Three international human rights watchdogs urged the government of Bangladesh to immediately drop criminal charges against Odhikar Secretary Adilur Rahman Khan and Director AKM Nasiruddin Elan, in a joint statement issued from New York on Wednesday.
The rights bodies - Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the International Commission of Jurists also made a call to end harassment of Odhikar personnel both in the capital and around the country.
“Bangladeshi authorities should immediately drop criminal charges against two senior members of the leading human rights organisation, Odhikar, and end the surveillance and harassment of its workers both in Dhaka and around the country,” the statement said.
They called upon the international community to voice out and press the government of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to end harassment and intimidation towards workers of Odhikar, a Bangladesh based human rights watchdog.
“With the politically motivated witch-hunt of Odhikar, Bangladeshi authorities are essentially shooting the messenger and saying that its security forces are above the law,” said Polly Truscott, director of Amnesty International’s South Asia division.
Adilur Rahman Khan and Nasiruddin Elan were charged under section 57 of the Information and Technology (ICT) Act for publishing a report on violence and fatalities at the hands of government forces during a protest of Islamist group Hefazat-e-Islam on May 5-6 in the capital last year.
In the report published in June they alleged that 61 people were killed in the overnight protest, a figure that the government strongly denies.
Khan was arrested on August 11 and detained for 62 days before the High Court overruled the lower court and granted him bail. Elan was initially denied bail during his first appearance in the court on November 6.
However, they have both been released on bail, pending a hearing on 22 January, 2014.
Police also raided Odhikar offices, confiscating computers and other materials
Through investigation into the demonstration held on May 5-6, 2013, Human Rights Watch found at least 50 dead and more than 2,000 injured.
Security forces confronted tens of thousands of protesters. While some police appeared to disperse the crowd adhere to the international standards, in many cases their use of force was unlawful, stated the investigation report.
“Democracies should not attempt to shut down criticism by locking up human rights activists,” said Brad Adams, executive director of Human Rights Watch’s Asia Division.
He further said: “Dropping these charges and accepting the rights of civil society to function would go a long way to establishing proper dialogue between all sides in Bangladesh’s fractured political space.”
