UK for free, fair polls, freedom of expression

The United Kingdom has said it will continue engaging closely with Bangladesh to support freedom of expression and other democratic freedoms and stress the long-term importance to its development of free, fair, inclusive and peaceful elections.

In a new report released on Monday, the UK highly praised the Bangladesh government and its people for having accepted and assisted over 700,000 Rohingya refugees, who fled Myanmar since August last year.

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It also welcomed repeated government assurances that any returns of Rohingya refugees would be voluntary, safe, well-informed and dignified.

In the Bangladesh chapter of the “Human Rights and Democracy:  the 2017 Foreign and Commonwealth Office Report”, the UK said it would support progress towards gender equality, including on girls' education where a focus will be to promote equity in access, retention and learning outcomes for the most marginalised girls; combat modern slavery; and press the authorities on enforced disappearances and extrajudicial executions.

“The human rights situation in Bangladesh saw no substantive improvement in 2017. Credible reports of enforced disappearances, extrajudicial killings and torture by government agencies continued, as did government pressure on opposition parties, civil society and the media.” 

The report mentioned that there was no recurrence of large-scale terror attacks, while a successful visit by Pope Francis highlighted the country's religious diversity.

On the political situation in Bangladesh, it said the opposition political parties continued to raise allegations of politically motivated court cases against their members, including senior leaders, and of the government restricting their ability to campaign publicly.

The UK said it supported programmes to improve access to justice, including for women and girls.

On press freedom, the report said Bangladesh ranked 146th out of 180 countries as cited in the 2017 World Press Freedom Index, a drop of two places compared with the previous year.

Quoting figures from Ain o Salish Kendra, a local human rights organisation, the UK report said 54 journalists were charged in 2017 under section 57 of the ICT Act, 2006, which criminalises the posting online of inflammatory or derogatory information against the state or individuals.

It said the government was proposing a legislation to replace section 57, but human rights organisations expressed serious concerns about the most recent draft. “We are funding work to support journalists, including advising them on their rights and safety.”

The media and reports from civil society indicate an increase in the number of enforced disappearances, probably involving security forces. Human Rights Watch reported over 80 cases of secret detentions and enforced disappearances in 2017, with at least 17 people still missing. Many incidents from previous years also remain unresolved, according to the report.

It said the law enforcement agencies were alleged to have carried out extrajudicial killings, which they sought to explain away as “crossfire” deaths. Odhikar, a local human rights organisation, reported 154 such incidents last year.

“There has been no significant reduction in the incidence of torture and ill-treatment in custody. We repeatedly raised concerns about these issues with the Government of Bangladesh,” the report added.

It said Bangladesh continued the progress which saw it become the top-ranked country for gender equality in South Asia in the 2017 Global Gender Gap Index.

“Bangladesh has achieved gender parity for educational access in both primary and secondary education but factors like early marriage mean that girls have a greater dropout rate at secondary education. Only 52 percent of girls complete their education and female illiteracy rates remain high at 41 percent.”

Despite improvements, it said child marriage remained widespread and the country still has one of the highest rates of child marriage in the world with over half of women currently between the age of 20-24 having married before their 18th birthday; and almost one in five having married before their 15th birthday.

According to the report, the UK worked with international partners to help improve labour rights in the readymade garment sector, and to ease freedom of association for workers in line with ILO conventions.

“Bangladesh has endorsed the Prime Minister's Call to Action to End Forced Labour, Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking and we will continue to work together to eradicate Modern Slavery in Bangladesh,” said the report.