By Sumi Khan
Dhaka, Dec 8 (IANS): The blatant advocacy for imposition of recent sanctions on Bangladesh’s elite Speedy Motion Battalion (RAB) by British lawyer Toby Cadman, who was the authorized leagl advisor to radical outfit Jamaat-e-Islami, a key companion of Bangladesh Nationalist Get together (BNP), has uncovered the heavy funding the opposition alliance made for western nations to create a rift with Bangladesh and oust the Sheik Hasina-led authorities.
In a latest interview to AL Jazera, Cadman admitted that he was working to get sanctions imposed in opposition to RAB from UK, not to mention expressing satisfaction on the not too long ago imposed sanctions by the US on 5 officers of the regulation imposing company.
“I filed the request for sanctions and whereas I’m not ready to debate the substance, I can verify that I mentioned the request with the International, Commonwealth & Improvement Workplace [FCDO],” Cadman mentioned, referring to the UK overseas workplace.
The most recent assertion by Cadman is one other pointer to a chilling plot to mislead the world on Bangladesh, because the opposition mix of BNP and Jamaat-e-Islami has lengthy been investing hundreds of thousands of {dollars} in hiring lobbies to launch sting operations in opposition to the federal government.
In mild of the latest sanctions impose by the US over rights points, and Cadman taking the identical line, raises questions over the underlying arm-twisting underneath the facade of upholding democratic values.
BNP leaders not too long ago introduced a deadline — December 10 — to oust the Hasina-led authorities following which the nation could be run on the directives of fugitive convict Tarique Rahman and Khaleda Zia.
A sequence of deceptive campaigns, sponsored by the opposition mix, on the worldwide stage has already been uncovered ever for the reason that conflict crimes trial started in 2009, and the employment of Cadman and his associates by the Jamaat-e-Islam.
Proper after the outright rejection by the general public within the 2008 elections, the BNP-Jamaat mix opted to spend staggering quantities, notably within the US, the UK and the European Union, to unfold focused disinformation marketing campaign in opposition to the Hasina-led authorities. Earlier than the final Parliamentary polls, Khaleda Zia even wrote a column in a western paper advocating for cancellation of GSP services.
Following its blunder to boycott the elections in 2014, the BNP-Jamaat alliance launched a spate of road terrors countrywide — setting hearth on autos, attacking regulation enforcers and minorities in tandem. It later appointed high lobbying companies within the US and the UK, a transparent signal of placing all its would possibly behind overseas governments to degree allegations of lack of democracy in Bangladesh.
The report in AL Jazera additionally quoted Mohammad Ashrafuzzaman, a liaison officer on the Asian Human Rights Fee, who supplied proof of human rights abuses by the RAB, hooked up to the sanctions requests to the US and the UK.
“The expectation was that the UK and the US, being robust allies, could be collaborating with one another by saying back-to-back sanctions. The US did that, however the UK did not,” Ashrafuzzaman mentioned.
The declare of Ashrafuzzaman additionally raised questions over the substance behind such justification of rights points, as AHRC already drew widespread condemnation for being a ‘highly-biased physique’ that disregards views of the nation’s eminent rights activists and vouches for defending a controversial NGO referred to as ODHIKAR, which earned notoriety for faking circumstances to promote rights points.
Within the wake of the revelation of the inclusion of two Indian insurgents in a listing supplied by the UN to Bangladesh on enforced disappearance, the organisation stood up in defence of the error-ridden record accusing Bangladesh of launching a ‘hate marketing campaign’.
AHRC in its obscure assertion alleged that the media in Bangladesh, which it known as “pro-government”, and allies of the federal government are participating in a marketing campaign to tarnish the UN working group’s popularity and to query its sincerity on a grave difficulty like enforced disappearance.
What the Fee has, nonetheless, failed to think about is that it was not an try and vilify any human rights physique, somewhat the intention was to easily pinpoint the inconsistency and inaccuracy of the information coming from an establishment just like the UN, which has at all times been on the forefront of defending human rights throughout the globe, mentioned famous Bangladeshi professor Mizanur Rahman Khan.
Whereas diplomats are vocal over complaints area by the opposition events on rights points, the cries of a whole lot of households who have been tortured and attacked by BNP’s arson operations didn’t even set off any protest.
After Jamaat-e-Islami’s enchantment to overturn Mir Quasem Ali’s demise penalty for heinous crimes in opposition to humanity through the liberation conflict of 1971 was turned down, the liberty fighters mentioned, “That is our achievement. The judgment on Mir Quasem proves how cash cannot save one’s neck, that the rule of regulation and the court docket’s verdict are extra vital.”
It was broadly alleged by the victims of conflict crimes of 1971 that Mir Quasem, a high finance collector of Jamaat, had poured in funds for campaigns geared toward smearing the trials of conflict criminals once they started in 2010.
In 2013, former regulation minister Barrister Shafique Ahmed had instructed this reporter that Mir Quasem had paid a lobbyist agency $25 million to carry the conflict crimes tribunal judging high Jamaat leaders into query.
The federal government, he mentioned, had a replica of the contract and receipt for the fee he made.
The Worldwide Crimes Tribunal (ICT) sentenced Mir Quasem to demise on November 2, 2014 for abduction, torture and homicide of harmless Bengali folks.
Primarily based in Chittagong, Mir Quasem is infamous because the third man within the vigilante militia Al-Badr command construction through the 1971 liberation conflict. Quasem, the founder-president of the Jamaat’s pupil wing Islami Chhatra Shibir after its rechristening from the sooner Islami Chhatra Shangha in 1985, has been an government member of the get together.
The Jamaat-hired Cadman organised a media convention in London two days earlier than the conviction of Mir Quasem by the ICT of Bangladesh.
The state submitted a receipt to the Supreme Court docket to show that Mir Quasem had appointed lobbyists to foil the conflict crimes trials.
