Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami’s Acting Ameer and former lawmaker Professor Mujibur Rahman has issued the following statement on 30th August 2023 marking the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances.
30th of August is being observed as International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances. According to the statistics of various national human rights organizations and international human rights watchdogs, in last 14 years since the incumbent government came to the power in 2009, the plain-cloth-dressed people, claiming themselves as law enforcers have abducted some 645 people including the opposition leaders and activists and people of other professions. According to the statistics of the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC), still 153 are missing who have been abducted in various period of last 13 years. As per this Hong Kong based organization, from 2009 to 2022, 623 people have become the victims of enforced disappearance. Only 84 dead bodies have been recovered so far. Of them, 383 have come back alive or have been shown arrested. We have no information about 3 victims. I am expressing deep concern about the victims of enforced disappearance and extending my sympathies to these families.
The foreign nationals also have interested about these victims. US ambassador to Bangladesh Peter D. Haas visited the houses of the victims and talked to their families. Many people have come under attack while collecting information in this regard. UN High Commissioner on Human Rights Michelle Bachelet had visited Bangladesh in August of 2022. UN working group on human rights council also handed over a list of 76 victims of enforced disappearance to the government of Bangladesh.
Whoever have become disappeared so far, among them there are Jamaat’s former Ameer Professor Ghulam Azam’s son, former Brigadier General (Rtd.) Abdullahil Aman Azmi, Jamaat’s former executive committee member and Supreme court lawyer Barrister Mir Ahmad Bin Quasem Arman, Hafez Zakir Hossain, Islami University student and Islami Chhatrashibir leader Al Muqaddas and Mohammad Wali Ullah, BNP leader Elias Ali and former commissioner Chowdhury Alam and others.
The victim families are passing days amid tension and worries. Their parents and wives have become sick. The families appealed to the government seeking the whereabouts of the missing people by holding repeated press conference but they did not get any results. The law enforcers failed to play a due role about the abducted victims. The rights of the people in Bangladesh have been disappeared.
There are no human rights in the country now. Rights to live, freedom of expression, democratic rights, and voting rights have been taken away. The incumbent authoritarian government also seized all basic rights of the people including the rights to have food, clothes and treatment. Such a misrule cannot continue for long. I am urging the countrymen to raise voices against the government’s torture and fascist activities including its abduction, enforced disappearance, murder, torture and repressions.
