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Bangladesh The Torture of Tasneem Khalil How the Bangladesh Military Abuses Its Power under the State of Emergency
HRW Index No.: C2001 February 14, 2008 Download PDF, 237 KB, 44 pgs Purchase online Download E-Book Judge, Jury, and Executioner Torture and Extrajudicial Killings by Bangladesh’s Elite Security Force This 79-page report describes how Bangladesh's Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), established in 2004 to stop spiraling crime, has made a practice of killing criminal suspects in detention. Torture methods used by the force include beatings, boring holes in suspects with electric drills, and the application of electric shock. HRW Index No.: C1816 December 14, 2006 Download PDF, 1840 KB, 81 pgs Purchase online Download E-Book Breach of Faith Persecution of the Ahmadiyya Community in Bangladesh This 45-page report documents the campaign of violence, harassment and intimidation unleashed by the Khatme Nabuwat (KN)--an umbrella group of Sunni Muslim extremists--against the Ahmadiyya community. The KN and other extremist groups have attacked Ahmadiyya mosques, beaten and killed some Ahmadis, and prevented access to schools and sources of livelihood for others. They have demanded an official declaration that Ahmadis are not Muslims and a ban on all Ahmadi writings and missionary activities. HRW Index No.: C1706 June 16, 2005 Download PDF, 326 KB, 46 pgs Purchase online "Bad Dreams" Exploitation and Abuse of Migrant Workers in Saudi Arabia Migrant workers in the purportedly modern society that Saudi Arabia has become continue to suffer extreme forms of labor exploitation that sometimes rise to slavery-like conditions. Their lives are further complicated by deeply rooted gender, religious, and racial discrimination. This provides the foundation for prejudicial public policy and government regulations, shameful practices of private employers, and unfair legal proceedings that yield judicial sentences of the death penalty. HRW Index No.: E1605 July 14, 2004 Download PDF, 707 KB, 137 pgs Purchase online Ravaging the Vulnerable Abuses Against Persons at High Risk of HIV Infection in Bangladesh Bangladesh is stoking an emerging AIDS epidemic with violent police abuse of sex workers, injection drug users and men who have sex with men. In this 51-page report, Human Rights Watch documents rapes, gang-rapes, beatings and abductions by both police officers and powerful criminals known as mastans. Their targets — sex workers, men who have sex with men and injection drug users — are both at high risk of HIV infection and the people most capable of bringing AIDS information and services to their peers. In a direct blow to the fight against AIDS, some of the abuses are committed against AIDS outreach workers. In one region of Bangladesh, HIV prevalence among injection drug users jumped from 1.7 percent in 2001 to 4 percent in 2002. While HIV prevalence in the population overall is reportedly still low, the country’s poverty, gender inequality, and proximity to raging epidemics in India and Southeast Asia point to the possibility of an AIDS explosion. Human Rights Watch urged Bangladesh to institute civilian review of police officers, to prosecute police and mastans who perpetrate abuses, to bring its criminal procedures in line with international standards, and to support peer-driven AIDS prevention services among persons at high risk of HIV. HRW Index No.: C1506 August 20, 2003 Download PDF Purchase online Bangladesh: Child Soldier Global Report 2001 From the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers Although Bangladesh was one of the first countries to ratify the Optional Protocol, there are indications of children active in government forces as the minimum age for recruitment is only 16. The increasing criminalisation and militarisation of Bangladeshi children and the proliferation of small arms in the country is a matter of concern. June 12, 2001 Bangladesh Bangladesh signed the Mine Ban Treaty on 7 May 1998. It remains the only South Asian country to have signed. It has not yet ratified the treaty. Bangladesh showed little interest in the Ottawa process, and came to the Oslo negotiations and Ottawa treaty signing ceremonies in December 1997 only as an observer. Thus, it surprised many when Bangladesh signed five months later. In early 1998 Bangladesh undertook an in-depth examination of the utility of antipersonnel mines, but some observers believe that ultimately it was a political decision to overrule the military. August 1, 2000 Purchase online Burmese Refugees in Bangladesh: Still No Durable Solution In this report, Human Rights Watch describes the key obstacles to the satisfactory resolution of the Rohingya refugee problem. Any resolution must comply with international human rights standards, including those guaranteeing protection of the rights of refugees. In 1991 and 1992, some 250,000 Rohingya sought refuge in Bangladesh, and though most of these returned under a repatriation program arranged by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), 22,000 remain in camps. More than 100,000 additional Rohingya who have entered the country since 1991 now live in precarious circumstances in Bangladesh outside the camps with no formal documentation as refugees. Though conditions in the camps have reportedly improved, refugees living there continue to suffer abuses, including beatings and other forms of physical abuse, and in the past have been coerced by camp administrators trying to force their return to Burma. The report updates the situation of the Rohingya in northern Arakan and illustrates how they continue to face discrimination, forced labor, and arbitrary confiscation of their property by the Burmese government. The government also refuses to consider recognizing the Rohingya's claim to Burmese citizenship. Lack of citizenship restricts the freedom of the Rohingya to travel outside and within the country, to partake in public service, or pursue some types of higher education. HRW Index No.: C1203 May 1, 2000 Purchase online Rohingya Refugees in Bangladesh The Search for a Lasting Solution Between July 20 and 22, 1997, the Bangladesh government forcibly repatriated some 400 refugees belonging to the Rohingya minority of Burma's northern Arakan state. The repatriations, which drew international protests, highlighted the dilemma facing the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the international community in addressing the Rohingya situation. Some of the 1997 arrivals reported that forced labor, arbitrary taxation, and the confiscation of Muslim property were continuing in northern Arakan, despite the UNHCR's presence. These abuses are part of systematic discrimination against Rohingyas, and amount to persecution according to criteria established by the UNHCR. Their exodus and the incidents following suggest serious flaws in the repatriation and reintegration program. HRW Index No.: C907 August 1, 1997 Purchase online Political Violence 0n All Sides The fierce struggle for power between Bangladesh's main political parties has fostered a situation of lawlessness and civil strife in which wanton acts of violence and intimidation by both the former ruling party, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, backed by security forces, and the opposition parties, have become routine features of the political process. While in power, the BNP deployed the police, paramilitary forces, and the army to counter the opposition's two-year campaign of anti-government agitation, with grave human rights abuses taking place in the process, including torture, arbitrary detention and excessive and indiscriminate use of force in confrontations with demonstrators. HRW Index No.: C806 June 1, 1996 Abuse of Burmese Refugees from Arakan Beginning in late 1991, wide-scale atrocities committed by the Burmese military, including rape, forced labor, and religious persecution, triggered an exodus of ethnic Rohingya Muslims from the northwestern Burmese state of Arakan into Bangladesh. This report warned of the possible repatriation of nearly 240,000 refugees, housed in nineteen camps in and around the Bangladeshi town of Cox's Bazar. HRW Index No.: C517 October 1, 1993 Purchase online
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