Inu rejects US State Department report on Bangladesh human rights

Information Minister Hasanul Haq Inu has rejected the US State Department report on Bangladesh human rights. The minister termed the report one-sided, unethical, baseless, and fictitious in an instant reaction while speaking to reporters at his office on Sunday. “We reject the report as it was prepared without taking opinion, especially from the information, law and home ministries,” he said. The report was published based on information taken from two private NGOs, Odhikar and Ain o Salish Kendra (ASK). Inu said: “Odikhar’s information said thousands of people died in Shapla Chattar but they failed to provide the government with proper information supporting their claim that show they are from a reliable source.” “ASK said last year 162 people died in extra-judicial killings, whereas Odhikar’s report shows 118 such killings took place,” Inu added. “Both these two organizations have inconsistencies between their reports, and based on them on April 20, the US State Department gave their report, which we completely reject,” Inu further added. “Things said about Former Chief Justice SK Sinha in the report are not correct. He himself was responsible for the controversies and for that he resigned.” Inu said. “In the report, Jamat is mentioned as an NGO, which it is not, and it also lost its registration with the Election Commission. They are also very much active in politics,” said Inu. “Bangladeshi judges take bribe, which is a very baseless comment,” Inu also said. The US State Department report said, in 2017 the most talked about matters of Bangladesh were extra judicial killings done by the law enforcement agencies,  torture, illegal detention and restrictions on privacy. The minister said government does not support extra judicial killing, therefore those involved in such killing will not be spared. On the matter of freedom of press and NGOs, Inu said: “There are many political parties, human rights organizations, more than two thousand NGOs and independent news organizations in the country. There has never been any kind of clash between the government and online news agencies.” On the matter of child marriage, the minister said: “A law is already implemented in the country to bar marriage of girls under 18 years old.”