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Human Rights Development

Forced disappearance key challenge

Recognises government

Diplomatic Correspondent
Recognising that forced disappearance is one key challenge to improving the human rights situation, the government yesterday agreed to include it in a report for submission to UNHRC at the end of January.
Sultana Kamal, a former adviser to a caretaker government, told this to journalists after emerging from a national consultation on “Bangladesh's 2nd cycle of Universal Periodic Review (UPR) 2013” at the foreign ministry.
This was the second time that the consultation, attended by Foreign Minister Dipu Moni, some 28 civil, law enforcing and military officials and around 40 nongovernment organisation (NGO) representatives, was held seeking suggestions on the report's preparation.
The 193 United Nations members have to submit their respective reports to declare what actions they took to improve the human rights situations in their countries and to fulfill their human rights obligations.
Sultana Kamal, executive director of Ain o Salish Kendra, said the government also mentioned of corruption as another challenge. The issues of Bishwajit and Limon came up but there was no discussion on extra judicial killings, she said.
The government claimed that the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) peace accord's implementation was progressing on the right tracks, she said.
However, the land settlement issue was still unresolved, the local authority was yet to be handed over power while the army still remained deployed in CHT. “We have categorically put forward our differences in
opinion,” she said.
The consultation sources said the NGO representatives strongly voiced to include some important issues in the report.
These include incidents of violence against women, situation of children and child labour, civil and political rights, governance, corruption, issue of brutal killing of Bishwajit and torture and harassment on Limon.
Despite the government's good works, including in legislature, to improve the human rights situation, the ground reality is not so encouraging due to a huge gap between laws and their implementation, they observed.
The government claimed tremendous achievements in improving the human rights situation in the last four years due to enactment of necessary laws and effective steps for their implementation, said the sources.
Saida Muna Tanseem, director general (UN & Human Rights) at the foreign ministry, who gave a presentation on the report's preparation, told the journalists that the 10,000-word report would be inclusive of all important issues.
The government will convene a final consultation, likely in this month's third week, before submitting the report, said Saida.
The United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) fixed April 29 to review Bangladesh's report. NGOs and National Human Rights Commission already submitted their reports to UNHRC in November 2011.
The UPR, a state-driven process under the UNHCR's auspices, will assess the reports on the extent states respect their human rights obligations.