Bangladesh "Biased and Politically Motivated"

 

 

"[The ruling had come from a] rigged tribunal [established and presided over by an unelected government with no democratic mandate]."

"They are biased and politically motivated."

"In their distasteful call for the death penalty, they reveal the brazen and murderous intent of extremist figures within the interim government to remove Bangladesh's last elected prime minister, and to nullify the Awami League as a political force."

"I wholly deny the accusations that have been made against me in the ICT. I mourn all of the deaths that occurred in July and August of last year, on both sides of the political divide. But neither I nor other political leaders ordered the killing of protestors. ... I was given no fair chance to defend myself in court, nor even to have lawyers of my own choice represent me in absentia." 

Bangladesh former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina  

"Our tribunal was developed in line with the Nuremberg trials. It has met all international standards."

"No one can point to anywhere where those standards have not been met."

"Their defense lawyer was given enough time to come up with the response. He could not take instruction from the accused as they are fugitives."

"If they had been present, they could have given their testimonies and provided further witnesses, and they would have been given further time as per the law."

Chief Prosecutor Mohammad Tajul Islam   

Anti-government protesters are shown inside Sheikh Hasina's palace in Dhaka on Aug. 5, 2024, after she was toppled. (K M Asad/AFP/Getty Images)

 

As angry crowds stormed her palace in 2024, Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina fled to India for haven, when critics accused her of jailing political rivals, enacting harsh anti-media laws and overseeing human rights abuses, killing opposition activists among them. According to the United Nations, some 1,400 people -- mostly students in revolt -- were killed in the months of July and August of 2024.

 

She was sentenced to death by a Dhaka court finding her guilty on three counts of crimes against humanity, including incitement and orders to kill, along with inaction to prevent atrocities from being played out. Hasina, charged chief prosecutor Tajul Islam, was "the nucleus around whom all the crimes (were) committed", during the popular uprising. 

 

Months of testimony detailing mass killings said to be ordered by Hasina were heard during her trial. The trial, Sheikh Hasina stated, was in fact, a "jurisprudential joke". Audio tapes of Hasina purportedly directly ordering security forces to "use lethal weapons", were also played in court by the prosecution. There are additional outstanding cases involving the former Bangladeshi leader, involving her daughter Saima Wazed who became a senor UN official, and her niece Tulip Diddiq, a British lawmaker. 

 

Grief-stricken relatives hold on to photographs of their loved ones still missing after a fire blazed through a garment factory in Bangladesh   Getty Images

 

Hasina's regime presided over a time of rapid economic expansion for Bangladesh, driven in large part by Bangladesh's garment export industry, during her second time as the country's leader in 2008. An industry that was plagued with reported human rights violations in the garment factories, and occasional fires that killed many workers trapped in buildings lacking proper fire exits and basic fire-prevention protocols.

 

At one time considered to be one of the world's poorest countries, the Bangladesh economy grew over six percent annually since 2009, and by 2021 surpassed India's per capita income. "The prospect of Sheikh Hasina mounting a political comeback in Bangladesh now appears very slim", commented International Crisis Group analyst Thomas Kean following the death verdict for the 80-year-old former leader. 

"After the uprising, we might have had a process of justice and peace and reconciliation. We didn't have that. We've had the same as before. We call it accountability, but it's more like political revenge."

"What really matters is, many people think that this is a kind of justice and that no other kind of justice was going to be achieved."

Naomi Hossain, development studies professor, University of London's School of Oriental and African Studies 

Bangladesh's former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on a visit to Italy to meet with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni in Rome during Hasina's time in office in July 2023.

Antonio Masiello/Getty Images

 

S.O.S. Save Our Souls! Is There No One There???

"I last spoke with the boat's captain on December 18 and he told me that at least 17 people on board had died due to a lack of food and water."

"They have only been able to drink water when it rains."

"Please tell me, I just want to know if my family is alive or dead. We all want to see our families, that is all we request from the world. Just help us."

Sham Shur Alom, Rohingya refugee in Malaysia

"Several reports indicate dozens of people have already died during this ordeal, while survivors are hungry and thirsty without access to food and water and suffering from sickness."

United Nations' refugee agency 

"Father, please send a boat or I will jump into the ocean. I can't tolerate the pain and struggle anymore. There is no food or water to drink. People are drinking salt water. People are close to dying and mental breakdown. They're going to bite each other."

"Baba. I don't know why I am here. My teeth are dry from the lack of drinking water. Please do whatever is humanly possible for you."

Mosharrof Ullha, to his father Ata Ullha, Rohingya, Cox's Bazar Refugee Camp, Bangladesh

"We urge the Government of India to urgently coordinate and cooperate with other regional governments on the search and rescue operations of Rohingya refugees who are currently stranded in Indian waters with no medical support, food and water"    Amnesty India

The world of the unwanted homeless is ever on the move, hoping to find surcease from their stateless status, their unwanted presence, their suffering and their timeless dilemma. They aspire to live, to have a future, they are not economic migrants but refugees. As it happens, refugees who are Muslim, whom the Myanmar military expunged violently from the country where they were living. Originally from Bangladesh, the Rohingya lived for generations in Myanmar. But Buddhism and Islam oppose one another.

 

Living for years since their expulsion from Myanmar on the border in Bangladesh in an immense squalid refugee camp teeming with refugees whom no one wants responsibility for, there are those who dream of escape, of finding a new life and opportunity elsewhere in the world where they will be accepted, where human aspirations to belong and to succeed in life can be found. And in following that dream they sacrifice themselves to chance and fortune, and sometimes lose.

A boat stranded for close to three weeks in the Indian Ocean is desperate for rescue. So far a dozen of the Rohingya refugees populating the wooden craft open to the air, directionless, have died. With no humanitarian intervention from nearby nations fears are that more people will die in the next few days. And the unthinkable, that the  hopeful refugees on board will all perish from neglect by those who could mount a rescue. Indonesia, the nation with the largest Muslim population globally has seen fit not to respond.

Predictably, India, with the world's third largest minority population of Muslims has no wish to acquire more people of the faith its own majority Hindu population is hostile to. Late November saw the open wooden boat set off from Bangladesh for Malaysia, yet another majority Muslim population, with over 150 asylum seekers aboard. On December 4 its engine failed, leaving the vessel to drift at sea, its food and water supplies steadily diminishing.

Most of the people on the ship had set out to meet family in Malaysia, anxious to flee the sprawling Cox's Bazar refugee camp in Bangladesh with its hundreds of thousands of hopeless people languishing there for the past five years. The boat captain refused to allow those who have managed to make contact with the boat by satellite phone, to speak with their relatives. Open to the elements, conditions on the boat are unspeakably urgent.

The Indian navy and coast guard say no information about the adrift ship has reached them; wide-spread media coverage of the crisis aside. "We have no information about the issue",  a spokesperson for the Indian navy responded, to a query. To the present, it is believed that approximately two thousand Rohingya refugees have opted to risk a sea voyage in 2022 as conditions in the refugee camps both in Myanmar and Bangladesh continue to deteriorate.

Although Sri Lanka's navy rescued a boat of 104 Rohingya a week ago, other nations have no wish to encourage the mass flow of people by intervening to offer support. Bangladesh, the Muslim country from which the Rohingya originated has not seen fit to integrate them back into its society as a Muslim-to-Muslim responsibility. Nor have Indonesia or Malaysia recognized their religious responsibility to embrace fellow Muslims.

Rohingya refugees sit on a wooden boat as Indonesian officials conduct evacuation at the Krueng Geukueh port in Lhokseumawe, Aceh, Indonesia, on December 31, 2021.

Fachrul Reza / Xinhua via Getty Images

"Many more will die soon if they are not rescued, due to dehydration."

"We have approached the Indian coast guard and the Thai and Indonesian governments."

"None of them responded."

Mohammed Rezuwan Khan, Rohingya refugee, Cox's Bazar