A Statement for the Media and Human Rights Defenders from Ataus Samad and Farhad Mazhar
The political regime who on 11th January of 2007 installed through the President Iyazuddin Ahmed, an unelected and unconstitutional government declaring an Emergency and ruled for next two years, suspended the fundamental human rights and political rights of peoples of Bangladesh. On the one hand, they created a terror in the country and on the other hand, destroyed the image of the politics and political leaders and implanted conflicts and division within party leaders. In the name of a Caretaker Government these unconstitutional rulers wanted to depoliticise the country so that no political person can lead any protest against them. We left those dark days behind.
But unfortunately, we are now experiencing that the present elected government has gloriously inherited the unconstitutional and unlawful acts of the previous 9/11 government. These are arrest with false allegations, obstructing court procedure to get bail, giving false information to the judiciary about the accused, torture in remand, restrictions on public meetings and rallies and restrictng free movement of people. The critics of the present government are barred from foreign tours.
The restriction imposed on citizens to go abroad through Air, land or any other routes without showing any valid reasons has become a serious violation of citizen's rights and contrary to international norms and covenants. This is an abuse of power on the part of the government to negative profiling of writers and journalists and political leaders. It causes severe mental, physical, economic and social pressure on the person who is barred from leaving the country, identifying the person as "dangerous" to the society. While the citizens are victimised, a group of people in the government are trying to accumulate illegal power by violating constitutional and human rights of people, thereby becoming threat to democracy. We humbly urge upon the government to immediately stop such malicious acts.
To make clear about the unconstitutionality of government's act we quote from the Constitution. According to the Article 36 of the Constitution of the Peoples Republic of Bangladesh, "subject to any reasonable restrictions imposed by law in the public interest every citizen shall have the right to move freely throughout Bangladesh, to reside and settle in any place therein and to leave and re-enter Bangladesh". According to the Article 13(2) of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, "everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country".
According to Article 12(2) of International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, "everyone shall be free to leave any country, including his own" and Article 12(4) clearly states: 'no one shall be arbitrarily deprived of the right to enter his own country'.
So the leaving and entering the country is a constitutional right of citizens and imposition of any restriction on such movement must be lawful and should have valid reasons. The citizens already follow a process which is guided by the law of the country by having the passport, which requires police varification. To go to any country, one needs to get a valid visa from the respective diplomatic mission in the country. Getting a ticket and to cross the immigration also needs following of government rules and regulations. But if any person following all these procedures goes to the Airport and the Immigration asks the person to go back home, without showing any cause for it, is unlawful and violates the human dignity of the person. When the immigration officer simply says that it is the "Order from Top level" not to allow the person to go abroad, but cannot even identify who in the "Top level" gave such order then it gives a "barbaric" image of the country, which has no law. The irony is that such unlawful acts of the government has been challenged in the High Court several times and were declared illegal, yet the government continues to carry out such heinous attitude. We protest against such acts.
It may be mentioned here that during the 9/11 Caretaker government, when Awami League President Sheikh Hasina was not allowed to enter the country, we immediately protested against such act using the Constitutional provision and the International covenants.
We are outraged to see that several persons known for their professional contributions in the society have been sent back from the Airport. They are associated with the Opposition Party BNP. On top of that we are surprised to see that the "Top level" has prepared a list of 70 leaders and professionals, including lawyers, writers, columnists, journalists to be barred from going abroad. We the undersigned have become a victim of being part of the socalled "list", although we are not given any letter from the government in this regard. The government has also not made any comment about the validity of the list. However, the State Minister for Home Affairs in a meeting on September 19 replied after journalists asked him about such profiling that he is not 'aware of the list'.
This kind of secret profiling of us outside legal process is uncivilized. We only came to know about it through newspapers. This is a threat created to silence the critical voices and to stop fredom of speech. We want to remind that we have faced such repressions before. In 1995, Farhad Mazhar was detained for writing on Ansar rebellion and was released after challenging his arrest through filing a Writ Petition in the High Court Division.
We urge upon the government to withdraw this unlawful action. We will have to take legal actions against the government if we are obstructed at the Airport or any border for going abroad. Secondly, those who have prepared the "list" are trying to undermine our constructive criticisms of the undemocratic and anti-people actions of the government by putting us in the list of the political party that they do not like. This is an old tactics of silencing the voices of resistence. We do not belong to any party. We have been critical of the governments in the past as we are today of the present government. To equate the critical opinions of the intellectuals with the voices of the opposition party is a very petty way of suppressing the freedom of speech. This is a conspiracy to undermine our objectivity by creating suspicion and hatracy in the eyes of people against us. We have raised strong voices against the unconstitutional, undemocratic Caretaker government whenever it was necessary. In the same way, we have been critical of the acts of the Four-Party Alliance of government. We are committed to raise the voices in favour of truth and for the people.
We urge upon the journalists, writers, and human rights activists to protest against such restrictions on free movement of people. We request the government to stop the hide and seek game and withdraw the socalled list immediately.
Ataus Samad ( Journalist )
Farhad Mazhar (Journalist )
Send comments to : farahadmazhar@gmail.com
But unfortunately, we are now experiencing that the present elected government has gloriously inherited the unconstitutional and unlawful acts of the previous 9/11 government. These are arrest with false allegations, obstructing court procedure to get bail, giving false information to the judiciary about the accused, torture in remand, restrictions on public meetings and rallies and restrictng free movement of people. The critics of the present government are barred from foreign tours.
The restriction imposed on citizens to go abroad through Air, land or any other routes without showing any valid reasons has become a serious violation of citizen's rights and contrary to international norms and covenants. This is an abuse of power on the part of the government to negative profiling of writers and journalists and political leaders. It causes severe mental, physical, economic and social pressure on the person who is barred from leaving the country, identifying the person as "dangerous" to the society. While the citizens are victimised, a group of people in the government are trying to accumulate illegal power by violating constitutional and human rights of people, thereby becoming threat to democracy. We humbly urge upon the government to immediately stop such malicious acts.
To make clear about the unconstitutionality of government's act we quote from the Constitution. According to the Article 36 of the Constitution of the Peoples Republic of Bangladesh, "subject to any reasonable restrictions imposed by law in the public interest every citizen shall have the right to move freely throughout Bangladesh, to reside and settle in any place therein and to leave and re-enter Bangladesh". According to the Article 13(2) of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, "everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country".
According to Article 12(2) of International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, "everyone shall be free to leave any country, including his own" and Article 12(4) clearly states: 'no one shall be arbitrarily deprived of the right to enter his own country'.
So the leaving and entering the country is a constitutional right of citizens and imposition of any restriction on such movement must be lawful and should have valid reasons. The citizens already follow a process which is guided by the law of the country by having the passport, which requires police varification. To go to any country, one needs to get a valid visa from the respective diplomatic mission in the country. Getting a ticket and to cross the immigration also needs following of government rules and regulations. But if any person following all these procedures goes to the Airport and the Immigration asks the person to go back home, without showing any cause for it, is unlawful and violates the human dignity of the person. When the immigration officer simply says that it is the "Order from Top level" not to allow the person to go abroad, but cannot even identify who in the "Top level" gave such order then it gives a "barbaric" image of the country, which has no law. The irony is that such unlawful acts of the government has been challenged in the High Court several times and were declared illegal, yet the government continues to carry out such heinous attitude. We protest against such acts.
It may be mentioned here that during the 9/11 Caretaker government, when Awami League President Sheikh Hasina was not allowed to enter the country, we immediately protested against such act using the Constitutional provision and the International covenants.
We are outraged to see that several persons known for their professional contributions in the society have been sent back from the Airport. They are associated with the Opposition Party BNP. On top of that we are surprised to see that the "Top level" has prepared a list of 70 leaders and professionals, including lawyers, writers, columnists, journalists to be barred from going abroad. We the undersigned have become a victim of being part of the socalled "list", although we are not given any letter from the government in this regard. The government has also not made any comment about the validity of the list. However, the State Minister for Home Affairs in a meeting on September 19 replied after journalists asked him about such profiling that he is not 'aware of the list'.
This kind of secret profiling of us outside legal process is uncivilized. We only came to know about it through newspapers. This is a threat created to silence the critical voices and to stop fredom of speech. We want to remind that we have faced such repressions before. In 1995, Farhad Mazhar was detained for writing on Ansar rebellion and was released after challenging his arrest through filing a Writ Petition in the High Court Division.
We urge upon the government to withdraw this unlawful action. We will have to take legal actions against the government if we are obstructed at the Airport or any border for going abroad. Secondly, those who have prepared the "list" are trying to undermine our constructive criticisms of the undemocratic and anti-people actions of the government by putting us in the list of the political party that they do not like. This is an old tactics of silencing the voices of resistence. We do not belong to any party. We have been critical of the governments in the past as we are today of the present government. To equate the critical opinions of the intellectuals with the voices of the opposition party is a very petty way of suppressing the freedom of speech. This is a conspiracy to undermine our objectivity by creating suspicion and hatracy in the eyes of people against us. We have raised strong voices against the unconstitutional, undemocratic Caretaker government whenever it was necessary. In the same way, we have been critical of the acts of the Four-Party Alliance of government. We are committed to raise the voices in favour of truth and for the people.
We urge upon the journalists, writers, and human rights activists to protest against such restrictions on free movement of people. We request the government to stop the hide and seek game and withdraw the socalled list immediately.
Ataus Samad ( Journalist )
Farhad Mazhar (Journalist )
Send comments to : farahadmazhar@gmail.com
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