Country's human rights situation alarming: ASK

Terming Bangladesh's overall human rights situation in 2017 alarming, Ain O Salish Kendra (ASK) on Sunday urged the government to play more effective role in improving the situation as expected by the common people.
The human rights body released its annual report after observing human rights issues like extrajudicial killing and custodial death, enforced disappearances and secret killing, freedom of expression, repression on minorities, violence against women and children, and repression on journalists.
Releasing its report at Dhaka Reporters Unity, ASK said 162 people were killed in the name of crossfire with law enforcers and in their custody in 2017. The number of such deaths was 195 in 2016, 192 in 2015 and 128 in 2014.
Expressing concern over the incidents of enforced disappearances and secret killings, it said the allegation of plainclothes men's involvement in arrest, abduction and detention continued this year. However, the number of people, who fell victim to enforced disappearances, came down to 60 in 2017 against 97 last year.
Of them, 14 were shown arrested, and 16 others returned to their families. Two were found dead while the rest remained untraced.
Freedom of expression was hampered or violated on several occasions, the report said, adding that government vigilance on different mass and social media under section 57 of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Act continued in the outgoing year.
The rights body observed that the proposed Digital Security Act also includes similar regulations to section 57 of the ICT Act, which hinders freedom of expression of people. A total of 54 people were sued under section 57 of ICT Act this year, it said.
The report said though repression of minorities slightly decreased in 2017 but there were reports of 258 cases of attacks on minorities including those of the Hindu community that took place in different parts of the country. The number was 391 in 2016 and 317 in 2015.
It also said 212 Hindu idols and 45 houses were vandalised and 21 businesspeople of Hindu community came under attack apart from killing of one Narayan Chandra Das in Hatiya of Noakhali over extortion.
The incidents of rape, sexual assault and violence against women were higher in 2017 than that of the previous year with reporting 818 rape victims countrywide, it added.
Of the victims, 47 were killed after rape and 11 committed suicide. In 2016, a total of 659 women were raped, according to the report.
About border killings, the human rights body said the government commitment or assurance in bringing down border killings to zero was not fruitful as there were reports of such extrajudicial killing in Thakurgaon and Lalmonirhat districts.
Covering repressions on journalists, it said a total of 122 journalists across the country faced repression and assault from various quarters, including law enforcers. It was 117 in 2016.
Demanding more effective role of the government, ASK said it is the responsibility of the government to keep their words that they made at national and international level to improve standard of human rights here.

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