BartaBangla Desk :: State Minister for Law Quamrul Islam on Thursday termed ‘one-sided, confusing and unacceptable’ the assessment of human rights situation in Bangladesh in the annual report of the Amnesty International.
Quamrul was talking to reporters at the local Circuit House at noon.
In its annual report 2012 released on Wednesday, the human rights organisation said some 30 extrajudicial killings and 10 forced disappearances were perpetrated in Bangladesh in 2012.
It also said more than 20 Buddhist temples and monasteries, one Hindu temple and scores of Buddhist homes and shops were set on fire during a communal attack.
State security forces were implicated in torture and other ill-treatment while women continued to be subjected to various forms of violence. Besides, the government failed to protect indigenous communities from attack by Bengali settlers, the report said.
Quamrul claimed that the Amnesty International has intentionally been depicting the country’s human rights situation as worse for the last few years, especially since the present government assumed power, to destablise the government and create confusion.
Claiming that the information about the extrajudicial killings and attacks on the worship places of the minority communities is not right, he said extrajudicial killings were perpetrated much lesser during the current regime than the past.
“We think what they tried to term extrajudicial killings is not extrajudicial killings. Deaths in clashes with police or the law enforcers cannot be called extrajudicial killings.”
He also said the government has investigated the suspicious killings sincerely to reveal the truth.
The state minister said the human rights body did not say specifically as to who carried out attacks on the worship places of the minorities.