Tag: Law

‘You are guilty because we say so.’ 

The imprisonment of Odhikar’s Adilur Rahman Khan and ASM Nasiruddin Elan 

The humiliation of being put in that cage was not lost on anyone. Odhikar’s Secretary Adilur Rahman Khan and Director ASM Nasiruddin Elan had been there before, as indeed had I. Multiple times, on some occasions because the judge wanted to see me inside again. His sadistic pleasure in putting me back in the cage, on public display. The rambling judgement at the end of Odhikar’s case could have been reduced to two sentences. “You are guilty because we say so. You will go to jail, because we can.” 

I knew Adil and Elan through my crossfire exhibition, a show I had produced in 2010 based on extensive research by Momena Jalil, Fariha Karim and others of the Drik team. We were to open the show on 22nd March 2010, but the government intervened. Apparently, we had no right to show our own artwork in our own gallery without special government permission. We had asked which law this was stipulated by, but they weren’t able to produce any. Riot police came over anyway and closed down our gallery. Mahasweta Devi, the fiery Indian writer and activist had flown over to open the show. Nurul Kabir, one of the bravest editors Bangladesh has seen and one who still has the spine to resist publishing government propaganda, was also one of the speakers. With armed police surrounding the gallery, we resorted to opening the show in the streets of Dhanmondi outside our office.  

Police prevent human rights defender Adilur Rahman Khan from raising his fist in a show of defiance, as he enters prison van. Adil succeeded in breaking free and raising his clenched fist. 14th September 2023. Outside Judge Court. Dhaka. Photo: Dipu Malakar/Prothom Alo


Continue reading “‘You are guilty because we say so.’ “

Who lives, who dies, who decides?

The Councillor of 26 No Ward of Dhaka South City Corporation, Mr Hasibur Rahman Manik who led a ruling party procession to the venue to disrupt a peaceful performance by Drik Picture Library at Raju Bhaskorjo at the Dhaka University on 4th September 2020, Drik’s 31st Anniversary. © Habibul Haque/Drik

‘PAPA, are you crying?’ were the last words popular Awami League councillor Akramul Haque’s daughter had said to him. The family then heard the gunshots. The groan. Then more shots. The sounds, recorded on their phone, and later released to the media, reverberated across paddy fields, along the undulating Chittagong Hill Tracts, across swampy marshlands, on the waves of the Padma and Jamuna, in fancy apartments of Gulshan and Baridhara, and now in the cantonment. It reaffirmed what we all knew, and what the government has consistently denied. That it was the law enforcing agencies of our country, rather than the courts, who decide whether a citizen should live or die.


Continue reading “Who lives, who dies, who decides?”

Statement of South Asian Independent Citizens on India’s Citizenship Amendment Act

Statement of South Asian Independent Citizens on India’s Citizenship Amendment Act

26 December 2019

We independent citizens of countries neighbouring India hereby register our reservations about the Citizenship Amendment Act adopted by India’s Parliament, which aims to provide Indian citizenship to non-Muslims from three select countries – Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan.

The Act is discriminatory at the first instance because it is targeted against Muslims beyond the stated intent of the law. It is unacceptable for a country with a secular Constitution to distinguish between foreign citizens on the basis of religion. Further, the Act has the potential of deepening geopolitical schisms among the countries of South Asia, which should be striving for peace and mutual understanding.

We are further concerned that the announced India-wide National Register of Citizens or an adapted exercise, planned as follow-up to the CAA, will make vulnerable tens of millions of people. As observers of India, we had not understood citizenship to be a major problem in the country when compared to many other pressing issues of social justice. We fear that such a programme will have deadly fallout, particularly for the 200 million Muslims living under the umbrella of a secular Constitution of India.

The signatories believe that India’s plans for growth and equity is being hurt by ill-advised attempts at social engineering, and this in turn will impact the larger South Asian region. A weakened, insular India would not be able to take a stand on urgent matters confronting humanity, such as nuclear weaponisation, the climate crisis, hi-tech surveillance and runaway pollution.

We question the logic of the Indian Government wanting to extend citizenship to Hindus, Jains, Christians and Sikhs when there are also larger numbers of Muslims of different sects in the three selected countries enduring sectarian strife. These include Ahmedia and Shia, particularly Hazara, of Pakistan and Ahmediya of Bangladesh. What of the thousands of Tamil refugees of Sri Lanka, and the Rohingya who are so vulnerable in Myanmar and as refugees in Bangladesh?

If the authorities in New Delhi were seeking the well-being of religious minorities in the three selected countries, it should have engaged in sustained diplomatic effort to ensure their protection. We believe that with its action the Government of India has made religious minorities in the three countries more vulnerable than they were earlier.

The most logical approach for India is to join the 1951 UN Convention on Refugees, and to be open to foreigners of any faith or persuasion who are in distress. To select non-citizens based on faith is in defiance of basic human values.

The rest of South Asia has long appreciated the spirit of inclusion and social justice that has marked modern India, a country that has stood for democracy, pluralism and freedom. We signatories of this statement are distressed by the decisive majoritarian turn in India, and the intolerance evident in the ongoing crackdown on peaceful dissent.

A democratic, pluralist India that promotes solidarity, co-existence and mutual respect among diverse ethnic, religious and cultural communities of citizens within its borders is vital for a peaceful and stable South Asia.

Signatories:

Arif Hasan, Karachi
Beena Sarwar, Karachi
Hameeda Hossain, Dhaka
I.A. Rehman, Lahore
Jayadeva Uyangoda, Colombo
Kanak Mani Dixit, Lalitpur
Mahesh Maskey, Kathmandu
Mubashir Hasan, Lahore
NayanTara Gurung Kakshapati, Lalitpur
Pervez Hoodbhoy, Islamabad
Pratyoush Onta, Lalitpur
Serajul Islam Choudhury, Dhaka
Shahidul Alam, Dhaka
Sumathy Sivamohan, Peradeniya

Since this statement came out. Several others have also wanted to be signatories. It will be too complicated to change the sequence every time a new name is added, so new names will be added in the order in which they are received. If you want your name to be added, please say so in the comments section and I’ll add it as soon as I can.

Sultana Kamal, Dhaka
Khushi Kabir, Dhaka
Mohammad Shahnewaz Khan, Chattagram
Tanzim Wahab, Dhaka
Bikas Rauniar, Kathmandu
Faruq Faisel, Dhaka

2019 ICP Infinity Award: Shahidul Alam

Shahidul Alam is a Bangladeshi photojournalist, teacher, and social activist. A TIME “Person of the Year”, he is celebrated for his commitment to using his craft to preserve democracy in his country at all costs. See the project at http://mediastorm.com/clients/2019-icp-infinity-awards-shahidul-alam

Shahidul Alam: Caught in the Crossfire of Bangladesh’s Fledgling Democracy

DHAKA, BANGLADESH, 10/16/2018 © SK HASAN ALI / SHUTTERSTOCK

By Rachel Spence in Fair Observer •   OCTOBER 24, 2018

How do you persuade a government to release a prisoner, however wrongfully incarcerated, if it doesn’t want to cooperate?

Thousands of signatures, tweets, Instagram and Facebook posts. Dozens of articles. Then there are the rallies: from Kathmandu to New York, from Rome to New Delhi, London to Mumbai. Week by week, hundreds of people are gathering in public spaces to protest against the incarceration in Dhaka, Bangladesh, of photographer, journalist, teacher and activist Shahidul Alam.

Among the most headline-grabbing initiatives is Wasfia Nazreen’s sky-high stunt. The mountaineer and social activist — the first Bangladeshi to climb the Seven Summits — flew over Manhattan in an airplane trailing a banner that read “Free Shahidul Alam. Free our teachers.” Another high-profile intervention was made by artist Tania Bruguera, who was herself locked up in her native Cuba after she offended the state censors, and recently devoted her Tate Modern exhibition in London to a display of Alam’s photographs. “What keeps you going when you’re in prison,” Bruguera told me, “are your principles. And the support of others around you.” Continue reading “Shahidul Alam: Caught in the Crossfire of Bangladesh’s Fledgling Democracy”

Free Shahidul!

Note from Shahidul: I am out on bail, but the case against me stands and I potentially face a sentence of up to fourteen years if convicted. We now need to campaign to drop the charges.

Bangladeshi police abducted renowned photographer and New Internationalist contributor Shahidul Alam Sunday night. Chris Brazier explains what Alam’s detention means and why he should be released

On the night of 5 August renowned Bangladeshi photographer Shahidul Alam – an old friend of and contributor to New Internationalist – was seized from his home in Dhanmondi, Dhaka, by men claiming to be plainclothes police officers. He appeared in court late in the afternoon of the following day, when the Detective Branch of the police requested and was given seven days’ detention during which they would interview him about his comments on the recent student demonstrations in Dhaka. Photographs and videos of his arrival at the Dhaka Metropolitan Magistrates’ Court show him to be barefoot and having to be half-dragged, half-supported along. He managed to say to a reporter present: ‘I was hit (in custody). (They) washed my blood-stained punjabi and then made me wear it again.’ Continue reading “Free Shahidul!”

HUMAN CHAIN: Protest against the murder of Photographer and Drik Employee 'Irfanul Islam'

Irfanul Islam
Irfanul Islam

 
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Dear All,
Drik Picture Library and Pathshala South Asian Media Institute will initiate to form a Human chain at T.S.C, Dhaka University on 9th?April, 2016,?Saturday?at?3.30pm?for the protest against the murder of Photographer and Drik Employee ?Irfanul Islam? who was kidnapped and murdered on 2 April, 2016. Photographers will wrap black cloth on their camera and other participants will wear a black badge and show protest placard.
We are requesting you all to take part in this protest and please note your presence and support is?VERY IMPORTANT.?

Between absence and presence

Between absence and presence

First published in New Age on 13th August?2015
Artist Dhali Al Mamoon talks to Rahnuma Ahmed about his public art Shorok Durghotona Sritisthapona (Road Accident Memorial), located in Dhaka University campus, in memory of film-maker Tareque Masud and journalist Mishuk Munier
Car wreckage, left, and Seats, car wreckage and the bird, right. Artist Dhali Al Mamoon?s public art in memory of film-maker Tareque Masud and journalist Mishuk Munier who died with three others in a car crash on August 13, 2011. Shorok Durghotona Sritisthapona, Dhaka University campus. ? Shahidul Alam/Drik/Majority World
AWARD-WINNING film-maker Tareque Masud, broadcast journalist Mishuk Munier and three others died in a car crash on August 13, 2011 when a Chuadanga-bound bus rammed into the film crew?s microbus on the Dhaka-Aricha highway in Manikganj. It was raining; the bus was travelling at a high speed. Their deaths were instantaneous.
Dhali Al Mamoon, his artist wife Dilara Begum Jolly, Tareque?s wife American-born film editor Catherine Masud, production assistant Saidul Islam, and writer Monis Rafik survived the accident. Mamoon?s injuries were the most severe. Continue reading “Between absence and presence”

Protecting Freedom of Expression in Bangladesh

Following is the English translation of the statement made by academics, writers, women?s rights, human rights and cultural activists, including freedom fighters, on December 18, 2014 regarding the conviction and sentencing of British journalist David Bergman by the International Crimes Tribunal-2, in Dhaka. The statement was published in Prothom Alo, the largest Bangla daily, the next day. One of the statement makers, Khushi Kabir, withdrew her name from the statement the following day.
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On January 14, 2015, the Tribunal served notice on the 49 statement makers asking them to explain their statement: ?Prima facie it appears that the core content of the ‘statement’ questions ‘transparency and openness’ of the judicial proceedings before the tribunal and also justification of the order sentencing a journalist [Bergman] for the act of scandalising the tribunal constituting the offence of contempt.?
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Over the next two months, 26 statement makers tendered in writing their ?unconditional apology? before the Tribunal. These were accepted as they ?upgraded the majesty of the Tribunal? (Order No 11, dated 18.03.2015), and the 26 were exonerated from further proceedings.
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The remaining 23, who had expressed their ?regret? for any inadvertent impression the Tribunal may have received about it?s ?authority and institutional dignity? having been belittled, have failed to satisfy the Tribunal as their explanation lacks ?true remorse and repentance.? And, in the eyes of the Tribunal, they have, on the contrary, sought to ?defend? their statement by citing the rights and freedoms enshrined in the Constitution of Bangladesh.
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The Tribunal has now decided (Order No. 12, dated 1.04.2015) to initiate contempt proceedings against Masud Khan (consultant), Afsan Chowdhury (liberation war researcher, university teacher), Ziaur Rahman (lawyer), Hana Shams Ahmed (writer, rights activist), professor Anu Muhammad (university teacher), Anusheh Anadil (singer, rights activist), Muktasree Chakma Sathi (rights activist), Lubna Marium (cultural activist, freedom fighter), Farida Akhter (women?s rights activist), Shireen Huq (women?s rights activist), Dr. Zafrullah Chowdhury (public health activist, freedom fighter), Ali Ahmed Ziauddin (freedom fighter), Rahnuma Ahmed (writer), Dr. Shahidul Alam (photographer), Dr. C. R. Abrar (university teacher), Dr. Bina D’ Costa (peace and conflict analyst), Mahmud Rahman (writer), Dr. Zarina Nahar Kabir (university teacher), Leesa Gazi (cultural activist), Shabnam Nadiya (writer), Nasrin Siraj Annie (anthropologist and film-maker, Tibra Ali (physicist), and Dr. Delwar Hussain (anthropologist).
 
If found guilty they face a fine or imprisonment of up to 1 year. Continue reading “Protecting Freedom of Expression in Bangladesh”