Irene Z. Khan, secretary general of Amnesty International, has been
here lecturing the caretaker government on human rights.
Over the last sixteen years, when student politicians were dying at
the rate of 50 per month and these boys were raping and killing with
abandon, where was – the hopelessly misnamed – Irene?
Between 1985 and 2000, 15 student politicians were murdered on the
campus of Tejgaon Polytechnic College alone. These boys were minors.
In 1989, world leaders decided that children needed a special
convention just for them because people under 18 years old often
need special care and protection that adults do not. The leaders
also wanted to make sure that the world recognized that children
have human rights too.
The Convention sets out these rights in 54 articles and two Optional
Protocols. It spells out the basic human rights that children
everywhere have: the right to survival; to develop to the fullest;
to protection from harmful influences, abuse and exploitation; and
to participate fully in family, cultural and social life .
The reader will notice that all the highlighted rights have been
violated in the case of the student politicians of Bangladesh. For
student activists begin their violent careers well before they are
eighteen.
To read an interview of a student politician, visit
http://ritro.com/sections/worldaffairs/story.bv?storyid=3664
Irene Khan is Bangladeshi, and she knows very well what democracy
has meant for high school students – she comes to Bangladesh
regularly to visit her mother. Yet she has never raised the point
with the previous, democratically elected leaders of Bangladesh.
Instead, she is pushing for the restoration of democracy here,
knowing full well the human cost of democracy - the ruined lives,
the traumatised girls,....
See the article:
http://www.axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/article_23393.shtml
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