Rights groups: Bangladesh must immediately end illegal detentions News
Rights groups: Bangladesh must immediately end illegal detentions

Amnesty International (AI) and Human Rights Watch (HRW) [advocacy websites] released a statement [AI press release; HRW press release] this weekend urging Bangladesh officials to immediately end the illegal detentions of two citizens. Ahmed Bin Quasem and Humman Qader Chowdhury were arrested without warrants on August 9 and August 4, respectively. They were reportedly carried out by men in plain clothes who did not identify themselves as security forces. The men have also not been presented before a magistrate and have not had access to family or lawyers. Officials have denied having the men in custody, although many sources have said otherwise.

Both detained men are sons of opposition leaders who have been convicted of war crimes during the 1971 war for independence from Pakistan. Salahuddin Quader Chowdhury was executed [JURIST report] last November. Mir Quasem Ali is also facing the death penalty [JURIST report]. Rights groups such as AI have criticized [JURIST report] death sentences imposed by Bangladesh’s war crimes tribunal, stating that trials of war criminals have, in the past, “failed to meet international standards.”