Quietly crushing a democracy: Millions on trial in Bangladesh

Atul Loke :

From previous issue

Just as Bangladesh was working to get its garment industry back on track after the pandemic disrupted global demand, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine caused a spike in the cost of imported energy and food, pushing the country’s supply of dollars perilously low.

“It has put tremendous pressure on our economy,” Ms. Hasina said.

The battered opposition saw an opportunity in anger over rising food prices and power cuts, and, fearing an unfair election, was eager to take the showdown to the streets after Ms. Hasina refused to appoint a neutral caretaker administration to oversee the vote.

During a rare large rally in June, B.N.P. speakers demanded free elections and the release of political prisoners.

But as supporters marched across Dhaka, their chants offered an indication of the bubbling tensions: “Set fire to Hasina’s throne” and “A flood of blood will wash away the injustice.”

As the police held back and allowed the rally and march to proceed, ruling-party leaders staged a rival rally where speakers acknowledged that the European Union and the United States were watching Bangladesh’s democracy.

The U.S. government has imposed sanctions on Ms. Hasina’s senior security officers and threatened visa restrictions, and American and European officials have made several visits to Bangladesh in recent months.

A few weeks after the B.N.P. rally, though, an unsettled Ms. Hasina responded with force.

When the party’s supporters tried to hold another large rally, the police met them with clubs and tear gas – and 500 fresh court cases.

The crackdown showed that, even as the West issues warnings, it ultimately has limited sway over a leader who has deftly balanced ties with Asia’s two giants, China and India.

Increasingly, the government’s powers are wielded en masse, said Ashraf Zaman, a Bangladeshi lawyer and activist in exile who works with the Asian Human Rights Commission.

The police round up scores of people in one case – accusing them of “anti-state activities” or of blocking police work – and leave room for more to be added by listing dozens or even hundreds of “unnamed persons” in the same case. Each individual case can involve multiple charges.

By the time the evidence, often flimsy, is put in front of a judge, the accused have spent months in jail, often at risk of harassment or torture in custody, human rights activists say.

Bail, lawyers and legal experts said, has become harder to get in political cases.

If the accused does get released, the government presents it as a magnanimous gift, not as acknowledgment that the person should not have been detained in the first place.

Defense lawyers argue in court that their client “has a family, he has already spent this long time, if you kindly give him bail it would be appreciated, and the prosecution ‘allows’ it,” Mr. Zaman said.

The Court
One of the busiest places for political cases is Dhaka’s magistrate court, where Mr. Nirob, the B.N.P. leader facing more than 300 cases, was taken one morning in June.

Syed Nazrul, Mr. Nirob’s lawyer, said his client had at least one case filed against him in every police station in the city.

Before proceedings begin each morning, about a dozen lawyers cram into Room 205 at the bar association building, where Mr. Nazrul checks papers one last time.

On June 12, the office’s large ledger showed that the team was defending clients in 33 cases that day, 32 of them involving the B.N.P.

Then the lawyers make their way through the narrow alley – buzzing with vendors selling anything from chicken to marigold to replacement teeth – that connects the bar association with the crowded courthouse.

“The hearing takes, maximum, 20 minutes.

All day is spent back and forth in this harassment,” Mr. Nazrul said.

Even those fighting for causes beyond the bitter rivalry between the two political parties increasingly pay a heavy price.

Didarul Bhuiyan, a computer engineer, returned to Dhaka after completing his studies in Australia.

He set up a small software company, got married and raised three sons.

But a question nagged at him: Had he made the right decision in returning? Mr. Bhuiyan became active in a civil society movement aimed at strengthening checks in the system, so his children would not be forced to pursue a life abroad.

“Whenever someone gets to power, they go above the law,” he said.

After Mr. Bhuiyan’s group criticized the management of relief funds during the pandemic, security forces in civilian clothes took him away in a van with tinted windows.

Five people from a family sit at a table during breakfast. One person is handing a bowl filled with food to the father, who is sitting at the end of the table.

Didarul Bhuiyan spent five months in jail after criticizing the government’s management of Covid relief money.

“The incidents of disappearances were common; we worried about what could happen to him,” said his wife, Dilshad Ara Bhuiyan.

As Ms. Bhuiyan went from court to court hoping to apply for bail for her husband, they refused to hear his case, even though the government had filed no charges against him.

“The judge would see the name, the case, and say, ‘Sorry, I can’t,” Mr. Bhuiyan said.

After five months in jail, he got bail. The police did not file charges until about a year after his arrest, leveling vague accusations of treason and conspiracy against the state.

As a central piece of evidence, the police submitted a Facebook post by Mr. Bhuiyan – which he had written months after his release.

A time stamp marked a screenshot as having been taken three hours before.

A fellow activist, Mushtaq Ahmed, who was detained around the same time as Mr. Bhuiyan, died in jail.

A large portrait of Mr. Ahmed sits on a drawer in Mr. Bhuiyan’s home office.

“Putting someone in jail for 10 months without any trial whatsoever is good enough to kill someone,” he said.
(Concluded).