🇧🇩 DGFI and Ayna Ghor

[Saif]

The need for a clear charter for the intelligence agencies

The catch-all definition of national security must not be used as a cloak to hide abuses.

www.thedailystar.net

The need for a clear charter for the intelligence agencies
The catch-all definition of national security must not be used as a cloak to hide abuses

VISUAL: ANWAR SOHEL

That the law enforcement officials including those in the intelligence agencies had dangerously overstepped their jurisdiction and went beyond their charter, if there is any, is a manifest reality. The heart-rending wailings of the victims of enforced disappearance sadly bring to light the arbitrary and predatory activities of a section of public servants. The compounding tragedy is that while the victims' families were complaining and seeking justice for a painfully long time, the government of the day was consistently in denial mode, thus making light a grave human rights violation.

The undeniable facts of enforced disappearance and torture in unauthorised custody like the Aynaghar, now in public view, surely dent our credentials as an orderly and law-bound society. How have we descended into such a deplorable state, and where are the fault lines? Also, what was the apportionment between political executives and the executers on the ground in the wrongdoers' culpability?

It is no secret that intelligence agencies play a leading role in providing political-analytical inputs to the ruling party and its government. However, there are tales of political skulduggery on behalf of successive political regimes. The agencies are known to have undertaken strategic exercises during elections and conduct election forecasts and analysis to oblige the party in power. In doing so, they have become an instrument of partisan politics. The accompanying politicisation or lack of impartiality and objectivity distorted the policy process and damaged the credibility and political legitimacy of the state.

There is credible suspicion that our intelligence agencies lack an acceptable legal framework and a well-honed charter of duties. Consequently, the allegation of its functioning in a thoroughly political manner cannot be brushed aside. We do not have adequate safeguards and constant vigilance against likely misuse of the powers of intelligence personnel. This requirement assumes greater significance since intelligence activities are carried out in secrecy and the average citizen may not be aware that his rights are infringed.

The undeniable facts of enforced disappearance and torture in unauthorised custody like the Aynaghar, now in public view, surely dent our credentials as an orderly and law-bound society. How have we descended into such a deplorable state, and where are the fault lines?

Our intelligence agencies collect a great deal of information about the activities of various political parties and in the process keep a watch over the activities of all persons who oppose the policies of the government in position. Curiously, they do not usually collect information about the party in power. While subversion of the constitution or deliberate disruption of public order through violent means should be matters of concern to the agency, issues like power, politics, factionalism within a political party, and defections must be kept outside the gambit of the tasks of intelligence agencies.

As such, the intelligence agencies should not be the judge of their own operations with regard to the necessity and propriety thereof, nor should they be allowed to operate as politicians' agency or instrument, or degenerate into an institution for controlling the opponents of the ruling party. The agencies must not be engaged in assessing the election prospects of the ruling party and be used as an instrument for political spying either by the government or an individual in the government.

There has to be a charter of duties, putting responsibilities beyond doubt and indicating what is permitted and what is not. The legitimate purpose of intelligence has to be the anticipation of developments that may imperil national interests and security, to enable appropriate action with the imperative that any tendency that equates national interest with the interest of the party in power must be guarded against. Besides, the ruling party must not be allowed to watch the activities of other political parties and even members of its own party.

The catch-all definition of national security must not be used as a cloak to hide abuses. The definition has to exclude from its purview anything that smacks of denial of human rights and basic freedoms. There should be clear and firm guidelines on the limits to the agency's authority, the areas of coverage, the manner of functioning, and the methods they are permitted to use. The heads of agencies must be accountable to the executive and the legislature. They have to be subjected to parliamentary oversight regularly as is done in mature democracies.

A detailed and precisely honed charter for intelligence agencies in consonance with the spirit of the constitution needs to be prepared. These are tall orders, no doubt, but we have to make a start however humble it may be. We will not achieve anything if politicians in our perilously polarised scenario fail to accept each other as contestants and not as enemies.

Muhammad Nurul Huda is former IGP of Bangladesh Police.​

 

[Saif]

Public notice to be issued in search of victims of enforced disappearances

Public notice will be issued to trace the persons who have been forcibly disappeared by members of any law enforcement agency in the country. The decision was taken on Sunday in the first meeting of the inquiry commission formed to trace and identify the forcibly disappeared persons by members of

thefinancialexpress.com.bd

Public notice to be issued in search of victims of enforced disappearances
FE Online Desk
Published :
Sep 08, 2024 21:08
Updated :
Sep 08, 2024 21:08

Public notice will be issued to trace the persons who have been forcibly disappeared by members of any law enforcement agency in the country.

The decision was taken on Sunday in the first meeting of the inquiry commission formed to trace and identify the forcibly disappeared persons by members of any law enforcement agencies, BSS reports citing a press release.

With commission Chief Justice Moinul Islam Chowdhury in the chair, all members of the commission were present at the meeting held at its Gulshan Avenue office here.

The meeting decided that the commission will run its activities as usual from 10am to 6pm every day except public holidays.

The government formed the 5-member Inquiry Commission to trace the persons who have been forcibly disappeared by the members of the country's law enforcement agencies, including Bangladesh Police, Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB), Criminal Investigation Department (CID), Special Branch, Intelligence Branch, Ansar Battalion, National Intelligence Agency (NSI), Defense Forces, and the Directorate General of Defense Intelligence (DGFI).​

 

[Saif]

There will be no 'Aynaghar' or 'Bhater Hotel' in DB office

Says additional commissioner of DB

www.thedailystar.net

There will be no 'Aynaghar' or 'Bhater Hotel' in DB office
Says additional commissioner of DB

Photo: Collected

Rezaul Karim Mallik, additional commissioner of DMP's Detective Branch of police, today said there will no longer be any "Aynaghar" (house of mirrors) or "Bhater Hotel" (eatery) in the DB office.

Speaking at a "Meet the Press" event at the DMP Media Center, Rezaul, in his first formal address since assuming the role, vowed to reform DB's image.

He said that the "disgraced chapter" of DB would end, and the office would become "a place of justice and accountability."

The DB office will not serve as a hangout spot for celebrities and authorities will not tolerate any "Bhater Hotel" there, he added.

Emphasising the need of accountability, the additional commissioner said, "I, too, am not above accountability. As long as I hold the position of the DB chief, I will uphold justice, integrity, and professionalism in carrying out my duties."

About the upcoming Durga Puja celebration, Rezaul said DB officers, in plainclothes, are currently working to ensure the security of temples and puja mandaps.​

 

[Saif]

Aynaghar should be a site of remembrance

According to the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC), at least 623 people were victims of enforced disappearance in the country from 2009 to 2022.

www.thedailystar.net

Aynaghar should be a site of remembrance

File illustration: BIPLOB CHAKROBORTY

Completing a tour at the ESMA Museum and Site of Memory, located on the grounds of what was once the officers' quarters of the Navy School of Mechanics (ESMA), in the city of Buenos Aires, Argentina, takes around 90 minutes. The museum, which was a former clandestine centre of detention, torture, and extermination, features 17 rooms hosting traditional and contemporary museographic exhibits centred around survivor testimonies, historical documents from the National Commission on the Disappearance of People, the Trial of the Military Junta, declassified state documents, among other archives.

During the military dictatorship in Argentina from 1976 to 1983, the officers' quarters at ESMA became a key site for suppressing the opposition as part of a national strategy. Thousands of people, both armed and peaceful, were abducted in Buenos Aires, brought to ESMA, and subjected to interrogation, torture, and often death. Some 5,000 of the approximately 30,000 people who disappeared at the hands of the military junta during those years passed through ESMA, making it the largest torture centre of that era.

After the crimes committed on the site became known, and after years of uncertainty about its future, the recovery process to transform the ESMA premises into a Space for Memory and for the Promotion and Defense of Human Rights began in 2004. On May 19, 2015, after years of debates and consensus reaching, the ESMA Museum and Site of Memory was inaugurated. In September 2023, UNESCO recognised it as a World Heritage Site, a site of "outstanding universal value" that belongs to the common heritage of humanity.

According to UNESCO, the building has been protected as judicial evidence since 1998 owing to the crimes against humanity committed there during its operations as a clandestine detention and extermination centre. From then on, any kind of modification was prohibited. In the present day, all efforts to conserve and restore the building are guided by scientific studies, aimed at preserving it both as a piece of legal evidence and as a valuable historical record. That's why all kinds of markings and inscriptions, denoting the stay of the detained-disappeared at the place, are preserved. These include different types of inscriptions on the walls, as well as on both the iron and wooden structures in the building. There are markings that were made with unidentified sharp objects, and others with ink or graphite: names, phone numbers, initials, inscriptions of party affiliations, dates, drawings.

That is why it is very important to preserve the secret detention centres in Bangladesh, popularly known as "Aynaghar," used for enforced disappearances during the Hasina regime due to its huge historical, heritage, and judicial value as evidence in carrying out crimes against humanity. In Argentina, evidence dating back more than 40 years remains intact, but in Bangladesh, within two months of the fall of the Hasina regime, many kinds of evidence of enforced disappearances have been destroyed.

The Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearances, which was formed to investigate cases of enforced disappearances during the past Awami League government, has found evidence of destroyed materials at the secret detention centre run by the Directorate General of Forces Intelligence (DGFI). Messages, names, phone numbers, and addresses written on the walls of the detention centre by the victims were erased by painting over the walls. Not only that, Law Enforcement Agencies (LEA) want to destroy the secret prisons to protect their image on an international level. Furthermore, according to a report by the daily Samakal, work is underway to demolish the cells inside the DGFI-run detention centre and change the interior of the one-story building.

But keeping Bangladesh's secret detention centres intact, like Argentina's, is important for both legal and historical reasons. Allowing the demolition or alteration of Aynaghar in the name of protecting the international image of LEAs would on the one hand destroy important evidence for the trial and on the other hand create an opportunity to deny historical truth in the future.

According to the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC), at least 623 people were victims of enforced disappearance in the country from 2009 to 2022. Of those, 84 bodies were recovered, 383 were either returned alive or shown arrested later. Still missing are 153 people, and there is no information about three others.

Within two days of Hasina's government being overthrown in a mass uprising, several of the missing persons have returned from the secret detention centres, but many are still missing; many others do not know what happened to their relatives. The aforementioned commission had received nearly 400 complaints of forced disappearances within two weeks of starting their work. There are also many questions about who were involved in the disappearance. Even in the cases where people have returned alive, it is not clear who detained them and where.

The LEAs that were involved in enforced disappearances during the Hasina regime are still the same with no fundamental changes. The LEAs have not acknowledged the responsibility, nor revealed who were involved in the enforced disappearances. Rather, they seem to be actively destroying the evidence of enforced disappearances.

Not only as legal evidence, but to ensure that the forced disappearances do not happen again in the future, it is important to keep the history of Aynaghar alive and intact. As the then Argentine president Alberto Fernández explained, "Collective memory is what keeps people from repeating their histories and allows them to move forward towards a better future."

That's why, not only Argentina, but many other countries around the world which had suffered from enforced disappearance or state terrorism, have taken various steps to preserve the memories. For example, Villa Grimaldi, an old villa on the edge of Chile's capital city of Santiago, which was used as a major torture centre from 1974-78 during the rule of General Pinochet, has been converted as a sitios de memoria or memory sites in 1995, to remember those who had suffered and died under the military's rule. About 5,000 prisoners passed through Villa Grimaldi, and it is known that 240 of them were killed or disappeared.

Answers to many questions related to disappearances in Bangladesh are still unknown, including who were involved in the enforced disappearance of how many people, what happened to the persons who are still missing, who were the masterminds of the enforced disappearance, what were the command structures and motivations, etc. In order to know the answers to these questions, bring the perpetrators under justice, and prevent the recurrence of enforced disappearances in future, it is utmost important to preserve all types of evidence related to enforced disappearance. I hope the interim government will take appropriate steps in this regard before it is too late.

Kallol Mustafa is an engineer and writer who focuses on power, energy, environment and development economics.​

 

[Saif]

ডিজিএফআইয়ের নতুন মহাপরিচালকের পরিচয়।