Electoral Politics and Human Rights
Both national and local elections have seen a high level of popular participation. But this cannot be the end of the line for genuine participation in national and community development.
Three governments held office during the year: the Awami League government reached the end of its term of office by 15 July, and handed over power to a Caretaker government, whose sole function was to hold elections to the national parliament³. The new four party alliance government that took office on 10 October was led by the Bangladesh National Party, and included the Jamat i Islam and the Islamic Oikkyo Jote (both parties preaching a theocratic state)⁴, along with a faction of the Jatiyo Party (a breakaway from the former dictator General Ershad’s party).
As Bangladesh began the run up to parliamentary elections, citizen’s activism to promote free and fair elections clashed with efforts by political adversaries to assert their rival claims to power. Canvassing for popular support has often been accompanied by attempts to silence voters of rival candidates or to engage in physical combat. As political parties used youth gangs, some armed, to bolster their campaigns, violence became inevitable. Election reports by Fair Election Monitoring Alliance (FEMA) and others identified the use of pre-election threats to intimidate members of minority communities. This built into unprecedented attacks on such communities in many districts, which were not reined in either by the party, whose supporters were alleged to have carried out these attacks, or the Caretaker Government itself. The latter deployed the military to assist in maintaining peace during elections, but casualties in 422 clashes between the two leading parties stood at 103 killed and 1180 injured in 73 days under the Caretaker Government⁵.
The Caretaker Government’s steps to hold peaceful, fair elections included arrests of party cadres in possession of illegal arms, cancellation of firearms issued indiscriminately by the previous government, deployment of armed forces before elections. It also ordered a large-scale transfer of senior and junior government personnel, apparently to reverse the transfers made by its predecessor government. The fact that the Chief Advisor to the Caretaker Government made these transfers within a day of taking office raised concerns within the current opposition about partisan persons being placed in key positions hampering the holding of fair elections⁶.

Scales of Power
Throughout the decade, public concern was expressed with the lack of accountability and transparency of the executive, which led to allegations of corruption and favouritism in allocating loans and contracts. The media also raised questions about election kickbacks and clientelism.The first two chapters outline how power has been consolidated since independence in factional political groups, which permeate all professional bodies. They also show how this process has excluded the poor from access to opportunities and marginalized communities Chapter One identifies how factional interests representing a narrow class have come to dominate the institutions of power and accumulation for their personal advancement in state, community and market transactions. The chapter refers to the consolidation of a clientelist class, from the early days of Bangladesh’s independence, to the emerging links with global politics and trade.
Chapter Two, for the first time in these annual reports, addresses the implication of corruption for human rights. It extends the argument from the first chapter to link the institutionalization of corruption with the pursuit of power and influence, through an analysis of corruption in education, in particular examinations, and employment.
Dominant groups have been less concerned with observance of human rights values and human needs and more with retaining the support of elements that sustain them in power. This has lent itself to the creation of patron-client relations that extend from political leaders down to party ranks, and fan out to the administration, business and professional groups. And in recent times, more visibly to criminal gangs. As a result state institutions have become oriented not to respond to people’s needs but to condone and feed the greed of the powerful few.

Institutional Restraints
The next three chapters look at the role of the judiciary and the media in checking executive excesses, and thus create a space for citizens to challenge wrongs.

Corrective Justice
The higher courts have continued to play a role in interpreting and applying human rights standards in the face of executive actions. Chapter Three has identified and analysed recent court decisions regarding freedom of speech and choice, and given directions to uphold social and economic rights. The Court has been called upon to raise concerns that have far reaching implications for environmental rights as well. Taking a bold initiative the High Court went so far as to give suo motu directions to prevent rulings by religious or village leaders that instigated violence particularly against women. This is now subject to appeal in the Supreme Court. Other precedent setting judgements called attention to state’s constitutional obligations to the right to shelter. Chapter Four explains several judgments that have paved the way for protection of the urban environment, to prevent land grabbing and encroachments on river embankments.
But decisions have varied with individual judges, and this may lead to confusing precedents. Frequently, weak enforcement by the executive or delays in justice have allowed the violators, as in the case of land grabbing to get away with their illegal acts. Long periods of detention imposed upon under-trial prisoners due to slow and lengthy trials could themselves be the cause of violating human rights. For example, a writ filed in 1995 for removing the condition of bar fetters on prisoners is awaiting judgment four years later. Long delays further lead to serious overcrowding in prisons.

Power of the Message
In recent years, investigative reports and editorials in the media have raised citizens’ awareness of corruption scams, smuggling rackets and gang violence, as well as the connection of each of these with the activities of leading political parties. The severity of post election violence by party activists was first highlighted by local correspondents of several newspapers. Indeed, several district reporters had to pay a heavy price for revealing underhand business deals, and became victims of violence by gangs or party cadres, some of whom acted as proxies for business magnates. Even though the print media has taken up different human rights issues, Chapter Four argues that restrictions from both the state and the market affect the neutrality and efficiency of the media. This chapter also provides evidence of how individual reporters can be silenced by political threats and violence or newspapers neutralized by financial dependency of the media.
The state controlled electronic television and radio channels are commonly viewed as government mouthpieces, bereft of creativity and initiative. The start of private TV channels, one terrestrial and two satellite, have been welcomed for their informative programmes, but already they have had to face the heavy hand of censorship.

Power of Representation
Despite constitutional principles of popular participation, representation, in reality, has reflected the rule of those privileged by class, money, religion, ethnicity and gender. The reasons have been attributed to a traditional, inherited system of inequality. But this has been reinforced by a political system that has concentrated power in particular institutions, parties, factions, families or individuals. While parliament or local governments were conceived as offering a space for effective representation, in reality a majoritarian political system has come to represent “an elected authoritarianism.” The nucleus of power has become concentrated in small factions, or groups affiliated by family and political kinship. In the last few decades, this pattern of state formation has tended to divide groups and exclude citizens from meaningful participation. Thus members are nominated by parties and thus elected to parliament not on the call of their constituents but because of their loyalty to the central leadership. Why then should they act in the interests of the common citizens, or consult with their constituents? Amongst the commonly reported failings of the parliament are a frequent lack of quorum, absence of discussion on bills, wastage of time in irrelevant and pejorative exchanges between the two major parties, partisan rulings by the speaker⁷ and frequent walkouts or long, consistent boycotts by the opposition in successive parliaments⁸. These have made the parliament dysfunctional over the years. In the seventh parliament, Standing Committees chaired by members met to discuss bills, but even after almost a year, the present Parliament has yet to form Standing Committees. The Public Accounts Committee in the seventh parliament met 103 times and produced five reports on government expenditure⁹. The Eighth Parliament has yet to appoint a Committee. Parliamentary Committees can only be effective to the extent that they are allowed to be, and it has been reported that recommendations against corruption tend not to be taken seriously by ministries. Not only do they delay their replies to inquiries from the committee, but their implementation procedures also remain opaque.
Legislators are less concerned with the effect of laws upon ordinary citizens than with complying with the wishes of the leadership. This has resulted in the passage of several repressive laws, for which opposition politicians and ordinary citizens have paid a heavy price. Thus, the Special Powers Act 1974, the Suppression of Terrorist Act, 1994 and the Public Safety Act 2000 were adopted by parliament under different regimes, in the limited interest of the executive, in spite of considerable opposition both inside and outside the house.
There is little discussion on bills in the house. In the first two sessions of parliament seventeen bills were passed in approximately ten hours, which is unlikely to have allowed for adequate debate or discussion of their provisions¹⁰. None of these had a bearing on human rights. Neither in this parliament nor in the last were any bills tabled for the creation of a Human Rights Commission. The proposal seems to be revived only when donors draw attention to the implementation of the government’s commitments. Revisions in legislation for the Office of the Ombudsman and the Bureau of Anti-Corruption has again been taken up by the Ministry of Law. Further, the demand for a constitutional amendment for direct election of women to reserved seats was once again placed on the back burner.
The occupational background of the lawmakers, which has changed over the years, indicates where their interests lie. The parliament has throughout been overwhelmingly male (294 men and 6 women) which has not been concerned with legal reform relating to personal rights or to enacting a law against domestic violence¹¹; over the years, traditional politicians who used to obtain support from businessmen to run their election campaigns, seem to have been replaced by the businessmen themselves who contest elections directly. Over 50 per cent of the MPs in the present parliament are businessmen. Retired bureaucrats and military officers form 9.44 per cent of AL membership in parliament, 7.78 per cent of BNP membership and 2.27 per cent of Jatiyo Party membership¹². The power of business lobbies seems evident in parliamentary decisions relating to loan defaults, distribution of land, or subsidies to garment manufacturers¹³.

Civil and Political Rights
Chapters six, seven, eight and nine discuss how law enforcement agencies are used as a means for partisan, vendetta politics, resulting in a serious erosion in the rule of law. Arbitrary law enforcement and the proliferation of a gang culture, today present seemingly insurmountable barriers to achieving Bangladesh’s constitutional goals and are a serious threat to peace and stability for the community.
Chapter Six provides documented evidence of the use of torture and ill treatment by the police and other law enforcement agencies. As in previous years, police have attacked political demonstrations, baton charging senior leaders. They have also been accused of using their powers to coerce ordinary citizens, and failing to act effectively, or at all, when ruling party gangs or followers have violated the law or perpetrated violence. A government order directing joint action by the military, Bangladesh Defence Rifles (BDR) and police to arrest those suspected of being in illegal possession of arms has posed a serious threat to the right to liberty and security. This has led to extreme cases of ill treatment not only of the accused but also of the families of the accused.
Chapter Seven sets out more evidence of the regular use of repressive laws for arbitrary arrests and detention under section 54 of the CrPC 1898 and the Special Powers Act 1974. This has not only resulted in breaches of constitutional guarantees of the right to liberty and security and safeguards on arrest and detention (Articles 31, 32 and 33 of the Constitution) but has seriously undermined the discipline of the law enforcement agencies who have had to answer charges of a partisan and vindictive use of force, of misuse of authority in their dealings with ordinary citizens, and of suspected corruption. The arrest and charges of abetment to suicide filed against a police officer is not an isolated incident. Two years ago a judicial enquiry into the custodial death of a student, (allegedly a member of BNP) and a judicial conviction of four police officers including the commanding officer was preceded by a public uproar. This was obviously not a sufficient deterrent, for in 2001, another young student (a member of the Jubo League was drowned in Kapasia, Eye witnesses reported that police had driven him to jump into the river, whereas the police claimed that he was trying to escape his interrogators! The case is under trial, but such incidents indicate a serious integrity crisis for the police, which needs to be remedied immediately.
Prisoners, whether they are convicts or awaiting trial, have found few to espouse their cause amongst the public¹⁴. As a result conditions in prisons remain unchanged; Chapter Nine reports on overcrowding and scarce facilities in prisons across the country, which have encouraged corruption and converted rights into privileges, to be bought as favours. Remedial measures would include judicial intervention to deal with the large number of under trial prisoners, as well as administrative intervention to relieve overcrowding, and provide basic needs, including health care. The CEDAW Committee’s most recent concluding observations on Bangladesh’s report had recommended that women and children be held separately from other prisoners, and plans are underway to complete a shelter for women and children held in safe custody. In the meantime it is left to legal aid organizations to obtain their release from safe custody and to rehabilitate them as best as possible.

Social and Economic Rights
Chapter Nine raises two pertinent questions for the right to livelihood and workers’ rights; the shrinking of opportunities in industrial work in the context of the global trade environment, and pressures for compliance with legal provisions regarding conditions of work, including health and safety issues.
This chapter raises concerns relating to health and the lax observance of safety regulation; other problems faced by workers include the practice of termination without compensation. In garment factories in particular, non-observance of safety laws has led to death and injury of workers. Following serious accidents in garment factories, the ILO and BGMEA have undertaken joint plans for monitoring fire prevention measures with reports of some improvement in preventing casualties. Garment workers have also complained of sexual harassment and lack of security. It is not only the workers but the manufacturers too who have to bear the price for extortion by gangs.
The rights of migrant workers, the subject matter of Chapter Eleven, are a totally neglected area, as Bangladesh has yet to sign any bilateral treaty with receiving countries for protecting rights of migrant workers. This year, as in earlier years, instances of irregularities in recruitment, employment and sending remittances have deprived workers of fair economic returns and increased their vulnerability to different forms of exploitation. There is a mounting international movement against the global, capitalist model that seeks mobility of capital, fly by night investments and restrictions on labour. Nevertheless, employment for Bangladeshis in export oriented manufacturing and in overseas work is faced with threats by international trade preferences as well as restrictions on migrating labour. Further, during the year migration had declined in numbers, and countries such as Malaysia had stopped new recruitment from Bangladesh.
Chapter Twelve projects the plight of the poor in urban development. Planners have been totally insensitive to the needs of the working population in urban areas, and the Master Plan has not provided for the large numbers in the industrial and service sector or those who are self-employed and sustain middle class life styles. This insensitivity has allowed the administration to use forcible and illegal means to evict large numbers of slum dwellers. Urban development demonstrates gross inequalities in housing, as luxury apartments spread all over the city, swallowing natural ponds and parks, whereas small spaces inhabited by garment or transport workers amongst others, are being rolled away by the ubiquitous bulldozers. From this chapter we also learn of citizens’ initiatives in projecting plans for housing the working poor. These plans require a creative mix of financial investment, public land distribution and social engineering, but the question remains whether those in power are concerned with ensuring basic needs for shelter.

Women’s Rights
With elections ahead, sections of the women’s movement were concerned with ensuring women’s representation in parliament and exercising their rights in local government. In addition they expressed their deep disturbance with the persistence of gender-based violence and its implications for exercise of women’s rights in the personal and public spheres. Chapter Thirteen analyses why women have again been left behind in the quest for political participation and its implications for women's rights.

Minority Rights
The World Conference against Racism, held in Durban in 2001, provided an opportunity for international advocacy around issues of racial discrimination. Bangladesh participated in the preparations for this Conference and made further commitments at the Conference to protection of the right to non-discrimination on the grounds of race and religion. Within the country, however, the situation remained largely unchanged in Chittagong Hill Tracts where an agreement signed with the Chakmas in 1997 remained substantially unimplemented. The Land Settlement Commission did not start its work, military camps were not withdrawn and reports of arbitrary arrests of Chakmas continued, leading to inter-communal conflicts and heightened tensions.
Land grabbing and violence against women were issues for other communities as well, as told in Chapter Fourteen. Appropriation of communal land used traditionally by the Khasia community for an Eco park in Sylhet was one issue which catalysed a public response.
Faced with threats of eviction and other forms of violence minority communities had no one to turn to except the courts, and even this did not act as a deterrent with the police and political leaders providing impunity to the gangs. Such a case was taken up in Natore, but hearings are pending in writ petition no 176/2000.
What began for religious minorities as a possible deprivation of the right to vote in 2001, graduated into violence against bodily integrity, rape of women, attacks on temples and idols, resulting in breaches of the right to freedom of religion, and of liberty and security. As tensions heightened just prior to the elections, gangs threatened Hindu voters, particularly women, to stay away from the polls. Two days after the victors were announced, gangs in numerous places carried out attacks against the most vulnerable sections of the community. Neither the elected representatives (members-elect of the parliament and local union porishod members) nor law enforcement agencies stepped in to prosecute or prevent such violations. ASK filed a writ petition challenging the state’s failure to take action in such cases. The High Court asked the government to explain why it had not taken preventive action, to which the latter had not given a reply until the end of the year.
The media too raised questions as to why the Caretaker Government, which was in office uptil 10 October, evaded its responsibility in heeding warning signals; why the BNP and its allies, after their massive victory in the polls, failed to rein in their gangs who committed brutal acts of violence against many vulnerable Hindus; and finally as to why the police failed to register cases on the plea, or did nothing to maintain peace on the grounds that they had no orders from above or no cases were registered with them. These events have far reaching consequences for social harmony, and reflect on the consequences of vendetta politics, impunity of gangs and their links with partisan law enforcement. They also demand serious reflection on the nature of the state, meaning of a community and its implications for rights of the minorities.

The Path to Change
Bangladesh now faces a two fold challenge: For make state institutions work for citizens; and for political society to nurture respect for human rights and provide space for dissent. These are high expectations from those who have acquired privileges precisely by violating these norms. But in the expectation that popular voices will eventually carry the day, several practical suggestions have been made by civil society groups for reforms in the political system and public institutions.
A more deliberate nurturing of human rights values is possible only through sustained popular education, exemplary leadership responses or citizens’ activism. To make this possible is the burden of an active citizenry.
Democratisation and financial accountability of political parties, repeal of Article 70 which makes for dependency upon the leader in parliament, periodical elections within the party and political education of cadres rather than the protection of armed gangs are some of the prescriptions made at public symposiums¹⁵. A more effective Election Commission and representative parliament have been raised in many forums. It is ironical that a party that wins 40 per cent of votes or even less can dictate its decisions to the vast majority. Proposals for redistribution of power to local governments is seen as making public representatives more accessible. For this to happen citizens will have to ensure that the local government¹⁶ system does not simulate the elitist power structure at the top, because local groups can become even more authoritarian and conservative without proper checks and balances. The administration remains a closed fortress, making itself visible through policies and plans that do not reflect the state's constitutional obligations, and issuing orders and directives that are in violation of fundamental freedoms and human rights. Accountability has become a common buzzword, but from the citizens' perspective it would mean access to public information, space for consultation and questioning. Effective law enforcement, a disciplined and non-partisan machinery for law enforcement have become major concerns, and demand both institutional intervention and political action, to curb political patronage as well as the private agendas of the agencies. The Rubel Enquiry Commission into police irregularities under section 54 had made several useful recommendations, but these have yet to see the light of day. These changes require a change of political will amongst those who benefit from the present system, and will not be forthcoming without a strong, public demand. A more deliberate nurturing of human rights values is possible only through sustained popular education, exemplary leadership responses and citizens' activism. To make this possible is the burden of an active citizenry.

References
FEMA, Observation Report on Bangladesh Parliamentary Elections, October 01, 2001, Dhaka, 2002.
Making Rights Real, IDS Bulletin, No 2, Vol. 23, April, 2002.
Sobhan, R. From Confrontational Politics to Sustainable Democracy.
Taming Leviathan, Reforming Governance in Bangladesh, The World Bank, Washington DC, March 2002
TIB, Parliamentary Watch, mimeo, YEAR.
TIB, Standing Committee on Public Accounts, mimeo ....YEAR.
UNDP, Human Development Report 2002, New York, 2002.

Notes
* Hameeda Hossain is Director Research at ASK.