HRW for 'independent probe into election abuses'

New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) has recommended formation of an independent and impartial commission to investigate into 'serious allegations of abuses' in the elections in Bangladesh.

“The allegations include attacks on opposition party members, voter intimidation, vote rigging, and partisan behaviour by election officials in the pre-election period and on election day,” said the rights group in a press statement on Wednesday.

It insisted: "An independent and impartial commission should investigate the serious allegations of abuses in the Bangladesh elections."

Bangladesh’s 11th parliamentary elections were held on 30 December, in which the ruling Awami League-led coalition secured a landslide victory, returning prime minister Sheikh Hasina to a third consecutive term. The ruling camp won 288 of the 298 parliamentary seats in the elections.

“The pre-election period was characterised by violence and intimidation against the opposition, attacks on opposition campaign events, and the misuse of laws to limit free speech,” said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch.

“Reports of ballot stuffing, intimidation of voters, and ruling party control of voting locations on election day mean that an independent and impartial commission should be formed to determine the extent of the violations.”

According to the HRW, thousands of opposition supporters were arrested before the election, and journalists described having to censor their reporting for fear of arrest and violence. At least 17 people were killed in violence related to the voting.

It quoted the opposition parties, journalists, and voters as alleging serious irregularities including ballot stuffing, voters being denied access to polling places, ruling party activists occupying polling places and casting ballots in the place of voters, electoral officials and the police behaving in a partisan manner, and violations of voter privacy in an atmosphere of blatant intimidation.

The opposition Bangladesh National Party (BNP) said its polling agents were denied access in 221 constituencies.

Instead of investigating irregularities, the HRW regrets, Bangladesh authorities arrested journalists for their reporting.

On 1 January 2019, plainclothes police officers arrested Hedait Hossain Molla, a Khulna-based journalist, who had reported the total number of votes cast in the Khulna-1 constituency was higher than the total number of actual eligible voters, the statement pointed out.

Local journalist Rashidul Islam was also named in the case. The two journalists are accused under the draconian Digital Security Act, which criminalises peaceful speech and places undue restrictions on investigative journalism, it added.

HRW said journalists were forced to delete videos documenting voter intimidation by Awami League supporters. Kafi Kamal, a reporter with the Daily Manab Zamin, said he was beaten up while filming an attack on voters at a polling place.

HRW further said, internationally recognised election monitors and foreign journalists were largely barred from the country.

Nevertheless, a BBC journalist in Chittagong captured images of what appear to be stuffed ballot boxes before the polls opened.

Other media reported that in some constituencies, in defiance of the rules, polling places closed for lunch in a clear attempt to suppress turnout.

Voters in various parts of the country told the media that they had been turned away by officials or were joined in the voting booth by ruling party activists, who voted on their behalf.

A large number of similar accounts by journalists and other witnesses have emerged from across the country, according to the HRW statement.

Article 25 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), to which Bangladesh is a party, states, “Every citizen shall have the right and the opportunity… [t]o vote and to be elected at genuine periodic elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret ballot, guaranteeing the free expression of the will of the electors.”

“International donors, the United Nations and friends of Bangladesh should remember that elections are about the rights of voters, not those in power,” Adams said.

“In a highly divided country, questions should immediately be raised when one party wins 96 per cent of the seats.”