The police broke into the home of BNP leader Shahid Uddin Chowdhury Annie at midnight and arrested him. The next day, Wednesday, he told the court that he had been beaten up so badly in the police, station, that “even thieves and robbers aren’t beaten so badly by the police.” He broke into tears while describing in court how he had been beaten. His lawyers appealed for bail.
In this situation, the court can grant him bail or allow him to be taken on remand. Or as an interim step, it can send him to jail and instruct that he be interrogated there. That is what the court would do in the past, if there were allegations of torture against the police or if there was fear of torture when taken on remand. But that is not generally done anymore. It is very rare that the court now turns down any appeal for remand against anyone of BNP or anyone one of the opposition active in the political field. The court granted four days of remand in the case of Shahid Uddin Annie Chowdhury.
Shahid Uddin Annie Chowdhury is an important person in BNP. He was twice elected member of parliament. He rose in politics through the anti-Ershad movement and is active in the movement on ground. He had attended an event at the Press Club on the day before his arrest. He told the court, if the police wanted, they could have arrested him then rather than in this manner at midnight.
It is quite clear why the police did not do so. Breaking down the door and arresting him in the dead of night gives out a message, spreads a sense of panic. It gives out an aggressive message. There are other incidents that indicate that the government wants to give out this message as a standstill concerning the election looms large. After the arrest of Shahid Uddin Annie Chowdhury, an influential police officer directly said, if there is a warrant or specific cases, the police will not spare anyone. He will be arrested, no matter how big a leader he may be.
The big leader may be Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, the police arrested him just last December. So the police’s words can’t be taken very lightly.
If people’s voting rights could be attained, if there is a fair election, if democracy (at least of the 1991-2013 degree) could be restored, an environment would emerge where much of our crises could be assuaged
2.
Alongside arrests and threats, there are other ways in which BNP leaders are being harassed. New cases are being filed, old cases are being revived and sentences are being passed. There are now thousands of cases against BNP leaders and activists. According to Prothom Alo reports, 14 more cases have been filed against BNP leaders just over the past five days, with 323 active leaders and activists being named as the accused. BNP leaders say that these cases, like before, are all contrived and false.
Much has been written in the media about such fabricated cases. These cases mention crude bomb explosions or armed attacks on police, but the local people tell journalists no such incidents took place. But such cases continue to be lodged under the arms act, the explosives act and the Special Powers Act basically to put pressure on the court not to grant bail.
There are, of course, laws that give scope to overcome such pressure. There is scope to grant bail in such cases that appear to be contrived. The credibility of cases comes into question when the accused are dead persons, persons who are physically disabled, persons who are not even in the country or a huge number of ‘unidentified’ persons. If the court is independent, then the bail is not likely to be refused in such weak staged cases. These should not stand in court. But that is not how things are.
BNP leaders are being punished now under such fabricated cases. Over the last 6 months, 96 leaders and activists of BNP have been sentenced. Over the last week alone, 24 leaders and activists of BNP, including a vice chairman and central leaders, have been sentenced. BNP secretary general himself expressed apprehension of being arrested a few days ago. He too faces a hundred or so cases on charges of setting fire to garbage trucks, attacking police and so on.
It is clear from these incidents that the government has taken up an aggressive role against BNP. There were already hundreds of questionable cases prepared against the BNP men. Now at the last moment, the government is taking up these cases and making arrests so as to quell the BNP movement. They are trying to deliver a message of fear to the others. The question is whether this message aims to create pressure for compromise, or to step up the repression.
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It is not that there haven’t been elections of ‘compromise’ in the past. There were assumptions that there had been compromises in the 1986 elections. And there were possibly compromises made in the 1996 and 2014 elections to bring in the smaller parties to the election. It is heard there was compromise before the 2018 election too. It had been heard that 60 or100 seats would be relinquished to BNP and its allies. It cannot be proven whether these speculations are true or not. But even if compromises had been made, it is clear that these had not been kept.
Such compromises are not acceptable. After the experience of the 2018 elections, there possibly is no room left for compromise. BNP may have perhaps given consideration to compromise on condition of the former prime minister Khaleda Zia being sent abroad for better treatment. But Khaleda Zia would not be one to make any such compromise. She had the chance to evade all hardship and go abroad during the 1/11 rule. Then again, before the court passed the ruling against her a few years ago, she could have chosen to travel abroad. She chose not to do so. BNP cannot use her to wangle any deal. So BNP must wage a movement for a caretaker government or non-partisan elections in keeping with her expectations. They must try to take the movement to its final stages in the next few weeks. BNP has declared such intentions.
It apparently seems we are headed for a confrontation between the government and the opposition. This will not bode well for the country. As it is we are in a precarious economic state. People struggle under the burden of spiralling prices. Over the next few months, the huge burden of repaying foreign debt will fall in the country’s shoulders. If remittance also continues to fall, the situation will deteriorate even further. Foreign quarters will be able to take further advantage of the situation. And a one-sided election would lend moral acceptance to such actions.
We are all aware of such apprehensions. Even so, we are headed towards an unwarranted conflict. The government is instigating such a circumstance further by means of these indiscriminate cases, arrests and repression. It would be better if such conflict did not take place. It would bode well if there could be an understanding, leading to elections under a credible government.
If people’s voting rights could be attained, if there is a fair election, if democracy (at least of the 1991-2013 degree) could be restored, an environment would emerge where much of our crises could be assuaged.
We want to be optimistic. It would be good is this optimism doesn’t seen futile even to ourselves.
* This column appeared in the print and online edition of Prothom Alo and has been rewritten for the English edition by Ayesha Kabir
* Asif Nazrul is a professor of the law department at Dhaka University