Foreign ministry replies to criticisms of ICT trials
The un body�s
concern smacked of siding with the sentenced criminals for crimes against humanity committed by them in 1971 but said nothing about the truculently violated human rights of the victims of such crimes or the rights of the victims and family members to get justice
Our Foreign Ministry issued a prompt statement on Thursday exposing the grass unfairness of the statement that the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNOHCHR) issued in relation to Bangladesh two days ago. The statement from UNOHCHR had called on Bangladesh to immediately institute a moratorium on the death penalty and abolish this inhuman practice altogether.
We would have found nothing wrong with this statement if it came in the form of a suggestion and couched in acceptable diplomatic verbiage. As it is, the statement reads like a rude dictate to a UN member state on what it should do within its territories caring a fig about its national jurisdiction. The rebuttal from our foreign ministry underscored that the UN bodys concern smacked of siding with the sentenced criminals for crimes against humanity committed by them in 1971 but said nothing about the truculently violated human rights of the victims of such crimes or the rights of the victims and their family members to get justice.
Why Bangladesh has been singled out for such affront in respect of an issue that falls singularly within the realm of its internal matters, is a big unknown. The reality is the majority of countries are yet to abolish the death penalty. According to an estimate of Amnesty International (AI), some 60 countries out of 140 are yet to get rid of capital punishment or execution. In India, considered as the worlds biggest democracy, capital punishment is very much in force. In USA that claims that it leads the world in all fields, especially in civilisation, the death penalty remains very much a part of the legal system in 31 out of 50 federating states of the union signifying its prevalence in the majority of the states. 35 inmates of jails were executed in the USA during 2014.
Surely, there are also some countries that have completely prohibited the giving of death sentences. It could be that some more are on the way to doing the same. But the present reality is the death sentence remains a part of life in many countries which hold the preponderant number of people inhabiting this planet. Therefore, it is high-handed behaviour on the part of any quarter to draw international comparisons and try to establish an image of Bangladesh as a country with particularly savage instincts.
