{"id":478610,"date":"2022-01-20T07:40:59","date_gmt":"2022-01-20T07:40:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.forum-asia.org\/?p=36361"},"modified":"2022-01-20T07:40:59","modified_gmt":"2022-01-20T07:40:59","slug":"joint-statement-bangladesh-un-ban-abusive-bangladesh-unit-from-peacekeeping-role-of-rapid-action-battalion-should-be-reviewed-following-us-sanctions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2022\/01\/20\/joint-statement-bangladesh-un-ban-abusive-bangladesh-unit-from-peacekeeping-role-of-rapid-action-battalion-should-be-reviewed-following-us-sanctions\/","title":{"rendered":"[Joint Statement] Bangladesh: UN: Ban Abusive Bangladesh Unit from Peacekeeping \u2013 Role of Rapid Action Battalion Should Be Reviewed Following US Sanctions"},"content":{"rendered":"

(New York, January 20, 2022) \u2013 The United Nations<\/a> Department of Peace Operations should ban Bangladesh\u2019s<\/a> notoriously abusive paramilitary Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) from UN deployment, 12 organizations said in a letter<\/a> to Under Secretary General Jean-Pierre Lacroix, made public today.<\/p>\n

Human rights organizations have documented<\/a> widespread<\/a> RAB abuses<\/a>. UN human rights experts have also voiced<\/a> concerns<\/a> about allegations that members of the unit engaged in torture, enforced disappearances, and other human rights violations.<\/p>\n

The Department of Peacekeeping Operations has yet to provide a formal response to the letter which was sent privately over two months ago on November 8, 2021.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf Secretary General Guterres is serious about ending human rights abuses by UN peacekeepers, he will ensure that units with proven records of abuse like the Rapid Action Battalion are excluded from deployment,\u201d said Kerry Kennedy<\/a>, president of Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights. \u201cThe evidence is clear; now it\u2019s time for the UN to draw a line.\u201d<\/p>\n

On December 10, the United States<\/a> government designated RAB<\/a> as a \u201cforeign entity that is responsible for or complicit in, or has directly or indirectly engaged in, serious human rights abuse,\u201d under the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act.<\/p>\n

Instead of taking steps toward reform, the Bangladesh government has responded to the announcement of US sanctions with denials<\/a> and retaliation against victims\u2019 families and human rights defenders. Families of victims of enforced disappearance report that<\/a> officers are showing up at their homes, threatening them, and forcing them to sign false statements that their family-member was not forcibly disappeared and that they had intentionally misled the police.<\/p>\n

On December 5, the UN Working Group on Enforced and Involuntary Disappearances voiced concerns<\/a> that \u201cmembers of the RAB would be eligible to participate in UN peacekeeping operations, without any previous investigation into their alleged involvement in the commission of human rights abuses or a thorough vetting process.\u201d The Working Group also said that officers involved in, or willing to tolerate, abuses \u201cappear to be promoted and rewarded within the Bangladesh security and law enforcement forces.\u201d<\/p>\n

In March 2021, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet said<\/a> that \u201c[a]llegations of torture and ill-treatment by the Rapid Action Battalion have been a long-standing concern.\u201d In its concluding observations<\/a> during Bangladesh\u2019s 2019 review of its obligations under the Convention against Torture, the Committee against Torture stated that it is \u201cconcerned at reports that personnel that have served with the Rapid Action Battalion have frequently been deployed for service with United Nations peace missions.\u201d<\/p>\n

The UN Committee against Torture recommended<\/a> that the Bangladesh government \u201cestablish an independent vetting procedure, with appropriate UN guidance, for all military and police personnel proposed for deployment in UN peace missions and ensure that no person or unit implicated in the commission of torture, extrajudicial killing, disappearances or other serious human rights violations is selected for service.\u201d<\/p>\n

The United States also sanctioned seven current or former officials of the Rapid Action Battalion, including the country\u2019s police chief, Benazir Ahmed, who has a long history of employment with the UN.<\/a> Ahmed served as director general of the RAB from 2015 to 2019 \u2013 a period when there were 136 reported extrajudicial executions<\/a> and 10 enforced disappearances<\/a>, allegedly by officers under his command. During this time, former UN Under Secretary-General Herve Ladsous appointed him<\/a> as an expert member of an independent review team for an \u201cExternal Review of the Functions, Structure, and Capacity of the UN Police Division.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a television interview<\/a>, Ahmed said the US sanctions were based on \u201cfalse and fabricated lies\u201d adding that people calling for a ban on RAB from UN peacekeeping are \u201ctrying to embarrass our government and our country.\u201d In response to the announcement of US sanctions, RAB deputy chief KM Azad said<\/a>, \u201cIf bringing down a criminal under the law is a violation of human rights, then we have no objection to violating this human rights in the interest of the country.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe deployment of members of the RAB in peacekeeping operations reinforces a message that grave human rights abuses will not preclude one from service under the UN flag and increases the chances of human rights abuses being committed in UN missions,\u201d said Louis Charbonneau<\/a>, United Nations director at Human Rights Watch. \u201cThe UN should send a clear signal to host and troop-contributing countries that abusive units will not be part of the UN.\u201d<\/p>\n

The organizations that signed the letter are:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Amnesty International<\/li>\n
  2. Asian Federation Against Involuntary Disappearances (AFAD)<\/li>\n
  3. Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development (FORUM-ASIA)<\/li>\n
  4. Asian Human Rights Commission<\/li>\n
  5. Asian Network for Free Elections (ANFREL)<\/li>\n
  6. Capital Punishment Justice Project<\/li>\n
  7. CIVICUS: World Alliance for Citizen Participation<\/li>\n
  8. Human Rights Watch<\/li>\n
  9. International Federation for Human Rights<\/li>\n
  10. Robert F. Kennedy for Human Rights<\/li>\n
  11. The Advocates for Human Rights<\/li>\n
  12. World Organization Against Torture\n

    For more Human Rights Watch reporting on Bangladesh, please visit:<\/strong>
    \n    https:\/\/www.hrw.org\/asia\/bangladesh<\/a><\/p>\n

    For more information, please contact:
    \n<\/strong>For Human Rights Watch, in San Francisco, Brad Adams (English): +1-347-463-3531 (mobile); or     adamsb@hrw.org<\/a>. Twitter: @BradMAdams
    \n<\/strong>For Human Rights Watch, in London, Meenakshi Ganguly (English, Bengali, Hindi): +91-9820-036032 (mobile); or     gangulm@hrw.org<\/a>. Twitter: @mg2411
    \nFor Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights, in Washington, D.C., Angelita Baeyens (English, French, Spanish):     baeyens@rfkhumanrights.org<\/a>. Twitter: @AngelitaBaeyens
    \nFor Asian Human Rights Commission, in Hong Kong, Mohammad Ashrafuzzaman (Bangla, English): +852-6073-2807 (mobile); or     zaman@ahrc.asia<\/a>. Twitter: @ZamanAshraf<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    For Amnesty International, Smriti Singh (English and Hindi): smriti.singh@amnesty.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n

    This post was originally published on FORUM-ASIA<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    (New York, January 20, 2022) \u2013 The United Nations Department of Peace Operations should ban Bangladesh\u2019s notoriously abusive paramilitary Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) from UN deployment, 12 organizations said in a letter to Under Secretary General Jean-Pierre Lacroix, made public today. Human rights organizations have documented widespread RAB abuses. UN human rights experts have also [ Read more ]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":492,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,1519,2093],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478610"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/492"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=478610"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478610\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":478611,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478610\/revisions\/478611"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=478610"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=478610"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=478610"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}