Joint Statement: Call for justice after another police shooting of a human rights defender

AJoint Statement by the Asian Human Rights Commission, the Observatory forthe Protection of Human Rights Defenders [a joint programme of FIDH and theWorld Organisation Against Torture (OMCT)], and Odhikar

April 6, 2016

The Observatory for the Protection ofHuman Rights Defenders, the Asian Human Rights Commission, and Odhikar urge the global human rightscommunity to raise its voice and call for justice for the several human rightsdefenders and journalists who have been shot in the limbs by police forces inBangladesh.

Thelatest of such shootings happened on March 31, 2016, when police forces shoteight bullets into the leg of Mr. Md. Afzal Hossain, a Bangladeshijournalist affiliated with Odhikarand Bhola District Correspondent of NTV – a private television channel – andother national and regional newspapers. Afzal was observing the localgovernmental election at Rajapur Government Primary School, which was turned toa polling centre for the election of the Rajapur Union Council.

AfzalHossain told the Asian Human Rights Commission that he filmed the scene ofballot stuffing with his camera that morning, when he found that the candidatesof the ruling party were rigging votes inside the polling booths. While Afzalwas compiling the information for his next reports for the media, the cadres ofthe ruling party and other opposition parties became violent, beating one another’ssupporters and hurling crude bombs at each other. At around 11:40 a.m., whileAfzal and his journalist colleagues were waiting near the police on duty at thepolling centre, the Police Superintendent of Bhola district, Mr. MohammadMoniruzzaman Monir, called Afzal over to check his physical location. At about12:00 p.m., after paramilitary forces had intervened at the scene and there wasno more active violence, a Police Constable named Zulhash suddenly pointed hisloaded shotgun at Afzal’s left leg and shot him. Some journalistcolleagues immediately took Afzal to the Bhola General Hospital.

Thedoctors of Bhola District's General Hospital removed the bullets from Afzal’sleg, but were not able to confirm whether his leg could be saved from amputation.Amputations have taken place in many other cases of police shooting the limbsof detainees in Bangladesh.

OnApril 2, due to the lack of necessary medical equipment and lack ofavailability of skilled physicians at Bhola General Hospital, Afzal wasreferred to Sher-E-Bangla Medical College Hospital in Barisal. There, thedoctors found that the personnel of Bhola Hospital had distorted theinformation about the shooting in Afzal’s medical record, having written that'rubber bullets' were used instead of the live ammunition which was actuallyused. This distortion in the medical record allegedly occurredunder pressure from the Superintendent of Police of Bhola.

Sincethe Sher-E-Bangla Medical College Hospital does not have the facilities toproperly determine whether an amputation was necessary, on April 3 doctorsreferred Afzal to the National Institute of Traumatology and OrthopaedicRehabilitation (NITOR) in Dhaka, where Afzal arrived in the morning of April 4.The doctors at NITOR dressed Afzal’s leg but refused to admit him, allegedlydue to overcrowding and lack of capacity to accommodate him in the hospital. Finally, Afzal wasadmitted to a private clinic for treatment of his leg.

Our organisations fear that thepolice specifically targeted Afzal and deliberately shot him in retaliation forhis continued fight against human rights violations perpetrated by the policeand for exposing electoral irregularities. We express our utmost concern forthe physical and psychological safety of Afzal and his family, and we call upon theBangladeshi authorities to put an end to all acts of harassment towards humanrights defenders and journalists in the country.

In addition, the fact that NITOR, the largestpublic traumatology hospital Bangladesh, refused to treat Afzal, and the lackof public response by the journalist community regarding the shooting, bothsuggest that the Bangladeshi authorities are putting pressure on several groupsto ignore this case, as well as the generalised and widespread human rightsabuses happening across the country.

Over the last fewyears, there have been several cases of the police and the Rapid ActionBattalion (RAB) of Bangladesh shooting detainees and demonstrators in thelimbs, all with total impunity. The 2015 Annual Report of Odhikar reported 33 cases of people shot in their legs by lawenforcement agencies[1]. The victims of thispatterned crime of the law-enforcement agencies have been denied justice. The authoritariangovernment, which mostly relies on the lethal force of the law-enforcementagencies, guarantees impunity to the perpetrators as a default practice in thecountry. The victims of this violence by law-enforcement agents have beendenied justice, as the government has failed to investigate and prosecute theperpetrators of what appears to be a pattern of shootings of defenselessvictims.

The international human rights community cannot remain silentin the face of the multiple human rights violations taking place in Bangladesh,particularly those at the hands of law enforcement agents. Our organisationsstrongly urge civil society and inter-governmental organisations to raise theirvoice and to call for justice and accountability for human rights violations inBangladesh, in particular the targeted violence against human rights defendersand journalists.

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The AsianHuman Rights Commission is a regional non-governmental organisation thatmonitors human rights in Asia, documents violations and advocates for justiceand institutional reform to ensure the protection and promotion of theserights. The Hong Kong-based group was founded in 1984.

The Observatory for the Protection of HumanRights Defenders (OBS) was created in 1997 by FIDH and OMCT. Theobjective of this programme is to intervene toprevent or remedy to situations of repression against humanrights defenders.

Odhikar is a Bangladeshi non-governmentalorganizationthatdocuments and records human rightsviolations through fact-finding missions and information received by itsnetwork of local human rights defenders. Odhikar also monitors media reports intwelve national daily newspapers.

[1] See Odhikar, Statistics: January-December 2015.