US criticises Bangladesh for ‘lopsided’ elections in human rights report

The 11th parliamentary elections in Bangladesh were “improbably lopsided” and “not considered free and fair”, the US has said in a report.

The US state department’s human rights report of 2018 has criticised the government for taking “few measures” to investigate and prosecute cases of abuse and killing by law enforcers. The report released on Wednesday in Washington chronicled incidents of alleged human rights violation throughout the year.

During the campaign leading up to the election, there were “credible reports” of harassment, intimidation, arbitrary arrests, and violence that “made it difficult for many opposition candidates and their supporters to meet, hold rallies, and campaign freely”, the state department said.

International election monitors were “not issued accreditation and visas within the timeframe necessary to conduct a credible international monitoring mission”, it said.

Only seven of the 22 Election Working Group NGOs were approved to conduct domestic election observation, according to the report.

The ”improbably lopsided” Dec 30 election was “not considered free and fair, and was marred by reported irregularities, including ballot-box stuffing and intimidation of opposition polling agents and voters”, it said.

The alleged election irregularities mentioned in the report included ballot-box stuffing and intimidation of opposition polling agents and voters.

Citing reports by Human Rights Support Society or HRSS and rights group Odhikar, the state department said law enforcement agencies killed more than 400 individuals in crossfire incidents from January through September.

Human rights groups and media reported disappearances while kidnappings continued, “committed mostly by security services”, according to the report.

“The government made limited efforts to prevent or investigate such acts,” it said.

During the August student traffic protests, the government blocked internet connections to limit the ability of the protesters to organise, the US state department said.

“Television stations reported that they were “asked” by government officials not to broadcast reports of the students on the streets,” it said.

The government “limited or restricted freedoms of peaceful assembly and association”, the report said.

The US state department mentioned the unexplained outage bdnews24.com suffered on Jun 18 last year under the freedom of expression chapter of the report.

The annual report chronicled violence, repression and cruelty around the world, under a mandate set by the US Congress in foreign aid and trade laws.

The human rights issues mentioned in the report included unlawful or arbitrary killings; forced disappearance; torture; arbitrary or unlawful detentions by the government or on its behalf; harsh and life-threatening prison conditions; political prisoners; arbitrary or unlawful interference with privacy; censorship, site blocking, and criminal libel.

Those also included substantial interference with the rights of peaceful assembly and freedom of association, such as overly restrictive nongovernmental organisations or NGO laws and restrictions on the activities of NGOs; significant restrictions on freedom of movement; restrictions on political participation, where elections have not been found to be genuine, free, or fair; corruption; and trafficking in persons.

Besides violence against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) people and criminalisation of same-sex sexual activity; restrictions on independent trade unions, workers’ rights, and use of the worst forms of child labour were also included in the human rights report.