Bangladesh has formally protested remarks made by the spokesperson of the Pakistan Foreign Ministry concerning the execution of Salauddin Quader Chowdhury and Ali Ahsan Muhammad Mujahid, both convicted of crimes against humanity and genocide in Bangladesh.
The High Commissioner of Pakistan to Bangladesh Shuja Alam was summoned to the Foreign Ministry on Monday where Acting Foreign Secretary Mizanur Rahman handed him the note verbale.
This is not the first time that Pakistan has commented on the work of Bangladeshi courts.
After the execution of convicted war criminal, Abdul Qader Molla in 2013, the Pakistani parliament adopted a condemnatory resolution.
That unprecedented action was met with protests by the public and a government aide memoir to Pakistan.
Monday’s note verbale to the Pakistani government read: “The unsolicited comments are nothing less than brazen interference in the internal affairs of a sovereign country, which is unacceptable.”
The Bangladesh government response continued: “By openly taking the side of those convicted of crimes against humanity and genocide, Pakistan has once again acknowledged its direct involvement and complicity with the mass atrocity crimes committed during Bangladesh’s Liberation War in 1971.
“The government of Bangladesh deeply regrets that despite Bangladesh’s repeated overtures, the malicious campaign by Pakistan against the trials of the crimes against humanity and genocide in Bangladesh is continuing. This does not augur well for the friendly bilateral relations between Bangladesh and Pakistan enjoyed over the decades.
“This perhaps more than explains why the dominant narrative in Pakistan has not only been on a denial mode about the war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide in Bangladesh, but has also maintained its unrelenting opposition to Bangladesh’s efforts to ensure justice and break the culture of impunity for the crimes committed forty four years ago.”
Bangladesh has consistently advocated for regional peace.
The note verbale reiterated that the war criminals were granted all rights available to a defendant.
“The entire judicial process took place in a transparent fashion in an open Court, and in pursuance of the relevant provision of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the Rome Statute on the International Criminal Court (ICC).”
It said trials took solely into consideration crimes committed and had not their political identity or affiliation.
“The [Pakistan] spokesperson’s remarks refer to Salauddin Quader Chowhdury as a ‘leader’ of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, an affiliation he certainly did not have in 1971 since the party itself was not in existence at the time,” it said.
“The spokesperson does not mention the political affiliation of Ali Ahsan Muhammad Mujahid, but for the people of Bangladesh what matters is that he was the president of Islami Chhatra Sangha and also the leader of the infamous al-Badr militia force in 1971,” the note verbale added.
The Bangladesh government condemned what it called Pakistan’s decision “to echo certain vested quarters to call the proceedings of the ICT-BD and the subsequent appeals at the highest court of the land as ‘flawed trials.’”
Dhaka reiterated that “biased, borrowed and unfounded comments about the independent judiciary of a sovereign country” were not acceptable behaviour.
“It is unfortunate that while the international community across the board has embraced the trials as an effort to end the culture of impunity, Pakistan is still resorting to sweeping, biased and unfounded comments about the trials,” the note verbale said.
