Custodial deaths, torture and unfair trial?

HAS any member of the Awami League government actually read the recent Human Rights Watch report alleging custodial deaths, torture and unfair trials following the Bangladesh Rifles mutiny?

The law minister’s speedy dismissal of the allegations as ‘false, baseless and concocted’ would suggest that he at least has not; that the government is only interested in providing a ‘political’ response to the report rather than one which engages with the details of the international human right organisation’s claims.

Human Rights Watch is generally respected for the quality of its research, but even it can make mistakes — and it is always difficult to investigate and corroborate allegations of custodial torture. There is, therefore, nothing wrong with a government contesting allegations made by the organisation — but for any criticisms to have credibility they must actually engage with the substance of the report’s findings.

Alleging that the HRW is part of some kind of international conspiracy, and that its claims are false, might feel satisfying at the time and make instant headlines, but I would guess that name-calling an organisation like the HRW only acts to discredit the perception of the government held by the general public.

Whilst most of the information in the report on torture comes from the relatives of the detained/deceased BDR men, the claims made by the HRW are detailed and consistent, is made by named (not anonymous) individuals and are in a number of cases backed up by post mortem reports, medical records and the current poor physical health conditions of the detained men.

So if the law minister expects anyone other than the Awami League’s party loyalists to accept that the report is ‘false, baseless and concocted’, then first he must answer some obvious questions that any cursory reading of the report will raise.

So let me make a challenge to the law minister — or indeed anyone else in the government. Before making any further comment about the HRW report, first please respond to these 25 questions.

Deaths from torture
1.    Did 47 BDR personnel die whilst in custody?

2.    Has the government ordered any investigations into these deaths? If so, perhaps the government should publish the reports.

3.    Is it credible that all the 47 people died of natural causes when the family members consistently state that prior to detention their deceased relatives were in good health?

4.    Is the brother of Mozammel Hoque (Pilkhana barracks, Dhaka) lying when the report quotes him as saying that when he received his brother’s body from Mitford hospital the soles of his feet and the palms of his hands looked wrinkled and tender, that his neck and chin were covered in mud and that he was told by the person who conducted the bathing ritual that his hands and feet looked ‘decomposed … bloodless and shattered.’

5.    Is the wife of habildar Mohiudin Ahmed (Halishahar barracks, Chittagong) providing a false statement when she says that when she recovered her husband’s dead body it was ‘terribly bruised’ and that her brothers, who looked at the body more carefully, found ‘that the back area by the hip was completely black and blue, and there were severe lacerations on the legs and his upper back.’

6.    Is the Dhaka Medical College post mortem into Ahmed’s death which reportedly states that ‘Ahmed has been beaten on the lower half of his body’ also false?

Torture
7.    Is the wife of Nurul Amin (Rangpur barracks) a liar when she talks about how her husband Nurul Amin of the 34th Rifles Battalion was tortured? ‘He was almost incoherent when he described to me what had happened to him: electric shock to his genitals and ears, nails were pulled off his toes. He is almost blind now from what happened, and I think he is brain damaged.’ Is it also untrue when she says that when she first saw him following his detention, ‘He was lying bleeding on the floor, his face so swollen that he looked disfigured. I could hardly recognise him’?

8.    If what Amin’s wife says is untrue, why did he need four people to lift him when he was produced before the magistrate? Why did the magistrates immediately order him to be sent to the Dhaka Central Jail, where he stayed for a year?

9.    Is the son of Abdul Jail Sheikh (Pilkhana barracks) lying when he says that his father told him that he was taken to the Rapid Action Battalion office in Dhaka, hung upside down from the ceiling and beaten regularly, and ‘all the nails were ripped out of his fingers and toes and he was subjected to electric shocks’?

10.    If Abdul Jail Sheikh was not tortured, how come his legs have become paralysed since his detention, and he has no control over his bladder or bowel movement?

11.    What is the government’s response to the statement of the wife of Nasiruddin Khan (Pilkhana barracks)? She says that when she saw her husband in hospital, ‘I couldn’t recognise him. His body and face were all swollen, he had an oxygen mask on, both kidneys had failed’. She also says that one of the doctors told her that the kidney problems had been caused by electric shocks, that there were signs of torture all over his body, and that he had burning sores, broken legs, arms and fingers. When she was able to speak to her husband, she says that he told her that ‘he has been hung upside down from the ceiling, beaten and subjected to electric shock’ at the RAB headquarters.

12.    If the claims by Nasiruddin Khan and his wife (above) are all lies why can he only now walk with crutches? And why do his admittance papers to the kidney hospital state that he was taken there by RAB?

13.    Is the son of Nulamin Sardar (Pilkhana barracks) a liar when he says that his father told him that electric shocks had been administered to his genitals 5 to 6 times?

14.    What about the mother of Sepoy Al Masum (Pilkhana barracks), who says that her son told her that he had been severely tortured by RAB: he was beaten on his legs and knees, hung upside down and beaten on the soles of his feet. When she visited her son again after a subsequent remand, the report quotes her as saying, ‘He couldn’t walk; his eyes were swollen shut. He is 5 foot 9 inches tall and he looked easily a foot shorter than that. He told me that they kept giving his injections and he would faint, then more injections and then beatings.’ She also says that her son showed her his thumb which had been hammered flat. Is the government claiming that these are all lies?

15.    What is the government’s response to the wife and mother of Kamrul Hasan (Pilkhana) who saw him in Dhaka Medical College Hospital? He told them that he had been tortured by RAB, described electric shocks to his genitals and head, having had his head knocked against the walls, and the soles of his feet beaten?

16.    If this is not correct, why was Hasan attached to a urine catheter, with his mother reporting seeing blood in his urine, and unable to walk?

Unfair trial
17.    How is it possible for a person to receive a fair trial on an allegation of mutiny when in the case of the 44th battalion, 675 accused are being prosecuted together in one courtroom?

18.    Can 847 people, many of whom face charges that carry the death penalty, receive a fair trial when they are all being prosecuted together?

19.    Why do so many of the accused BDR men not have lawyers? Without a lawyer, how can the accused get a fair trial?

20.    Why do so many of the accused have no knowledge about the charges against them?

21.    How can one lawyer provide proper representation to any of the detained men when he is acting for as many as 350 accused in the one case?

22.    Why is the prosecution not providing witness statements to the accused?

23.    Why were lawyers not allowed to ask questions in the BDR mutiny trials, and were only allowed to instruct the accused about the questions which they could ask?

24.    Why are the lawyers given very limited access to speak to the detained BDR men?

25.    Why are the accused not allowed privileged communications with them as allowed by the rules?

Those in the Bangladesh Rifles (since renamed Bangladesh Border Guards) responsible for the killings, violence and other crimes that took place on February 25 and 26, 2009 should obviously be held accountable; however, the process of accountability in a civilised country like Bangladesh should not include custodial killings, torture and unfair criminal trials.

One would like to believe that the government has a credible response to these questions but experience suggests that this is unlikely to be provided.

But perhaps the cruellest thing of all for those of us living in Bangladesh i s that unless the government starts to acknowledge its responsibility for the human rights violations by its law enforcement agencies, nothing at all will change for the better. 

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Yes we are corrupt; live with it!

The Padma River Bridge funding debacle has taken place… and… um… to no one’s great surprise! OK, the ministers and the officialdom are surprised, shocked and dismayed! The bellyaching has begun in earnest. They keep shouting from the rooftops – we are not corrupt and no corruption can be proven because no money has changed hands. Or better still, corruption, what corruption? Never happens in Bangladesh! The litany goes on and on! That is the official line from the finance minister to small functionaries in the government. The business people are also singularly disappointed as this infrastructure project may have been a great boost to the economic fortunes which are in doldrums due to global slowdown.

In the midst of all the yammering everyone is forgetting a little fact; we are a corrupt nation. Corruption has been deeply entrenched in our society for eons and we had figured out a way to live with it. Coexist, so to speak. Corruption takes away a little off the top from our GDP including government revenues, business ventures but there was/is a modus vivendi. Now as Bangladesh marches into a globalized economy and has to deal with the likes of World Bank and many other large multinational organizations that way of being is challenged in unsettling ways. The good old days of skimming little off the top maybe more problematic than ever now.

What should Bangladesh do? I have a radical suggestion for the Prime Minister. Please declare that yes we are a corrupt country for many historical reasons and we are going to embark on a generational program to reduce or rid us of the corruption genie but for now we accept that we are a corrupt country. Add a few percentage points to the total cost of any project as corruption expenditure line. As a part of the bargain Bangladesh will start to move towards greater transparency with each project. Transparency is the best antidote to corruption. A national commitment to become more transparent will over time slowly choke off the corruption gene in our DNA. We will get back to this radical idea later on. Let us explore how corrupt we are and let the data speak for itself.

Corruption has been a part of life forever and ever. It is in all parts of our society. The contractor does not get paid for his work until he greases some palm so in order to maximize his take he does his road construction during the monsoon. The rickshaw-puller decides how much to charge depending on the look of the prospective fare not any objective per mile tariff. The court case will not move unless the right people have been paid off. Getting a passport requires multiple obstacle course including payments at each and every check point. I can go on with the list but I am sure you see this every day in your life. So, we cope in small and big ways.

My father used to work in the Police department before he started his vegetable wholesale business. His was a job with a very small salary but relatively large power because he was always posted in small thana in the remote villages. We were officially not well off but there was money to meet most of our needs. My mother would meticulously separate out the salary money from what she called “Gorom taka”, hot money. The purpose was to use the salary money for education, paying for tutors, giving alms and other long term beneficial activities. The ‘gorom taka’ was used for other expenses. As if that would make any difference but that was her way to live with corruption in her scale and she knew she needed the ‘gorom taka’ to make ends meet. I am sure there are many ways each of us cope with a society that cannot function without a little grease at every turn.

Since 1995, Transparency International (TI) publishes the Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) annually ranking countries “by their perceived levels of corruption, as determined by expert assessments and opinion surveys.” The CPI generally defines corruption as “the misuse of public power for private benefit.” In 2011, the CPI ranks 182 countries “on a scale from 10 (very clean) to 0 (highly corrupt).”

Bangladesh ranked 120 with a CPI of 2.7. The top 5 countries all had CPI of 9.2 or above. The only Asian country in the top 5 is Singapore. War torn Somalia brings up the rear with a CPI score of zero and the ranking of 182. Our old friend Pakistan is ranked 134 with a CPI of 2.5. So, relatively we are little less corrupt than the Holier than thou Pakistanis. Here is an extract of the TI data:

 The Corruption Index from Transparency International 2011 (Extract)

Well the data speaks for itself. We have made a little progress. We have gone from a ranking of 130s to 120. 

All the screaming that there is no corruption will not throw the monkey off the back of the country. It is just sitting there and grinning at all of us while we jump up and down and tell the world, “see there is no monkey, he he he.” So, let us stop living in a make believe world and do something bold and innovative. Let’s admit that reality matters.

How will this date of destiny with truth work? Let us take the Padma Bridge project as an example. The Prime Minister should get on a national and international stage and boldly declare that, “yes we agree we are corrupt but we will change over time”. She should declare a multi-step solution which can be as follows:

* Create a completely transparent bidding system. All qualified bids will be sealed and in a lock box with an independent accounting firm like say, Price Waterhouse. The bids will be opened in an open event which will be streamed live.

* The project timeline and key milestones will be posted in advance of the start of the project. Each contract and sub-contractor for each phase will be clearly identified.

* Each milestone must have clear deliverables and penalties and rewards associated with on-time and on-budget performance including performance bonus or termination of a contractor.

* Payment manipulation is a key source of corruption. So it will be important for billing points to be identified in advance with clearly measurable deliverables and target payment processing window.

* The contractors or sub-contractor will file their bills to the requisite authorities and will simultaneously publish their invoices on the website. The payment timer will start at the time of publication. This will make it transparent that the contractor has submitted an invoice for work performed and expected to get paid by such and such date.

* There needs to be an issue section which will track issues related to any payment and quality of work. This section will have detailed notes as to why a payment is being held up or a milestone is not completed.

As you can see these steps are basically attempts at generating transparency. Over time these steps will change behaviours of all impacted parties. If we are lucky then maybe in 30 years we will move up to the top 25 least corrupt countries in the world. It is a long road but sooner we get started, quicker we will get there.

Besides transparency the other determinant factor for corruption is extremely low wages for people who have big impact of monetary decisions, i.e. people with approval power. It is hard for someone to make Tk100 and see someone else getting Tk1 billion in payment without pangs of angst, insecurity and yes, greed. So, as a part of the overhaul the Prime Minister should tack on 2% additional costs on the Padma Bridge project. That money will be used to reward the officials involved in the project based on well-articulated and transparent performance objectives.

Whew, now that I have solved the million years old corruption problem let me tell you why I think it is doable today as opposed to even 10 years ago. Technology is the short answer. Today every data point and every bit of information can be easily made available to anyone with a computer or a cell phone. Vast amount of data can be harvested in a distributed fashion.

Now, dear Madame Prime Minister your time has come to build your legacy by taking concrete steps that will rid us of the corruption monkey or at least tame the beast.

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Kuakata boat antique: Expert

The boat that surfaced from beneath the sandy beach in Kuakata is of great antique value, said the head of the three-member investigation team, Research Assistant Md Golam Ferdous over phone from Kuakata Wednesday morning.

The three-member team was dispatched by the Department of Archaeology, Khulna office following reports in The Daily Star.

“We have examined the boat very closely and there is no doubt that it is an ancient boat, 200 or more years old,” said the researcher, “Our initial challenge lies in how to extract it out from the beach without inflicting any damage to the frame,” he added.

Ferdous however said his concern at the moment also lies in guarding the boat from thieves until the excavation work begins.

“Since that Tuesday we are here, we have not seen any initiative to guard it,” he said.

The ancient boat belonging to the first Rakhaine settlers from the Arakan Province of Myanmar over 200 years ago, was found on June 29 during low tide in the Bay of Bengal.

Sources in the Dhaka office of the department said that the Department of Archaeology does not possess any modern equipment, expertise or adequate fund to bring out the boat from underneath the sand and restore it to its original look.

“We may seek help from outside sources with permission from our ministry and restore it,” said an official of the department in Dhaka willing not to be quoted.

French born Bangladeshi, Yves Marre, who initiated a traditional boat museum under the banner “Protection and Preservation of National Naval Heritage of Bangladesh”, said he would be willing to assist the department of archaeology in extraction and restoration of the ancient boat.

“We have to solve the fund problem and also work jointly with the administration to do this job," Marre said.

“I can tell you, the prime minister of our country, Sheikh Hasina is very eager and serious in protection and preservation of our naval heritage and she will come forward to help us in this regard,” Marre added.

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Death toll in political violence rising

The number of killings due to political violence rose sharply across the country in the first half of the current year compared to the corresponding period last year, said rights group Odhikar.

According to information gathered by Odhikar, some 83 persons were killed and 8,508 others injured due to different types of political violence in between January 1 and June 30 this year. The figure was 65 and 5,513 respectively in first six months of 2011.

On the other hand, 177 incidents of internal violence in Awami League claimed 12 lives and injured 2,144 others while 61 incidents of internal violence within BNP claimed life of one person and injured 639 others during the period this year.

There has been an increase in attacks on journalists this year when three journalists were killed, 76 injured, 46 threatened, four attacked and 35 others assaulted in between January 1 and June 30.

Some 76 journalists were injured, 34 threatened and 19 abducted during the same period last year.

There was virtually no decline in the extrajudicial killings in the first six months of this year compared to the same period last year as those continued despite repeated assurances by the government to put a halt to it.

A total of 47 persons were killed allegedly by law enforcement agencies in the last six months till June 30 this year when on an average seven persons were killed in every month. The figure was 49 in first six months of 2011 when on an average, one person was killed every four days allegedly by the law enforcers.

Of the 47 ‘executed without justice’ this year, two were members of Gano Mukti Fouj, four businessmen, two youths, one bus helper, one convicted prisoner in Natore District Jail, one fruit vendor, one farmer and 35 alleged criminals.

Incidents of lynching also showed a declining trend in last six months when 62 people were allegedly killed by extrajudicial mob. The figure was 75 during the same period last year.

During January–June period this year, a significant number of women fell victim to rape, dowry related violence, acid violence, domestic violence and sexual harassment though the number of such incidents declined compared to same period last year.

A total of 247 girls and women became victims of sexual harassment. Among them, 11 committed suicide, one was killed, 16 were injured, six assaulted, two abducted, 28 suffered attempted rape and 183 sexually harassed in various ways in the last six months this year.

During the first six months last year, a total of 345 girls and women fell victim to sexual harassment. Among them, 17 committed suicide, one was killed, 35 injured, 59 assaulted, 8 abducted and 09 became victims of attempted rape.

Seven men were killed, 98 men and 23 women injured by stalkers as they protested against acts of sexual harassment.

Killings of Bangladeshi nationals allegedly by Indian BSF along the India-Bangladesh border have been continuing this year but the number of killings declined during the first six months this year compared to same period last year.

According to documentation gathered by Odhikar, during this period, 14 Bangladeshi citizens were killed, 48 injured and 25 abducted allegedly by the BSF. The figure was 17, 49 and five respectively during the same period last year.

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Space satellite tender : Sufficient evidence to trigger FBI corruption probe: US lawyer

The FBI should consider conducting an investigation into whether a US company, which won a contract to assist the Bangladesh government in launching the country’s first space satellite named Bangubandhu 1, had committed offences under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, a senior US corruption lawyer told New Age.

Dan Pickard, a partner in the Washington-based law firm, Wiley Rein LLP, and a specialist in US business corruption offences, said that the evidence about the $10 million deal, disclosed by New Age in a series of articles published in May, was sufficient to ‘trigger’ a US police investigation even though there was no evidence of corrupt payments.

‘In my view the circumstances that appear to exist in relation to this tender concerning the Bangladesh space satellite, where a US company has won a contract even though it reportedly did not meet the minimum tender requirements, itself should be enough to trigger an FCPA investigation,’ he said. ‘It is certainly reasonable to expect them to conduct an investigation.’

New age’s articles published in May showed that Space Partnership International not only failed to meet the minimum tender requirements but won the contract despite receiving a significantly lower score in the technical evaluation compared with another US company, Globecomm Systems Inc, which was then improperly disqualified.

The articles also revealed a network of family and business connections in which the vice-president of the winning company was related to Farid Khan, who is both the brother of minister Faruk Khan and also the director of Summit Communications which was a junior partner in the deal.

Both Space Partnership International and Farid Khan deny any wrongdoing. The company has stated that the selection process was ‘conducted properly’ and ‘we were  selected because we were the most qualified.’

Earlier, in response to a written parliamentary question about the tender, the posts and telecommunications minister, Rajiuddin Ahmed Raju, also denied that there was any ‘corruption and irregularities’ in the selection of the consultant. He pointed to a review panel of the Central Procurement Technical Unit which had concluded, after receiving a complaint from one of the losing consultants, that ‘the tender process was completed in an appropriate manner.’

The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which became law in 1988, makes it an offence for any US citizen or company to give bribes or offer any inducement to a government official of another country in order to obtain or retain business.

The US embassy, whose ambassador was present at the signing of the agreement between the government and Space Satellite International, has refused to comment on whether it has referred the case for investigation. ‘We do not comment on possible ongoing cases and matters of investigation,’ Kelly McCarthy, the embassy’s Press and Information Officer, told New Age.

‘The US embassy takes seriously any allegations regarding violations of US law, including the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act,’ she added. ‘We evaluate these allegations on a case-by-case basis to determine whether the evidence presented justifies a referral for further investigation.’

The Department of Justice also declined to comment.

Pickard, a corruption law expert who has written a manual about the legislation concerned, said that an FCPA investigation could be started even though there was ‘no smoking gun of evidence of a corrupt payment or an offer to pay.’

‘I wouldn’t be surprised if they investigate a case like this, particularly considering that Bangladesh is a country which has a high corruption rating by such organisations as Transparency International,’ he said.

However, another lawyer was more cautious. ‘What sometimes happens in these situations is that contracting rules are violated simply to award the contract to a friend or relative, but there are no “under the table” payments involved, and hence no FCPA implications,’ said Scott Thomas, the head of the political law practice at Dickstein Shapiro.

‘So, while I think there certainly are bases for investigation here — violation of contracting rules, conflict of interest rules, and providing false information rules — I’m not seeing a basis for an FCPA investigation yet,’ he told New Age.

The call for an FCPA investigation is likely to increase as New Age can reveal that in signing the contract with Space Partnership International, the Bangladesh government appears to have paid over $3 million more than the bid made by Globecomm, the company which was improperly disqualified after receiving the highest technical score.

A Globecomm official told New Age that its bid was about $6.5 million compared with Space Partnership International’s offer of around $10 million.

The claim could not be independently confirmed as its bid was not opened by the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission.

The claim, however, does correspond to the signed statement made by Globecomm to a procurement review panel that looked into the deal. This stated that ‘the company understands that the financial offer of SPI, USA is much greater than [Globecomm] has quoted in its financial offer.’

The company official also told New Age, ‘$10 million is a large amount of money for the actual amount of work that needs to be carried out.’

The Department of Justice has made enforcement of the FCPA one of its priorities.

In November 2011, assistant attorney general Lanny A Breuer told a conference, ‘The Justice Department has been vigorously enforcing the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and achieving strong results. … [J]ust two weeks ago, we secured the longest prison sentence — 15 years — ever imposed in an FCPA case.’

Iftekharuzzamn, the executive director of Transparency International, told New Age that he supported a ‘credible investigation by the relevant US authorities, such as the FBI, to establish whether [Space Partnership International] was involved in any irregularities like influence peddling and conflict of interest with or without kickbacks.’

Two former officials of the large Canadian engineering company SNC-Lavalin, seeking a consultancy contract supervising the construction of the Padma bridge, have recently been charged in Canada for corruption offences similar to those contained in the FCPA. The officials are accused of trying to bribe Bangladesh government officials.

The World Bank formally cancelled its financial support for the project recently alleging ‘a high-level corruption conspiracy among Bangladeshi government officials’.

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