Victims vow ‘Never Again’
Hundreds of demonstrators, including people who say they were secretly held by the state, marched to the gates of the Parliament on Sunday, pressing lawmakers to enact stronger legal protections against enforced disappearance and to hold accountable those responsible for the practice under the previous Awami League government.
The march, organised by the National Committee on Resistance against Enforced Disappearances, was timed to coincide with the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances.
It drew survivors, human rights campaigners and senior leaders of an 11-party alliance led by Jamaat-e-Islami, reflecting how an issue once confined to rights forums has become a rallying point for opposition politics.
The procession set off from the Banglamotor intersection at about 3:40 p.m. and arrived on Manik Mia Avenue, in front of Parliament, roughly 45 minutes later. A rally was held there before a delegation entered the building to submit a memorandum to the Speaker.
Before the march began, the National Committee held a brief rally at around 3 p.m. outside the Rupayan Trade Centre in Banglamotor.
It was presided over by Hasinur Rahman, a former army officer who says he was forcibly disappeared during the Awami League government’s tenure.
Rahman sharply criticized Home Minister Salahuddin Ahmed and called for Parliament to pass into law the Enforced Disappearance Prevention Ordinance, a measure drafted under the previous interim government but not yet enacted.
Major (Retd.) Akhtaruzzaman, a former leader of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party who recently joined Jamaat-e-Islami, also addressed the gathering.
Hamidur Rahman Azad, assistant secretary general of Jamaat-e-Islami and coordinator of the 11-party alliance, told the crowd the coalition stood in solidarity with the campaign.
As the march moved toward Parliament, demonstrators chanted slogans demanding an end to secret detention facilities and justice for victims of enforced disappearance.
Among the chants were references to “Aynaghor” – a network of secret detention sites whose existence rights groups have alleged for years – along with calls invoking a brother’s death and asking why “the killer” was in India, an apparent reference to former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who fled to India after her government was ousted last year.
Protesters also chanted “Nara-e-Takbeer, Allahu Akbar.”
The march included senior figures from across the 11-party alliance: Jamaat-e-Islami Secretary General Mia Golam Parwar; Assistant Secretary General AHM Hamidur Rahman Azad; Major (Retd.) Akhtaruzzaman; Bangladesh Khelafat Majlis Secretary General Maulana Jalaluddin Ahmad; and JAGPA Vice President Rashed Pradhan.
At the rally outside Parliament, speakers included Rokeya Begum, a reserved-seat member of Parliament and the mother of Jabir Ibrahim, who was killed during last year’s July uprising; Maulana Rafiqul Islam Khan, Jamaat’s assistant secretary general and the MP for Sirajganj-4; and Mir Ahmad Bin Quasem, the MP for Dhaka-14, who was himself a victim of enforced disappearance.
“Allah has given me a second life,” Quasem told the crowd. “No one’s rights should ever again be curtailed on the soil of Bangladesh. Enforced disappearances must never return.”
Quasem also alleged that a new law being advanced by the government would weaken the powers of the commission investigating enforced disappearances as well as those of the National Human Rights Commission – a claim that, if accurate, would set the government on a collision course with the very campaigners it has previously pledged to support.
The demonstration underscored the extent to which the legacy of enforced disappearances continues to shape Bangladesh’s politics more than a year after Sheikh Hasina’s government fell.
For survivors like Rahman and Quasem, Sunday’s march was as much a demand for legal safeguards as it was a public reckoning with a period many say the state has yet to fully confront.
