Taliban’s acting foreign minister Amir Khan Muttaqi at a press conference in Kabul.
He added that his ministry had sent dozens of diplomats to 11 countries in the past year, including Turkiye, Russia, Iran and Pakistan.
Muttaqi said Afghanistan would send a new ambassador to Uzbekistan this week and expected Russia to remove the Taliban from its list of terrorist organizations “soon.”
In July, the Taliban said it was cutting ties with at least 14 Afghan diplomatic missions, adding it would not honor passports and visas issued by those embassies, mostly based in Europe.
