Extrajudicial killings and torture by law enforcement agencies have become widespread in Bangladesh due to a culture of impunity, according to Kerry Kennedy, a leading international human rights activist.
“Extrajudicial killings and torture are endemic,” Kerry Kennedy, president of US-based Robert F Kennedy Centre For Justice and Human Rights, said in an interview with the Dhaka Tribune yesterday.
“Pretrial detention, too, cannot go on as it is inhuman and horrific,” she added.
Kerry remarked that a culture of impunity develops when too much power was delegated to a law enforcement agency.
“I will not blame Bangladesh for everything. There are many human rights violation in my own country and anywhere across the world,” she said.
Kerry, a member of the famous Kennedy family in the United States, arrived in Dhaka on Saturday at the invitation of Noble Laureate Muhammad Yunus for the opening ceremony of “Social Business Day”.
During the interview at a city hotel, Kerry also recalled her late uncle, Edward M Kennedy, who was a great supporter of Bangladesh’s 1971 Liberation War.
“He supported the move to stop genocide committed against the Bengali people in 1971 by the Pakistani army, and said the United States should be on the side of the freedom of people,” she said.
Kerry said she had heard from her brother, Joe Kennedy, about the euphoria at the time, with the possibility of creating a new nation _ a place free from oppression where people would get justice amid a democratic system.
Kerry, a lawyer and a writer, also visited several victims of the Rana Plaza disaster during her brief visit.
She said governments, banks, apparel-makers and buyers needed to discharge a collective responsibility to ensure proper compensation for workers, as well as decent working conditions.
“We need to make sure that people (working in textile factories) here are treated with humanity,” she said.
“The US has partial responsibility not only to the victims and the disabled, it also has responsibility towards tens of thousands of apparel industry workers,” Kerry said.
The buyers should not be happy with “only getting cheaper shirts made by persons working in unbearable and inhuman conditions.” she added.
“Banks need to see if companies are behaving according to the international human rights convention and ILO provisions and regulations,” Kerry said.
“Responsibility of the consumers is to make sure that the brands are (getting supplies from) fully compliant factories,” she said, adding, “Responsibility of the government is that the companies follow the regulations.”
Referring to her discussion with the chief executives of several leading non-governmental organisations, Kerry said: “Working space for NGOs is shrinking…Nobody is safe if you go on the wrong side of the administration.”
She said a new law to regulate NGOs was of particular concern as it would restrict their role in Bangladesh.
In reply to a question on her country’s role in deteriorating human rights by imposing war or war-like situations on other countries, such as Iraq, Kerry blamed the former US administration led by George W Bush and Dick Cheney.
“The allegation brought against Iraq on holding weapons of mass destruction and nuclear weapons were untrue,” she observed.
She also criticised another former US president, Richard Nixon, and his secretary of state, Henry Kissinger, for supporting the genocide committed by the Pakistani army in Bangladesh in 1971.
“They tried to protect an oppressive government (in 1971),” she said.
Commenting on Kissinger’s infamous statement describing Bangladesh as an international “bottomless basket case”, Kerry said: “Kissinger is not a human being.”