For more than fifteen years, hundreds of families in Bangladesh have lived in waiting and unbearable pain not to know what their loved ones had become. They were artists, influencers, writers – mostly criticism of the government – or even members of the opposition parties, and their lives suddenly tilted, the day they were taken by force, sometimes under the eyes of their helpless loved ones, never to come back. Consequently, endless research has started for these families with all possible authorities, without obtaining the slightest answer.
715 forced disappearances, 158 people are still lacking in the call
“In a 2021 report, Human Rights Watch reported more than 600 forced disappearances since the coming to power of Hasina in 2009, we are 715 today” today “says Sanjida Islam, coordinator of the Maayer Daak collective, who militates for the release of people abducted and held by the security forces of Sheikh Hasina. “Even if some people have been released since, nearly 158 people are still missing and we have found a significant increase in forced disappearances before and after the elections, as well as during the last demonstrations”she continues.
While the existence of the Aynaghar jail managed by the Bangladaise security forces was publicly revealed for the first time on August 14, 2022 in a Nettra News report – an information portal based in Sweden – the government of Ms. Hasina has always denied its existence as well as those of forced disappearances and extrajudicial executions in the country. “After an investigation into the alleged cases of forced disappearances, the conclusions reveal that people often disappear voluntarily to avoid legal proceedings. Sometimes they also choose to disappear due to a family quarrel “wrote the government to the UN on May 12, 2022.
Detention in inhuman conditions
But the revelations of Netra News have been confirmed as soon as the victims of these disappearances, released in the aftermath of the fall of Sheikh Hasina, began to deliver frightening testimonies on these prisons where they have been detained in inhuman conditions in the past fifteen years. For recently released people, it clearly appears that these detention centers were managed by the Directorate General of Intelligence, which depends on the Ministry of Defense. “I saw words like” Sena “(army) on the water bottles that were provided to me,” defense drug – prohibited trade “on tablets of tablets; Or the mention of the Senabahini library in the Koran which was provided to me during my captivity ”declared a recently released man.
“” I have not seen daylight for eight years ”
In a video published on social networks, Mir Ahmad Bin Quasem has delivered a poignant testimony of his eight years of Calvary to Aynaghar: “I lost all notion of time, I have not seen daylight for eight years. They put music to prevent me from hearing the call to prayer. (…) Often, I couldn’t sleep, they led their interrogations late at night and I heard people cry: “Kill me please!” I don’t have the words to tell you how traumatic this experience was. »»
This Bangladian lawyer had openly criticized in the press the controversial war court which was to judge his father – a wealthy fundraiser of the largest Islamist party in Bangladesh Jamaat -Elami – for crimes committed during the 1971 independence war with Pakistan.
During a meeting with members of Maayer Daak, the economist and Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus, head of the interim government, expressed his compassion after hearing the concerns of families whose relatives have disappeared over the years. Sanjida Islam, coordinator of the collective, said that the interim government had assured them that it would respond to their concerns.
