Mass Awareness Needed To Prevent Heightening Disappearances’

Speakers say at Odhikar’s Chittagong seminar on ‘enforced disappearance’


Discussants have put emphasis on raising awareness against increasing cases of enforced disappearances in Bangladesh in recent years.



"Social, national and international organisations could play vital role against the enforced disappearances in Bangladesh", speakers said.



The seminar, titled 'Campaign for Acknowledgment of The International Convention of Saving People from Enforced Disappearance', was organized by Odhikar in Chittagong's Hotel Agrabad in Saturday morning.


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Dhaka councillor and BNP leader Chowdhury Alam, was allegedly picked up by plainclothed cops in public from Dhaka's Bailey Road in June last year. He was later never found.

Local politicians from a number of parties including BNP and Awami League, university professors and right activists took part and spoke at the seminar.



"House committees and media have important roles to play in rooting out the vicious crime from Bangladesh," said Moin Uddin Khan Badal, a Chittagong MP of Awami League-led ruling grand alliance while addressing the meeting.



Atilur Rahman Khan, city unit president of Odhikar, played the role of the seminar's moderator. Sazzad Hossain, an Odhikar member, presented the keynote paper which read the present condition of the enforced disappearance round the world.



A total of seventeen Bangladeshis became victims of enforced disappeared allegedly by their government in 2010. The count in 2011, though not finished yet, is too seventeen.



"Enforced disappearance is a crime that stretches over a long period starting with the primary abduction. Political parties of most of the countries use enforced disappearance as a means to gaining their political goals," the keynote paper said.



It mentioned that a total of 88 countries have so far signed and 29 other countries supported the convention, which came into effect on December 23 in 2010.


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After independence of the South Asian nations from the British rule, enforced disappearance for the first time appeared in India as her government's tool to fight the spread of Naxalite movement across the country.
Photo: Amnesty International

Shah Alam, general secretary of the Chittagong unit of Communist Party of Bangladesh, Naim Uddin, city unit vice-president of Awami League, Dr Shahadat Hossain, general secretary of city unit of Bangladesh Jatiyatabadi Dal, Masud Parvez, professor at Chittagong University, Morshedul Islam, chairman at the department of journalism at Chittagong University, Raja Mia, Chittagong unit president of Workers' Party, Abu Hanif, Chittagong unit general secretary of Workers' Party, Najim Uddin Shyamol, general secretary of Chittagong Union of Journalists, Belayet Hossain of Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal, Masuda Bilkis and Hasan Maruf Rumi took part in discussion among others.



Speakers said, the crime would not be eradicated from any society without the willingness of the state and people would be losing their abilities to protest against illegal activities of the people in power if the crime continued.



"Different forces of government were also involved in crime and this should be stopped to prevent the enforced disappearance", said one of the speakers.