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NEWS ANALYSIS ''Odhikar Report on Hefajat Deaths''

Questions aplenty

M Abul Kalam Azad
Odhikar's fact-finding report, "Assembly of Hefajat-e Islam Bangladesh and Human Rights Violation", is a composition of half-truths, biased and one-sided presentation of what happened on May 5 and in the early hours ofMay 6 in the capital, according to an analysis by The DailyStar.
The June 10 report says nothing about the destructive activities by Hefajat men, the involvement of Jamaat-Shibir activists and their instigation of acts of violence. But it has elaborately described the role of law enforcers and pro-ruling party men.
Hundreds of unruly Hefajat men were involved in widespread violence, including arson and even torching of bookshops that sold copies of the holy Quran. Though many TV channels broadcast the incidents live, Odhikar is completely silent about it. It has depicted Hefajat-e-Islam as a very peaceful organisation and its leaders and activists as innocent individuals.
While being flushed out of Shapla Chattar, Hefajat men attacked a policeman with bricks near the Alico building in Motijheel, leaving him dead on the spot. A correspondent of The Daily Star covering the event on that night witnessed it, but the Odhikar report made no mention of it.
The 28-page report starts with an introduction of Hefajat and its objectives. It termed Hefajat a people's platform, a non-political and sociocultural organisation, and mentioned its objectives were to promote "social dialogue to dispel prejudices that affect community harmony and relations".
In reality, Hefajat's character is completely the opposite of what the Odhikar report states. The organisation's recent activities, provocative
speeches of its leaders, the 13-point demand, its anti-women and anti-constitutional stance clearly go against the spirit of community harmony. It is against the secular education policy and has staged violent demonstrations against the government's avowed policy of equal rights for women.
Hefajat is no longer a non-political organisation. Practically, it is now a political force — very much aligned with the BNP, Jamaat and other Islamist and smaller political parties.
In the second paragraph, Odhikar says the Hefajat's protest was “instigated by some bloggers and activists that mobilised at the Shahbagh movement", and who were making “vulgar, humiliating, insulting and provocative remarks in the social media sites and blogs against Islam, Allah and Prophet Hazrat Mohammad (pbuh)."
The report, however, doesn't mention how it came to such a conclusion or how it had found that the organisers of the Shahbagh movement, who are also “bloggers and activists", were actually involved in such activities.
The human rights organisation doesn't say whether the allegations made by Hefajat were true, or whether it conducted any investigation into the matter before coming to such a partisan and politically-motivated conclusion. Odhikar simply believed in what Hefajat leaders had claimed to be true.
It went on sympathising with the Hefajat's stance by saying, "In some cases the Prophet was portrayed as a
pornographic character, which infuriated people of all walks of life." Odhikar then mentions a High Court directive, and the obligation under Article 39 of the constitution that demands that the government prevent such blogs and defamatory comments. But the government took no action in this regards.
But it is not true. Since the issue was brought before the public earlier this year, the government blocked nearly a dozen blogs. But many others had popped up. The Daily Star found that several websites had articles in the names of bloggers, who support the Shahbagh move-ment. Actually, those bloggers didn't post the articles on the websites.
Four bloggers were arrested allegedly for hurting religious sentiments but Odhikar remained silent about it.
Islamist fanatics, who have been demanding execution of "atheist bloggers”, killed a blogger and injured another. These incidents were part of the whole development that Odhikar didn't mention.
It says the combined forces launched a brutal attack on the Hefajat rally despite being aware of the presence of adolescents and children from madrasas. It claimed some of them had been missing after the crackdown, while some others reportedly lost their lives.
Odhikar tried to justify bringing in the children to the Hefajat rally by saying, "Presence of children at political rallies is also found in government and opposition party programmes.”
But the human rights
body kept mum about how Hefajat violated the rights of the minors and risked their lives by bringing them to the rally and using them for their petty interests.
The Odhikar report is also silent about the fact that the minors were forced to come, lied to, and lured with money. This is a clear violation of the UN Convention on the Rights of Children and Children Act 2013, which mentions that children should not be engaged in any risky work or job that can jeopardise their health.
In order to prove the innocence of the fanatic organisation, the report quotes Hefajat leader Azizul Haq Islamabad!, "Hefajat strictly asked its members not to bring children or minors to the rally, but some minors were too enthusiastic and joined the movement."
The report contains interviews of 24 people, but not of a single minor. Odhikar couldn't interview any minors to know about the facts. The report was zealous in mentioning that most of the minors were students of Qawmi madrasa and orphans, and they came from nonaffluent families, and were not provided with any help by the government.
The report gives a wrong message that the Hefajat men's only intention was to offer "doa and zikir", and they hurled brickbats at law enforcers and set fire to objects around the stage to save themselves from police action. But it has made no mention of the instigation and antigovernment speeches by Hefajat leaders.
Odhikar said the telecast of Islamic and Diganta
televisions was stopped at 2:30am and 4:27am to make sure that the May 6 incident didn't go on air. But it didn't say that the broadcast of the two channels was stopped for airing misleading death figures.
The two TV channels claimed that hundreds of Hefajat men were being killed in police attacks and the bodies were kept at Al-Baraka and Islami Bank hospitals. But the claims later turned out to be false.
The Daily Star on that night called both the hospitals that declined to say anything about the bodies. The following day, a reporter from The Daily Star visited both the hospitals to get names of the deceased. But they again failed to show any proof.
Police flushed out the Hefajat men around 2:40am and Diganta TV continued broadcasting the happenings till 4:27am.
DEATH FIGURES
Odhikar claims 61 people died in the police crackdown on the Hefajat rally at Shapla Chattar, which is misleading and confusing. Odhikar collected a list of 16 deceased from the DMCH morgue and put it in its report. But The Daily Star found that at least three of them had died in clashes between Hefajat men and police in Narayanganj.
Odhikar didn't give a full list of the victims on the plea of security of their family members. However, it gave identities of two other persons along with the interviews of their relatives. It also gave identities of 69 injured people but didn't mention that any of them were attacked or received threats after the disclosure of their identities.
Odhikar's death claim didn't tally with the death toll published in different national dailies and the count in The Daily Star's investigation.
The report mentions the death of 66-71 people, referring to Hefajat activists, victims' relatives, some unnamed witnesses, a pho-tojournalist, and hospital sources. Three of them died in firing by police and ruling party men on May 5 afternoon while the rest at night.
It also quotes an anonymous Hefajat member, who claimed to be informed of 202 deaths, and another anonymous witness, who said seven people had lost their lives. It also quoted Jewel, an injured, who claimed to have seen 27-32 bodies during the crackdown.
The report quotes a madrasa student, Majedul Islam, who saw seven to eight bodies at the Sonali Bank premises. Five people among those, who were severely injured, died at different hospitals, claims the report.
Odhikar interviewed an unnamed photojournalist who alone saw 16 bodies in and around Shapla Chattar on that night. He first saw four bodies wrapped in white cloth near the Hefajat stage, two near Modhumita Cinema Hall, seven at Sonali Bank premises and one each at a petrol pump and in a pick-up van. He also saw two persons carrying a body.
The four bodies found near the stage were actually of the victims of daytime violence. Hefajat men demonstrated in the afternoon carrying the bodies. But the Odhikar report tries to prove they were killed during the
crackdown at night.
The Daily Star has been able to find the photojournalist whose name is Naim Parvej Apu of Banglar Chokh.
"I told Odhikar everything I saw that night but many things were not included in the report," Apu said.
"1 spoke of seeing only four bodies at the Hefajat stage. I didn't say anyone else was dead. I said they were either bullet-hit or injured."
On the use of Banglar Chokh's photos in the Odhikar report, he said all types of photos, including those of the destructive activities of the Hefajat, were available on the website.
“We used the word 'dead' only in the photo caption of the four bodies near the stage. We did not use that word in the captions of other photos," Apu told The Daily Star.
Quoting the international media and Al Jazeera, the Odhikar report says 50 people were killed but it makes no mention of any local media that covered the event entirely.
Creating confusion over the deaths, it says, “Considering the circumstances it was very difficult to know how many people were killed and where the bodies were taken. Odhikar prepared this fact finding report on a primary basis by carrying out its own fact finding missions. The number of deaths mentioned here only confirms and highlights the identities of people killed that night."
Interestingly, when asked by The Daily Star, Odhikar changed its position and claimed the dead included
those killed in the daytime on May 5, but it failed to say how many died during that time.
The report doesn't say how many died in the attacks by pro-AL men and whether those were included in the list of 61 dead.
It portrays many Hefajat men lying on the ground as dead. Actually, they were pretending to be dead. They later got up and left the area. ODHIKAR'S RESPONSE The Daily Star talked to Odhikar's Senior Research and Programme Coordinator Taskin Tahmina and Director ASM Nasir Uddin Elan on the points mentioned above.
Asked why the report was silent about Hefajat's destructive activities and why it had portrayed the fanatic organisation as a peaceful, modest and innocent one, Taskin said the fact finding was done to enquire into the allegations of extra-judicial killings.
"In doing so, we needed to tell the story from the beginning. Our point of consideration was that extra-judicial killings took place, irrespective of whether Hefajat was innocent or not."
She said the majority of the media was against Hefajat and reported it had carried out the destruction, but when Odhikar talked to Hefajat leaders they completely denied it.
"As we were not there, we decided in principle not to say anything on this point. ”
Taskin claimed that Odhikar's report was not one-sided; rather the reports of the majority of the media on the Hefajat rally and the Shahbagh movement were biased.
On the issue of not disclosing the full list of the dead, Nasir Uddin Elan said the families of the victims were under tremendous pressure not to say anything about the incident.
"They were forced to complete the formalities and bury the bodies in a hurry. AL men are keeping an eye on the families of the victims. We cannot put them in danger."
About finalising the list of 61 deceased, Taskin said they made the list after talking to the family members of the victims and hospital authorities.
Taskin, however, said she didn’t support Hefajat's bringing children to its programme through lies and promises of payments.
Asked why it was not mentioned in the report, she claimed that Odhikar could not contact any of them.
On the methodology of its investigation, she said a five-member fact-finding mission worked on it while Odhikar staff across the country helped the mission to take interviews of the persons concerned, including the family members of the victims.
About using two death figures - 46 and 107 - in incidents of political violence in May, Taskin and Elan claimed the first figure didn't include the victims of extra-judicial killings that took place involving the Hefajat rally as their investigation was underway. They claimed the death figure was updated in June and it stood at 107.
Asked why the 61 deaths were mentioned as political killings in the May report, Taskin said those should have been put in the section for extra-judicial killings.