Human Rights Watch a 'hired mouthpiece', says AL publicity secretary

The Human Rights Watch or HRW is a biased organisation that voices concerns on behalf of a certain group in Bangladesh, an Awami League leader has claimed.

The UK-based rights group came under heavy criticism from Hasan Mahmud, the ruling party's publicity secretary, over its report on secret detentions in Bangladesh.

The HRW's report reflects the current concerns of BNP chief Khaleda Zia and Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, said Mahmud.

"They were silent when hundreds of people were burnt to death using crude bombs," he said, referring to the non-stop blockades enforced by BNP-led 14-party alliance in 2015.

At least 90 people have been made victims of enforced disappearance in 2016 alone, claimed the HRW report released on Thursday. In the first five months of 2017, 48 disappearances were reported, the group said in its 82-page report.  

While most of these victims were produced in court after weeks or months of secret detention, there were 21 cases of detainees being killed, and nine whose whereabouts are still not known, the report said.

"Some specific groups and parties hire HRW only to harass the government. We reject this one-sided, baseless report," said Mahmud.

He was addressing a press conference in Chittagong arranged in reaction to the report of HRW.

It also called on UNESCO to relax its resistance against construction of a coal-based power plant at Rampal near Sundarbans.

Citing HRW's silence on murder and abduction of Awami League leaders between 2001 and 2006, Mahmud said HRW was using information from Dhaka-based British journalist David Bergman for its smear campaign against Bangladesh.

"Every year, UK security forces kill thousands of people; 700 were killed in the first six months this year.

"They keep quiet about the torture that is unleashed on inmates at infamous Guantanamo Bay detention camp, the genocide that Israel has carried out in Palestine. But they are concerned about the human rights of war criminals."

Founded in 1978, HRW has been criticised for taking huge donations from Saudi Arabia and has since then been popular among Islamist groups, claimed the Awami League leader.