Rights abuses rife in S Asia
2006-12-13 18:55
New Delhi - Extrajudicial killings, attacks on religious and ethnic minorities and curbs on press freedom are endemic in South Asia, with Bangladesh being the worst violator, a leading regional human rights group said on
Wednesday.
"Human rights violations are systemic, endemic; and torture
forms part of the administration of justice," Suhas Chakma,
director of the Asian Centre for Human Rights (ACHR), told a
news conference during the release of the group's 2006 report.
Rapid Action Battalions in Bangladesh, created to fight
Islamic militants, were operating with "impunity" and were
responsible for most of the 396 extrajudicial killings in that
country in 2005, the New Delhi-based ACHR said the report.
Most of the deaths at the hands of the Rapid Action
Battalions were allegedly caused by "crossfire" but the rights
group called this a euphemism for execution.
The rights group also slammed Bangladesh for not doing
enough to protect journalists, saying they faced attacks from
armed opposition groups, state agencies and political parties.
It added two journalists were killed and 142 were wounded
in attacks last year. The government says the press in the
country is free to work without fear from its agencies.
Cultural cruelties
Pakistan also came in for severe criticism, especially over
"entrenched legal repression and cultural cruelties" that make
women "excessive targets" of violence.
The ACHR said nearly 4 400 women were victims of
so-called honour killings, murders carried out ostensibly to
protect a family's honour and which authorities are often
reluctant to prosecute.
India, the region's biggest country and home to several
insurgencies including Kashmir, continued to report hundreds of
judicial deaths both in 2004 and 2005 and had allowed attacks
on minority Christians in states ruled by Hindu nationalists.
With its entrenched parliamentary democracy and free press,
India was the least bad offender in terms of rights in the
region, the AHCR said.
But it said Dalits - formerly "untouchables" in the Hindu
caste system - continued to face "widespread rights
violations".
In Sri Lanka, the group said minority Tamils from all walks
of life including aid workers and political activists continued
to be targeted by security forces and right-wing Sinhalese
groups as the ethnic conflict deepens.
The group said the Maldives government was misusing
anti-terror laws to crack down on the opposition and that the
president of the chain of Indian Ocean islands had "perfected"
the art of such misuse.