The Government of Bangladesh on Sunday said that the Office of United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in a recent statement on Bangladesh had overstepped its mandate allegedly by misrepresenting the ground reality and a repetition of subjective and biased assessments to politicise human rights.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs in a statement said that the government attention was drawn to the press statement issued by the OHCHR on Bangladesh.
‘The government finds that the OHCHR has unfortunately overstepped its mandate. The statement misrepresents the ground reality and a repetition of subjective and biased assessments to politicise human rights,’ it said, adding that in this context, the government wished to offer the correct perspective.
It claimed that the government’s firm commitment to uphold the democratic principles was evident in the conduct of ‘free, fair and peaceful elections with people’s participation’ on January 7, 2024.
The foreign ministry statement said that the election day was unprecedentedly peaceful except for some isolated incidents at a few polling stations.
‘This was echoed by many international election observers and journalists who covered the election on the ground. The claim that the “poll was marred by violence and repression of opposition candidates”, therefore, appears to be extremely prejudiced and premeditated,’ it said.
While the government believes in an inclusive democracy, regrettably, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party decided to stay out of the electoral process on the pretext of their unconstitutional demand for the provision of a caretaker government, according to the statement.
It alleged that the BNP unfortunately resorted to violence and killing of innocent people to thwart the democratic process as the party did during earlier occasions of national elections.
The details of BNP’s destruction are horrific and the OHCHR was time and again supplied with evidence of BNP’s nationwide mayhem.
OHCHR’s allegations of reprisals such as arbitrary and mass arrests, threats, enforced disappearance, blackmailing and surveillance by law enforcement officials were baseless and unsubstantiated, the statement said.
The government rejected the claim that ‘many human rights defenders have been forced to go into hiding, and some have fled the country, while dozens of suspected enforced disappearance cases have been reported, mostly in November’.
This is far from reality and rather a plain example of irresponsibility on the part of the OHCHR, it alleged.
It, however, welcomed constructive criticisms and is always ready to address any legitimate concern.
The UN rights chief Volker Turk in a statement on January 8 condemned the violence and repression during the January 7 election in Bangladesh that was boycotted by the major opposition parties, urging the country to strengthen democracy.
