E-Bangladesh

At the time when the Military backed Caretaker Government and their obedient media are continuing ‘the war against corruption’, a letter about the corruption of an Army personnel has been circulating places. May be the writer(s) thought that it would be really appropriate to send the letter to the very people who tuned up their dreamy vocal against the corruption. So the writer(s) addressed it to the army chief General Moyeen U Ahmed and sent some copies to the Chief Advisor’s Office, The Chairman of the ACC, the DGFI etc. A copy was sent to the national daily ‘Prothom Alo’ too, who claim to be leading the citizen’s movement against the corruption and act as the spokesman of TIB lead by Dr. Mozaffar Ahmed and Dr. Iftekharuzzaman. But may be the sender(s) didn’t want to risk the letter to be sent under the carpet. So the anonymous writer sent a copy to Dr. Anwar Hossain too.

No wonder that the ‘Prothom Alo’, which is publicly established as ‘the parliament’ of this military-backed Government, killed the letter and labelled it red to uphold their so called credibility just to regulate their corporate interests for the time ahead.

But ‘unfortunately’ the letter and the scandal are now flying in the open. Because Dr. Anwar Hossain published it on 28 July in Chittagong while giving a speech to the general people and freedom fighters who gathered to form a human chain in front of the Shaheed Minar demanding the trial of the war-criminals of 1971. It was organized by ‘Ekatturer Ghatok-Dalal Nirmul Committee, Chittagong. The human-chain was a memorable event, because freedom fighter Sheikh Mohammad Ali Aman, who was recently assaulted by the followers of the collaborators of the liberation war for telling the truth about their activities, had participated.

[Speech of Dr. Anwar]

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A report from AFTENPOSTEN by Nina Berglund.

 A Danish TV documentary has revealed miserable working conditions and environmental violations at companies in Bangladesh that act as suppliers to GrameenPhone, which is co-owned by Norwegian telecoms firm Telenor and firms founded by Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus.

The documentary shows miserable working conditions at several firms supplying Telenor-owned GrameenPhone. Hard-hats were donned when Telenor came to inspect. PHOTO: TELENOR Telenor’s Baksaas with Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus. Together, they own GrameenPhone, although Yunus has wanted Telenor to reduce its stake. PHOTO: TELENOR

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It’s an embarrassing labour scandal for Telenor, which itself is majority-owned by the government of Norway, a country that prides itself on championing fair labour conditions and human rights.

It also reflects poorly on Grameen Telecom and Grameen Bank, which own 38 percent of GrameenPhone (Telenor has 62 percent) and which were founded by Peace Prize-winner Yunus not least to help lift people in Bangladesh out of abject poverty through the micro-credit system.

The documentary, made by Danish journalist Tom Heinemann and to be aired on Norwegian Broadcasting (NRK) Thursday evening, reveals shocking working conditions at the firms supplying GrameenPhone. Employees were shown working with hazardous chemicals and heavy metals virtually without protection. Workers were as young as 13 years, a clear violation of child labour laws. The firms were caught allowing polluted wastewater to spill into nearby rice fields.

And in one case, a worker was killed when he fell into an unsecured pool of acid.

Telenor, clearly believing that the best defense is a good offense, opted to reveal some of the findings of the documentary even before it was aired. Telenor officials claim they were shaken by the documentary’s findings, and admit they failed to adequately monitor the operations of GrameenPhone’s suppliers.

“We are deeply moved by the case, and the human side of it,” Telenor chief executive Jon Fredrik Baksaas told reporters. He called the labour violations “completely unacceptable,” claiming Telenor had trained the firms in health and safety issues. “But we’ve clearly been bad about following up afterwards,” Baksaas admitted.

He neglected to mention the worker fatality, but confirmed it when questioned by a reporter from Danish newspaper Berlingske Tidende.

Telenor and the Norwegian state have generated huge profits on GrameenPhone, which has as many as 20 million customers, but Baksaas said he didn’t feel badly that the operation earns a lot on the work of poor employees. “We haven’t taken out substantial dividends on what we’ve earned in Bangladesh,” Baksaas said. “The money has gone into investments that are building up the country.”

Norway’s government minister in charge of business and industry, Dag Terje Andersen, wrote in an e-mail to Aftenposten that the working conditions shown in the documental “assuming they are accurate, clearly are unacceptable.”

Andersen claimed, however, that Telenor has worked actively for years to make its own ethical regulations part of all operations, also those at suppliers. “It looks like the follow-up on the part of Telenor was inadequate,” he wrote. Telenor has since conducted inspections at five suppliers of mobile telephone masts, and has fired one of them.

Telenor and Yunus have been involved in a long-simmering conflict over ownership of GrameenPhone. Yunus has wanted Telenor to reduce its stake.

Note: The article belonges to  AFTENPOSTEN.

Photo: Md. Tawfik

[Sushanta Das Gupta, UK]

I just came through an email alert that was sent as a comment in one of our posts. While I was moderating it I thought it might be posted as a separate thread. It speaks about the illegal detention of Md. Tawfiq by DGFI for nearly four days. Md. Tawfiq was called in 4th of March around 10 PM and kept behind all of the sights until 7th of March. Few people might call one of our reports which stated the final list of 80 people as part of the drive against high-profile corruption suspects declared by the national coordination committee on corruption and serious crimes (NCC). We found the name of Md. Towfik in the published lists in other categories. But the issue  discussed here is not the corruption, it is the issue whether a citizen of Bangladesh can be detained illegally for four days or not.

Md. Tawfiq, a director of Bangladesh telegraph and Telephone Board, was called by DGFI on 4th of March ,Tuesday around 10 PM to see them in their Dhaka cantonment headquarters. As a law abiding citizen, he went there and for the next 4 days, there was no information on him from the DGFI as I was informed by an authenticated source. Not even his wife or family was informed of his location or condition which is a blatant violation of Bangladesh Constitution.

On the 7th March, he was produced before the chief metropolitan magistrate by Ramna police station. He was shown arrest under Article 54 (suspicious activity) and was said that he was arrested from his residence on the same day. That is to say that his illegal detention by DGFI for nearly four days where he was tortured severely was kept secret from the court.

His wife, in a press release yesterday, mentioned that she saw signs of torture in the uncovered areas of his body when she saw him in the court and asked the President and the chief advisor of the caretaker government of Bangladesh to save the life of her husband.
 
A fabricated false report was published in some Bangladesh newspapers on the 8th March alleging that Tawfiq was involved in illegal VOIP business in Bangladesh. The report is full of inconsistencies, doesn’t hold any truth, and the allegations falls apart even at the tiniest scrutiny.

It appears that Md. Tawfiq is the victim of some vested interest group in BTTB and Caretaker Government who took the advantage of current lawless situation in Bangladesh to realize some big plan in the telecom sector of Bangladesh.

The eye raising questions are:

1. If he was arrested by Ramna police on Thursday and was produced before the court next day, when did the joint forces interrogate him to find all the information that was published against him?

2. If the allegations published by the joint forces were true, why he wasn’t charged by any one of them?

3. Why he was picked up by DGFI and tortured  without any judicial procedure?

4. Why the police shown him arrest four days after he was detained by DGFI on no apparent allegation against him (Article 54 is just suspicious activity and is bailable).

5. Who is responsible for his illegal custody and torture by DGFI?

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Photo: Tortured Journalist Tasneem Khalil

Update: Tasneem Khalil’s interview by Arafatul Islam of DW-WORLD is added.

[An E-Bangladesh commentary.]

Human Rights Watch, the international Human rights watchdog that conducts research and advocacy on human rights published today an exclusive report on tortures in Bangladesh. This report presents the testimony of Tasneem Khalil, a Bangladeshi journalist and the representative of CNN and Human Rights Watch in Bangladesh, recounting his torture at the hands of Bangladesh’s military intelligence agency, the Directorate General of Forces Intelligence (DGFI).

Human Rights Watch says:

“To our knowledge, this is the most detailed public account of a case of torture in Bangladesh available anywhere. It demonstrates the nature of ongoing state-sponsored violence in Bangladesh, including the torture of critics of the current government.
What happened to Tasneem Khalil – which, sadly, is not uncommon – makes clear that when it comes to human rights a critical part of what was promised is not being fulfilled. After one year, the state of emergency not only remains in place but is being used to limit political party activity and restrict freedom of expression and assembly, with torture a frequent consequence for those who do not toe the line and end up in the custody of the security services.

Increased domestic and international pressure to end such abuses cannot await elections or formation of a new government. The fundamental rights set out in the Constitution should be immediately restored and respected. Ending illegal arrests and torture should not await an election. These should be a top priority of the interim government. Those members of the security forces who have been responsible for such egregious human rights violations should be brought to justice.”

Read the horrid accounts of abuses against Tasneem Khalil here . Read how he was terrorized and maligned after his release due to international pressure only to find recluse in exile. You can also download the full report (pdf format) available in the Human Rights Watch Website.

[Sushanta Das Gupta, UK]

Reporters Without Borders has released their 2008 Annual Report on Bangladesh. Among their major concerns this year are the rise of the military government, the lack of freedom of press, threats to media personnel and the torture of journalists:

Bangladesh - Annual report 2008
Area: 144,000 sq km.
Population: 144,460,000.
Languages: Bengali, English.
Head of state: Iajuddin Ahmed.

A drop in the number of physical assaults and death threats was eclipsed by dozens of cases of arrests, maltreatment and censorship committed by the army against independent journalists. The interim government and the military put an end to political disorder but at the price of serious violations of press freedom.

There was a sharp decrease in the number of journalists physically attacked or receiving death threats from political militants and criminals. On the other hand, arrests increased markedly, with almost 40 cases in 2007. And the army, the real power in the country, committed serious press freedom violations aimed at silencing independent journalists. The government constantly stated that the media had a role to play in the fight against corruption and social injustice, but these good intentions were confounded and, in a new development, self-censorship began gradually to be applied to political issues. “Some asserted that the media was becoming the parliament in the absence of a government formed by elections. Others welcomed the emergence of a fourth estate. But one thing in the media was missing: critical articles on the current administration, clearly demonstrating the existence of censorship and self-censorship”, the Bangladesh Centre for Development, Journalism and Communication (BCDJC), a Reporters Without Borders partner organisation, said in one of its recent reports.

Censorship imposed at every political convulsion

A state of emergency was declared on 11 January and the country’s TV and radio were ordered to stop broadcasting their news programmes for two days. When the government faced student demonstrations at the end of August, it banned stations from broadcasting talk shows and political programmes. Army intelligence services officers summoned editorial heads and threatened them with draconian criminal proceeding, including under Article 5 of the State of Emergency Regulations. CSB News and Ekushey TV were ordered by the Press Information Department not to broadcast “provocative” reports and commentaries. A management figure at ATN Bangla told Reporters Without Borders, “The ban on talk shows is a disaster. While there is no parliament, political broadcasts are the best way for citizens to comment on the government’s decisions.”

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