US Senate and International Religious Freedom Commission identify Bangladesh as major rights violator

Sorry for the long time since my last post; I'm hoping that the pandemic has caused everyone to be more forgiving for such lapses. Since my last post, I have been to South Asia multiple times, including a residency in Assam with the Northeast India Corporation and trips to Bangladesh the last of which got me home in the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. In the last month, however, December 2020, two events underscored a new, bi-partisan recognition that puts Bangladesh's relations with the US and its ability to see its exports here, in serious jeopardy.

On December 9, the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) released its long-awaited and comprehensive study, Violating Rights: Enforcing the World’s Blasphemy Laws. The study focuses on government culpability as much as on the inherently anti-democratic nature of the laws themselves. It notes that 84 countries still have blasphemy laws, however, 81 percent of all cases where states enforced them came from only ten; and Bangladesh figured prominently among them, along with Pakistan, Iran, Russia, and others. Is that the company where we should find a country that calls itself democratic? According to USCIRF, the answer is no, as its report notes. “Governments’ enforcement of blasphemy laws undermines human rights, including freedom of religion or belief and freedom of expression.” That, and the palpable fear of government supported violence against minorities, dissenters, and their families, is a far cry from the Bangladesh described in its constitution or envisioned by the Bangabandhu, the nation's founder and father of the current Prime Minister.

To help US policy makers and others make use of its findings, USCIRF noted that blasphemy laws do not always carry the same title.  So, for instance, as I noted in my statement to the Commission, Bangladesh’s blasphemy laws exist in Section 295A of the Bangladesh Criminal Code, which according to the US State Department, criminalizes “statements or acts made with a ‘deliberate and malicious’ intent to insult religious sentiments.” Section 99 also allows "the government [to] confiscate all copies of a newspaper if it publishes anything subversive of the state or provoking an uprising or anything that creates enmity and hatred among the citizens or denigrates religious beliefs," violating press freedom as well. Nor has there been an attempt to clarify their provisions. Keeping them vague makes arrest and prosecution possible merely on the feelings of a particular individual who claims to be aggrieved. More from the State Department: “While there is no specific blasphemy law, authorities use the penal code as well as a section of the Information and Communication Technology Act to charge individuals.” More on Bangladesh, blasphemy, and the Internet below.

Bangladesh was also among a handful of nations that USCIRF cited in the report for depriving the accused of due process, something I’ve witnessed all too often. In many cases, there is overwhelming evidence showing attorneys for minority victims being prevented from getting due process for their clients—including a capital case in the constituency Sheikh Hasina has represented for almost a quarter century. Moreover, the USCIRF report cited Bangladesh as one of the worst rights violators in its use of mob violence against alleged blasphemers. Only Pakistan had more such cases than Bangladesh, and the two countries together accounted for 57.35 percent of all cases worldwide. Tellingly, USCIRF cited a report by the international legal group, Open Trial, entitled, “Bangladesh's criminal justice system incapable of providing justice.” It finds that “witness tampering, victim intimidation and missing evidence” are typical and make fair trials impossible with the primary victims being minorities, women and children, the poor and disabled. Along with many others, it notes that such abuses of the criminal justice system exist despite the high-minded words of Bangladesh’s constitution. This is critical because one of Bangladesh’s go-to responses when we identify its anti-minority violence is to cite the words of its constitution, but no one’s buying that anymore. Few people give that much weight against verified evidence of government-tolerated attacks on Hindus and others. 

A mere days later, both the US House and Senate passed resolutions condemning blasphemy laws as “inconsistent with international human rights standards,” and calling for their repeal globally. Bangladesh again was cited extensively, In fact, Bangladesh and Pakistan were the only countries called out more than once. The resolutions recognize that many blasphemy laws are hidden in language that criminalizes insults to religious sensibilities (and I suggest you read my testimony to the US Commission on Religious Freedom). Both the Senate and House resolutions enjoyed wide bi-partisan appeal and passed unanimously in the Senate; and—this is what makes it more than a resolution—“calls on the President and the Secretary of State to make the repeal of blasphemy, heresy, and apostasy laws a priority in the bilateral relationships of the United States with all countries that have such laws.”

The point is not that Bangladesh needs to become the democratic nation that it was supposed to be; it should. The message for their leaders should be that their obstinacy in catering to radicals and refusing to ensure their people human rights are putting their economy at serious risk: inability to sell their exports (we're their best customer) or profit from UN peacekeeping, which US taxpayers fund and fear of its loss was the proximate cause of Bangladesh's 2007 military coup.