European Parliament delegation set to visit Bangladesh

A European Parliament delegation is coming to Dhaka to discuss Bangladesh’s politics, freedom of expression, and labour and human rights issues with politicians, business leaders, NGOs, and media.

Led by the Chair of the European Parliament Delegation to South Asia Jean Lambert, the four-strong team will arrive early on Wednesday.
 
Vice-Chair of the Delegation to South Asia Richard Howitt of UK Labour Party, Member Ivan Štefanec from the Christian Democrats, and Committee on International Trade’s Sajjad Karim of the UK’s Conservative Party are the other members.
 
In the morning, they will meet Commerce Minister Tofail Ahmed at the Secretariat, his ministry says.
 
This is part of their annual tour to countries that receive the EU aid, officials at the foreign ministry said.
 
Such a delegation led by Lambert last visited Bangladesh in December, 2014.
 
In November last year, the European Parliament adopted a resolution on the state of freedom of expression in Bangladesh and called upon the government to re-open all media houses that have been closed down.
 
The resolution also condemned the increasing attacks by Islamist extremists on secularist writers, bloggers, religious minorities, and foreign aid workers in Bangladesh.
 
The MEPs also expressed their concern at the “growing restrictions on freedom of expression which have accompanied the rise of religious fundamentalism, intolerance and extremist violence in the country”.
 
Lambert in October last year, in a letter to the Bangladesh ambassador in Brussels, urged the government to review the death sentence of war criminal Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujahid.
 
Mujahid was hanged for his crimes against humanity in 1971 War of Independence.
 
The delegation is expected to meet Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, among others.