Bangladesh has reacted to a statement issued by the three UN experts on the human rights situation following the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) on November 13.
The government expects the Special Rapporteurs (SRs) to remain “neutral and objective” in carrying out their mandates as per the code of conduct.
“Regrettably, this was not the case with the SRs who came up with such negative observations totally denying the sincere will and efforts of the Bangladesh government to improve its human rights situation,” the foreign ministry said.
There were 14 states that underwent UPR examination in the just concluded session of the Working Group on UPR in November.
“It is interesting to note that the SRs chose to issue a statement only on Bangladesh where again they remained silent on innumerable improvements as were appreciated by majority of the participating delegations in this peer review,” the foreign ministry said.
“By doing so, they dishonoured their UN credentials as SR. They also misused the media centre of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights to propagate their personal and biased views to reach a wider audience.”
Earlier, on November 14, three UN SRs, also known as the experts, namely Irene Khan, Clement Nyaletsossi Voule, and Mary Lawlor, issued a statement published by the OHCHR on November 14 in its website entitled “UN Experts urge Bangladesh to seize Human Rights Council review as opportunity to address deteriorating human rights situation”.
The press release “compels the government to raise questions about the motive and content of the observations” made by them. The timing of the press note containing the remarks of the SRs as well as their possible intentions is “intriguing”.
One of the three SRs is from Bangladesh and has recently been showing an unprecedented level of enthusiasm in making critical observations while she maintains relative silence on other countries, the foreign ministry said, indicating Irene Khan, who according to information minister Hasan Mahmud is a close relative of BNP’s acting chairman Tarique Rahman (wife’s cousin).
“By being so partial, biased, subjective and disproportionately focused, the SRs run the risk of losing their credibility and acceptance,” the foreign ministry said.
“The government of Bangladesh would like to underline the importance it attaches to the role of special procedure mandate holders towards a well-functioning human rights mechanism.
“While it hopes that the SRs would remain faithful to their mandates, it expects the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights to provide support to them to objectively fulfill their mandates and to remain careful of not being used as a platform of their subjective pronouncements,” the government said.
Bangladesh received an overwhelming majority of countries’ appreciation during the UPR.
The government of Bangladesh has welcomed the recommendations made by the Member States of the UN during the UPR in a constructive spirit.
“The SRs have in a way undermined the recommendations and observations of the Member States by making negative assessments of the same issues instantly after the UPR.”
“It seems that the SRs were influenced by a desire to malign the government with false and fabricated information on the human rights situation of the country. Their one-sided observations appear as ill-intentioned particularly in the context of the Government’s active engagement with them,” the foreign ministry said.
The content of the press note of the SRs is largely allegations against the Government on the human rights situation of Bangladesh particularly on the current labour unrest, political violence, and other individual cases such as those of Prof Mohammad Yunus, Adilur Rahman Khan and Rozina Islam.
“Bangladesh is a sovereign country where rule of law prevails. Accordingly, the three cases are being dealt with by law courts of the independent judiciary where the government has no scope of intervention.
“Specifically, regarding the case of Prof Muhammad Yunus, it needs to be mentioned that the case against Dr Yunus is depriving the workers of a company owned by him of their rightful share of profit. So it is surprising that the SRs are talking of the government violating human rights when the government is actually protecting labour and human rights,” read the statement.
“Moreover, in the UPR session, while reiterating the government’s steadfast commitment to promote and protect human rights in the country, most of the issues raised by the SRs were clarified by the Bangladesh delegation.
“Emphasizing that implementation of the human rights agenda is a work in progress, Bangladesh also assured the Human Rights Council that it would continue making efforts to implement the recommendations made by different countries.
“Therefore, the government fails to understand what necessitated the issuance of such remarks by the SRs so hurriedly without allowing the Government any time to reflect on the recommendations made during the UPR.
“The government finds the conduct of the SRs totally incongruent with their respective mandates and selective. The SRs are part of the special procedures of the Human Rights Council who act independently. However, it is expected that they would use their mandates to report and advise on human rights to support governments in realizing their human rights goals,” the foreign ministry said.
