6 More Congress Members Urge US Govt to Facilitate Fair Polls in Bangladesh

Six more members of the United States Congress have called upon the Biden administration to take steps to ensure the Bangladesh government complies with its human rights obligations.

They made the call in a letter written to US secretary of state Antony Blinken on June 8.

‘We write to express our concern about the ongoing deterioration of the human rights situation in Bangladesh as elections approach in January 2024. We urge the State Department and other US agencies to continue to call for accountability for serious violations committed by law enforcement agencies, including the recently sanctioned Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), a paramilitary unit of the Bangladesh Police created in 2004,’ said the letter.

Signatories to the letter are William R. Keating, James P. McGovern, Barbara Lee, Jim Costa, Dina Titus, and Jamie Raskin.

Sharing a copy of the letter, US Congressman Keating tweeted, ‘I am deeply concerned with the ongoing human rights situation in Bangladesh. To ensure free & fair Bangladeshi elections 2024, I urge @SecBlinken to continue his call for accountability for human rights violations committed by Bangladeshi law enforcement agencies & officials.’

The letter said that clear and repeated statements and actions by US officials could help ensure that the Bangladeshi government complied with its human rights obligations.

‘This is especially important in preparation for the upcoming elections, as there have already been mass arrests and violence against opposition parties which could tarnish the results and deepen social conflict,’ said the latter.

Welcoming the December 2021 US sanctions designations and visa restrictions implemented against the RAB and seven of its current and former high-level officers as a necessary and proportional response to well-documented reports of serious human rights abuses by that entity, it said, ‘Unfortunately, despite these actions, repression in Bangladesh has not ceased.

Referring to the Annual Human Rights Report 2022, it mentioned that the rights organisation Odhikar documented 31 extrajudicial killings, 21 enforced disappearances, 68 deaths in jail, and 183 attacks on journalists committed by various law enforcement agencies including the RAB, Detective Branch, and the Directorate General of Forces Intelligence.

Despite these documented incidents, Bangladeshi government officials have continued to deny the occurrence of human rights violations, minimising such findings as "negative [campaigns] against [the] country" and even awarding and promoting officials accused of committing grave human rights abuses, including enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings, the Congresss members alleged in the letter.

Six European parliamentarians in a joint letter earlier on Monday urged the High Representative of the Parliament to take action to restore democracy in Bangladesh.

A separate group of six Congress members of the United States earlier on May 17 in a letter urged US president Joe Biden for measures, including stricter individual sanctions, banning its law enforcement and military personnel from participating in United Nations peacekeeping missions.