Democracy and human rights: Bangladesh perspective

(Abridge of this was published in the financial Express on 20 July 201 and in the New Nation on 28 July 2012, Bangladesh)

Democracy and human rights are inseparable and flowering of one stands by the other and thus, they move together in the context of time, space and dimension. Human rights hardly precede democracy. In a democracy, national, regional and international human rights organizations including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch remain active. Such organizations draw inspiration from various human rights instruments like the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948, European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, 1950, American Convention on Human Rights, 1969, African Charter on Human and People’s Rights (Banjul Charter), 1981, Istanbul Declaration on Human Rights following the spirit of OIC. In an atmosphere of democracy human rights have now become a focal and moot point of development broadly denoting ‘marching forward overcoming odds and obstacles paying maximum attention to democracy and human rights’.

Today democracy follows the dictum ‘no human rights, no democracy’ and ‘no democracy, no human rights (in true sense indeed)’. No violation of human rights or of democratic orders at any place on earth today goes without a protest globally since the planet has become a global village with UN as the leading centre of meeting-place. Even so, there is no denying the fact that declaration and protection of Human Rights at universal, regional and national levels appear to be sleeping mostly in the pages of the documents and charters at the dire disregard to those for whom they are meant and made on the one hand and on the other basic credence and spirit of democracy has been being twisted and toasted in favor of those who take the helms of it and power. Ironically enough, those who are supporters and champions of democracy and human rights today from the seat of opposition become violators of these in most of the cases tomorrow while in power. Why does it happen? Is it a destined reality or human follies? Does it come from the space between ‘away from power and being in power’?

Constitution, Constitutionalism and Rule of Law are essential elements of democracy---signifying government of the people, by the people and for the people---- and a democracy gets swelled, strengthened, consolidated and cemented when human rights, which are a call and resultant consequence of time, space and dimension, are rightly adopted, preserved, protected, maintained and followed both in words and spirit. Democracy as a system of government is necessarily marked and demarcated with a conceptual frame and practical manifestation in an unfolding manner. Making a constitution with insertion and embodiment of almost all the fundamentals of democracy with full supports and applauses of the members of constituent assembly or of parliament may theoretically be a Himalayan accomplishment for democracy and people but operational successes are time-consuming entailing and embracing the overall socio-politico-economic-cultural-religious perspectives and realities of the land concerned. Hence, the utterance is ‘democracy is not a medicine that can vitalize and revitalize a system voluntarily from its own without at the same time being blessed with a corresponding environment of multi-dimensional exposures in its entirety’. From this standpoint, concept of welfare state connotes necessary adoption, implementation and continuance of democracy and human rights sometimes depending on time, space and dimension and at times going ahead of it.

In a democracy there are mainly two forms of government. One is Presidential and other is Parliamentary. In-between these two a kind of mixed one is also available. But crisis of democracy starts occurring in when it is found that under the cover of democracy ‘dictatorial leadership’ emerges and develops in the party resultantly making the voice of the single arch leader (Head of party) the voice of the respective party as well as the voice of the government (if it is in power) where begins the ballooning of Prime Ministerial system over the coffin of decaying Parliamentary system or where starts ballooning of Presidential dictatorship over Presidential system modeled on cheeks and balances in line with separation of powers. Hence, a democracy may be very sound, logical and updated constitutionally but it may not so pragmatically. And consequently human rights get entwined and walled up in such undesirable landscapes of democracy.

Even if a democracy is forward-marching, speaking in the superlative, it is not possible to adopt and take necessary measures and steps to ensure and transform all kinds of human rights----political, social, economic so on and so forth--- into practice overnight because of the limitations and constraints of the level and standard of democratic order in a state in issue. Hence, the concept of ‘fundamental rights’ came up to craft a ‘Roadmap’ of human rights. From this very standpoint, it is said that all fundamental rights are human rights but all human rights are not fundamental rights because the ambits of human rights are larger and broader than those of fundamental rights. If one is ‘tree’ the other is its ‘bark’.

Malpractices, corruptions, misuse and abuse of powers, showing disrespects to laws, rules and regulations are not only causing havoc to democracy and human rights but they also create obstacles to the development of democracy and human rights in an uninterrupted course of movement. Hands of corruptions are very high that are spreading its network everywhere from kitchen to bed room to drawing room to courtyard to street to park to restaurant to office to court to Parliament. Selling and weighing, storing and supplying of foods and commodities etc have become prey to unethical blasts of corruption. It has made its safe roads and in-roads within the vicinity of mosques, pagoda, church, temple etc. Health system and strategy are faced with serious challenges due to rise of extreme commercialism based on ‘unchecked, ruthless profits without taking note and care of the welfare and financial capacity and capability of the people’ and of rampant adulteration and contamination of food and beverages.

Hardly there is any person in Bangladesh who may be in a position to sigh a sigh of relief about the rapidly deteriorating clinical standing of democracy and human rights in our perspective looking at least at the widening chasm between initiatives taken to enhance and uphold these two and the ways and means to carry them out. Today, it is well-understood that violations of human rights are being made at vertical to vertical level and horizontal to horizontal level, vertical to horizontal level and horizontal to vertical level. Recent studies and researches by various think-tanks and organizations show that violations of human right at all these levels are increasing and escalating in a cumulative approach and mode. Yes, every state, big or small, capitalist or communist or follower of mixed system is confronting the issues of democracy and human rights in its own context and content. Therefore, neither USA nor the states in EU nor China nor India, nor members of OIC can stay outside the domain of the allegations for violations of human rights and deviation from democratic order in the overall understanding and application of the terms.

Captivatingly enough, donor countries and organizations have of late tagged human rights as one of the pre-conditions to approve and release loans. Even disbursement(s) may be held up if the standard of human rights falls. This is more curious to see that United Nation itself via UNDP has emerged as a leading watchdog in this respect. Bangladesh faced such situations in the past notably in 1989 and such sword and barometer is still hanging over her. U S State Department and a number of national and international organizations regularly publish annual country-report on human rights which has great bearing on the country concerned. This is an era of science and technology and because of these two centripetal hands of civilization understanding of religion is also getting new impetus and momentum in its entirety. Appeal of human rights in the texts and contexts of religion(s) has opened another door to and for human rights making democracy responsive to its intrinsic value and significance from within so that cultivating and nursing of human rights become less thorny and less challenging.

Human rights are commonly understood as "inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being. Human rights are thus conceived as universal (applicable everywhere) and egalitarian (the same for everyone). These rights may exist as natural rights or as legal rights, in both national and international law. The doctrine of human rights in international practice, within international law, global and regional institutions, in the policies of state and in the activities of non-governmental organizations, has been a cornerstone of public policy around the world. The idea of human rights states, "if the public discourse of peacetime global society can be said to have a common moral language, it is that of human rights." Despite this, the strong claims made by the doctrine of human rights continue to provoke considerable skepticism and debates about the content, nature and justifications of human rights to this day. Indeed, the question of what is meant by a "right" is itself controversial and the subject of continued philosophical debate (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights).

Human rights are broadly reformative in nature given that adoption and implantation is not the same thing. One is related to policies and initiatives in the form of laws, rules and regulations while the other calls for putting the same into practice in the face of constraints, limitations and challenges, structural or non-structural. Fundamental rights are generally enshrined in the constitution of a state concerned and, today, all the countries in the world including the UN-member states noticeably make efforts to retain and preserve these. Even a state with dictatorial/military rule or communist rule can hardly sound negatively against the existence, prevalence, preservation, upholding and continuity of human rights. Today a state is measured and weighed on the basis of its capabilities and capacities to absorb and practice human rights, although, truly speaking, there is a deficiency of will and determination in power-welders and enforcing agencies, open or secret, to adhere to the principles of human rights in most of the developing countries and even the developed countries are not at par in their own perspectives. It is really encouraging to note that Bangladesh is indeed not lagging behind as she has been continuing an uninterrupted voyage of parliamentary democracy since 1991. Currently, Article 11 of the Constitution of Bangladesh deals with human rights while Articles 26-47A is concerned with fundamental rights. Besides, there are articles, clauses, sub-clauses, ordinances, by-laws, rules and regulations dealing with different such areas, directly or indirectly, from which violations of human rights take place.

If human rights stand for public interest or, say, people-oriented development, this is theoretically inserted and guaranteed by Article 44 and 102 of the Constitution of Bangladesh respectively but practically caught up,  hindered and slowed down in the current order of the day. The people require freedom to exercise their rights in an egalitarian conduct. The route of democratizing society has been rather so contaminated that any noticeable headway from the quandary could not be attained straightforwardly. Nonetheless there is plenty scope for improvement in the status and standing of human rights through the enforcement of Fundamental Rights and putting into practice the Fundamental Principles of State Policy (Article 8 to 25 of the Constitution of Bangladesh)

Further, to uphold the democratic process and order few amendments to the Constitution including the Fifth and Seventh Amendments were declared unlawful and void by the Supreme Court of Bangladesh in 2010. Information Commission (facing limitations, structural and legal), Human Rights Commission (not so sound structurally, functionally and financially), reshaping and revitalizing of Anti-corruption Commission (it has recently been termed as ‘toothless and clawless tiger’ by its Chairman Golam Rahman) and Right to information act (contains lot of loopholes and limitations), inter alia, are major initiatives taken recently by the incumbent grand alliance government headed by Sheikh Hasina. But as ill luck would have it, all these are resting mostly in words and sentences. Real reflections are very much afar. Extrajudicial summary executions, custodial torture, insecurity to life and property, disappearances, kidnappings and abductions, Intimidation of human rights defenders, journalists and the opposition etc are increasing and proliferating unbelievably. Roles and approaches of the law-enforcing agencies particularly RAB, Police and various secret services have become a center of attention and anxieties in practice. Human Rights based NGOs in Bangladesh are playing role as responsible watchdog in this matter.

Corruption and human rights cannot move and race together since the former implies negation of due process, fairness and justice. Hence they are arch enemies to each other under all the circumstances. Simply because of corruptions all the vision and mission of a democratic government may be foiled making it unpopular in the end. According to Transparency International, Bangladesh is one of the most corrupt countries in the world. In fact, TI ranked Bangladesh as the most corrupt country in the world for five consecutive years from 2001 to 2005 .

TI 2011’s index ranks 183 countries by their perceived levels of public sector corruption and Bangladesh ranked 10th from the bottom, which is 2 steps down from previous year. Bangladesh has failed to achieve improvement over last year. In a scale of 0-10, we have scored 2.7, 0.3 more than in 2010, and ranked 13th from the bottom along with Ecuador, Ethiopia, Guatemala, Iran, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Mozambique, Solomon Islands among 183 featured in this year's index. On 2010 Bangladesh ranked 12th position from the bottom together with Azarbaijan, Honduras, Nigeria, Philippines, Sierra Leone, Togo, Ukraine and Zimbabwe.

Like in previous years, among the South Asian countries, Bhutan, India and Sri Lanka have performed better than Bangladesh, with Bhutan scoring 5.7 and ranked themselves as the least corrupted country in South Asia. India and Sri Lanka scored 3.1 and 3.3 respectively. Bhutan's consistent performance indicates the importance of political will, rule of law and growing institutional capacity to control corruption, especially the effectiveness of their Anti-Corruption Commission.

(http://tazakhobor.com/bangladeshi-news-views/1-bangladeshi-news-views/833-transparency-international-report-2011-bangladesh).

Amnesty International in its Annual Report 2012 on Bangladesh noted ‘Extrajudicial executions continued despite a government pledge to end them. Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) personnel, suspected of more than 54 unlawful killings during the year, were neither investigated independently nor brought to justice. The government failed to enforce its new policy to support women victims of violence. Amendments to the rules governing the Bangladeshi International Crimes Tribunal reduced, but did not eliminate, the possibility of unfair trials for those accused of 1971 war crimes. The government failed to secure the right to livelihood and land of Indigenous People in the Chittagong Hill Tracts. More than 49 people were sentenced to death and at least five men were executed (http://www.amnesty.org/en/region/bangladesh/report-2012)

Professor Dr. Mizanur Rahman, sitting Chairman of Bangladesh Human Rights Commission, Unlike his predecessor Justice Amirual Kabir, has meanwhile set himself as a living voice of human rights not merely by roaring against any violations of human rights by the law-enforcing agencies anywhere in the country but also by making a noticeable jerk and sensation in the authorities concern to take steps and follow ‘due process of law’ in most of the cases. It is also because of his inflexible role that the case of Lemon came to the forefront and the government finally compulsorily felt the necessity to take note of the matter seriously.

Even so, on 19 July 2012, Robert O. Blake, Jr. Assistant Secretary, Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs, USA, in his testimony before Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission, U.S. Congress, Washington, DC, said:

‘There is positive news to report as well. We were encouraged this past spring when the Government of Bangladesh passed comprehensive anti-trafficking-in-persons legislation that, when fully enforced, could make a huge difference in protecting some of the country’s most vulnerable citizens. While Bangladesh has made progress in protecting women and children victims of trafficking, this law is the first of its kind in Bangladesh that also guards against the exploitation of male laborers.

I want to end by repeating what I said earlier – as a successful moderate, tolerant, secular, democratic alternative to violent extremism, and as a model for lifting millions of poverty, providing an important voice for regional stability, contributing more than any other country to UN peacekeeping, Bangladesh is of strategic importance to the United States (http://www.state.gov/p/sca/rls/rmks/2012/195251.htm)’.

Yes, Robert O. Blake made such statement and observation at the same time disclosing and highlighting also the negative and rapidly deteriorating aspects of democracy and human rights in Bangladesh.

John Sifton, Asia Advocacy Director, Human Rights Watch, In a hearing before the same Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission of the US Congress on 19 July 2012 said “The people of Bangladesh have suffered a great deal of human rights abuses under successive governments, abuses that have all too often been ignored outside of the country. The situation in the country deserves regular and high-level attention from the US, the UN, and others.” He outlined key areas of concern in his testimony, including the murder of a prominent labor rights activist, harassment of domestic rights groups, ongoing abuses by the infamous Rapid Action Battalion, the need to repeal antiquated discriminatory laws, and the country’s failure to provide refuge to ethnic Rohingya fleeing Burma.

(http://www.hrw.org/news/2012/07/19/bangladesh-rights-abuses-under-washington-spotlight).

Looking at democracy and human rights from the seat of power and from the seat of opposition also differs from country to country. This is fascinating and belittling in Bangladesh because the same party/alliance in power behaves in the most opposite direction and manner while in the opposition and vice versa. Of course, it’s a threat to democracy and human rights. Collectively or singularly, all the political parties in Bangladesh are more or less take the burden of unbecoming attitudes to democracy and human rights

To make democracy and democratic order mobile and time-bound number of initiatives in the form of policy and law, rules and regulations have been made over the periods but the real taste of all these are yet to be enjoyed by the people at large. Because political practice of ‘yes’ or ‘no’ being played nakedly in line with un-parliamentary democracy by AL and BNP has given birth to a serious stalemate causing threats to democracy and human rights collectively. This politics of yes or no in all cases regardless of merit and necessity is the inevitable consequence of ongoing confrontational politics based on diametrically opposed stands and approaches of these two major political parties AL and BNP. Continuous boycott of Parliament by the opposition and disregard to the opposition by the ruling party/alliance since the reintroduction of parliamentary democracy through the Constitution (Twelfth Amendment) Act, 1991have made parliament ineffective functionally. Bangladesh has been blessed with a parliamentary democracy virtually without a presence of opposition in parliament. It happened in the fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth parliament and the present ninth parliament is wrought with the same landscape with more vehemence and gravity.

To our utter surprise, political parties are investing their total efforts and time for devising ways and means mainly to go to power as if democracy to them means ‘going to power using the popular emotion and sentiment in favor of free, fair and transparent elections. Perceived boundary is neither more nor less’. Here democracy is being used in a very limited sense because all the political parties in the past who were in power hardly voluntarily made attempts to strengthen the bases of democracy and human rights. Most of the achievements and successes in these areas were achieved in the face of people’s demand and pressure through various modes and means. Political history unfolds the truth that each and every leader and political party in Bangladesh is a great democrat and exponent of human rights while in the opposition but reverse is the case when the taste and smell of power is enjoyed being in the seat of power. This is also a reality in cases of the so-called intelligentsia, think-tanks and professional groups of different shades and opinions within the fold of the party/alliance in power.

Here democracy has grossly been equated and mingled with ‘elections to Parliament’. It is immaterial whether there is practice or uninterrupted practice of democratic order, rules and regulations within the parties and Parliament. Holding of council at various strata of the parties and their front and associate wings at regular intervals is mostly a myth. Emergence of new leaderships through electoral methods is a day dream. Everything is decided by the chief of the respective parties. She or he is the sun around which all rotates helplessly. Here politics largely implies’ first go to power then think of welfare of the people and the country’, ‘ no power, no welfare’, ‘opposition is for opposing the party/alliance in power on all issues and points irrespective of merit, national importance and necessity’. Consequently, almost all efforts, activates and program are aimed at going to power and hence, the concept of Non-Party, Neutral Care-Taker Government cropped up in our democracy so that elections to Parliament and transfer of power may take place smoothly and fairly under such non-partisan, neutral government conducted by the Election Commission independently.

It was profoundly believed by all the political parties that in absence of mutual trust and confidence between or among the political parties here this system would be more acceptable and conducive to suit the very purposes of free and fair elections. It came into being in 1996 after a series of event and incidences entailing mass demonstrations leading to mass upsurge, dawn to dusk hartals and foreign mediation and interference. Ironically enough, all the three elections to Parliament since its birth and operation in 1996 were dubbed unacceptable by the defeating parties. As a result, the very purpose of it again fell into question and political trap. Finally it had to meet with demise because of the verdict of the Supreme Court of Bangladesh on 10 May 2011. Then Hasina administration hastily took steps to annual it by the Constitution (Fifteenth Amendment) Act of 2011. While doing so, the grand alliance government did not await the release of the judgment even it did not take note of the full texts of the verdict where the provision for CTG for another two terms were included for which it is held that Hasina government got it done in a planned way by putting gun on the shoulder of the highest court of the land. BNP led alliance openly declared that they would not allow the government to hold elections with CTG. So the matter has now become a national issue, say, only issue to BNP and its allies. Our political leaders in particular while in power perhaps do not like to take lessons from the political and constitutional debacle of 2007- 2008. Amended article 7A is being presented strongly by the ruling alliance as a safeguard for democracy and peaceful transfer of power by ballot.

Above all the doors to dialogue are virtually closed down between AL and BNP. Two chiefs of the parties do not talk to each other even do not feel to see and sit face to face. This has created a kind of ‘no communication, starting from social to familial to religious, between or among the activists and leaders of the two parties’. Therefore, for democracy dangers exist and continue and nobody knows where it stops.

So, the questions crop up (a) if these are scenarios then how shall democracy be strengthened and upheld? (b) Is democracy a matter to be dealt and settled solely by the party/alliance in power? (c) Does opposition in our perspective implies opposing the government on each and every point irrespective of merit and deficiency? (d) If democracy itself is at peril then how human rights shall be defended and maintained? (e)If human rights cannot be defended, protected and maintained properly today then how the ambits of human rights shall be extended to move with time?

Therefore, the Hobson’s choice is constant vigilance and active participation in the fight for establishment of democracy and human rights because road to democracy and human rights are not smooth and easy about which history carries thousands of facts and records. But in all cases there must be a guard against overgeneralization and oversimplification of the issue & problems concerned by both the critics and cohorts from their respective angles and interpretations.