The blatant advocacy for imposition of fresh sanction on Bangladesh’s elite unit Rapid Action Battalion by a British lawyer Toby Cadman points to how the sanctions has less to do with human rights and more to do with politics of regime change.
In a recent interview with AL Jazeera, Toby Cadman admitted to his effort to get the UK to impose sanctions against Bangladesh's law enforcement officials and expressed satisfaction at the recently imposed sanctions by US on five officials of law enforcing agencies.
“I filed the request for sanctions and whilst I am not in a position to discuss the substance, I can confirm that I discussed the request with the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office [FCDO],” Cadman said, referring to the UK Foreign Office.
This latest statement of Toby Cadman is yet another pointer to a chilling plot to mislead the world on Bangladesh on the human rights issue at the behest of the BNP-Jamaat alliance which has invested millions of dollars in hiring lawyers-lobbyists to defame the Sheikh Hasina-led government.
Cadman had already been hired by the pro-Pakistan Jamaat-e-Islami, partner in the Islamist coalition with the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP). So it is clear that characters like Cadman are working hard -- for a price -- to create a rift between Western nations and Bangladesh in a bid to overthrow the Sheikh Hasina led government.
Media reports had exposed the BNP-Jamaat's Western lawyer-lobbyist nexus right after the start of the trial of Jamaat-e-Islami leader Mir Quasem Ali.
In October 2010, Mir Quasem Ali struck a $25 million deal with one of the most influential US lobby firms, Cassidy & Associates, for engaging with the US government and the Bangladesh government “to protect his interest”.
In light of the recent sanction by US over rights issues and Cadman taking the same line has exposed the real undercurrent behind the facade of upholding democratic values.
Now that BNP leaders recently announced a new deadline: December 10 to overthrow this government and said the country would be run at the directives of fugitive convict Tarique Rahman and Begum Zia, the duplicity of Western diplomats became evident when instead of calling for peace and stability to promote development, they called for free and fair elections.
The Bangladesh parliament polls are a year away and calling for a free and inclusive polls so early on itself points to am agenda. It is the Opposition which is boosted by such calls and then they choose to announce a boycott of the polls and threaten to bring down the government by force and violence on the streets.
The foreign diplomats who sign appeals for inclusive polls should take it upon themselves to get the Opposition to join the polls or refrain from issuing such calls .
A series of disinformation campaign, sponsored by opposition combine, on the global stage has already been exposed by a number of media outlets ever since the war crimes trial began in 2009, thanks to the hiring of Toby Cadman and some other western advocates by Jamaat-e-Islami.
Right after outright rejection by public in 2008 election, BNP-Jamaat combine spend staggering amount of money particularly in US, UK and European Union, to spread targeted disinformation campaign against the government. BNP chief Begum Zia? in a column written for a western paper, even
advocated for cancellation of GSP facilities before the last national election.
Following its blunder to boycott the election in 2014, BNP Jamaat combine launched a street terror campaign countrywide—setting fire on vehicles, attacking law enforcers and minorities in tandem.
Simultaneously, their hired lawyer-lobbyists launched a smear campaign against the Hasina government in Western countries to cover their own violence by blaming police action against it as human rights violations .
The report in AJ unit also quoted Mohammad Ashrafuzzaman, liaison officer at the Asian Human Rights Commission, who provided the evidence of human rights abuses by the RAB attached to the sanctions requests to the US and the UK.
“The expectation was that the UK and US, being strong allies, that they would be collaborating with each other by announcing back-to-back sanctions. The US did that on the 10th of December, the UK didn’t,” Ashrafuzzaman said.
The claim of Ashrafuzzaman also raised question over the substance behind such justification of rights issues, as AHRC already drew widespread condemnation of being a highly biased body that disregards views of country’s eminent rights activists and vouched for defending a controversial NGO called Odhikar already earned notoriety for faking cases of rights issues.
In the wake of the revelation of the inclusion of two Indian insurgents in a list provided by UN to Bangladesh on enforced disappearances, the organization stood up in defence of the error ridden list accusing Bangladesh of launching "hate campaign".
Asian Human Rights Commission in its vague statement alleged that the media in Bangladesh, which they referred to as "pro-government", and allies of the government are engaging in a campaign to tarnish the UN working group's reputation and question their sincerity on a grave issue like enforced disappearance.
What the Commission has, however, failed to consider is that it was not an attempt to vilify any human rights body, rather the intention was to simply pinpoint the inconsistency and inaccuracy of the data coming from an institution like the UN which has always been at the forefront of defending human rights across the globe, said country’s eminent professor Mizanur Rahman Khan.
On the other hand, diplomats were seen much vocal over complaints field by opposition parties on rights issues but the cries of hundreds of families who lost their near ones at BNP’s arson campaign did not trigger equal response from the same community.
“Their duplicity is so obvious and continuation of this policy would clearly put them on the directives of opposition hired lobby shops, in a stark contrast to their call for standing for their fight against global terrorism and upholding rights issues."
