Submission of Research Proposal on: Enforced Disappearance and

Infringement of Human Rights: A Critical Review of Legal Aspects from

Bangladesh Perspective

Submitted By

Maksudul Islam Khan

ID: 18309027

Course title: Legal Research and Methodology

Course code: LAW402

Section: 01

Semester: Spring 2021

BRAC University

Submitted to:

Md. Mostafa Hosain

Assistant ProfessorSchool of Law, BRAC University

Date of Submission: 21.02.2022

Proposed Title: Enforced Disappearance and Infringement of Human Rights: A Critical
Review of Legal Aspects from Bangladesh Perspective

Name of the Researcher:

Maksudul Islam Khan

Student ID: 18309027

Background:

Enforced disappearance is an atrocious violation of human rights which affects victims in

many ways, including constant fear for their lives and their families go through an emotional
roller coaster of hope and despair and waiting for news that might never come.The
disappeared person, indeed, is completely deprived from the protection of national and
international legal instruments. Moreover, it affects a number of human rights, such as the
right to individual security, the right to protection under the law, the right not to be deprived
of one’s liberty and the right not to be subjected to torture or to any cruel or inhuman
treatment.1 The historical legacy of the practice of enforced disappearance in Bangladesh can
be traced back to the times during the War of Independence in 1971, when a large number of
Bangladeshi intellectuals had become the victims of enforced disappearance done by the then
Pakistani Military Junta and their local collaborators. 2 Over the past decade, enforced
disappearances have been on the rise in Bangladesh and have contributed to a growing and
pervasive climate of fear in the South Asian country. Out of the 507 cases of enforced
disappearances that have been documented by civil society organisations from January 2009
to the end of 2018, 62 people were found dead, 286 returned alive, and the whereabouts of
159 disappeared persons are still unknown.3So, it is high time to reform the legal and
institutional procedures to restrain the practice of enforced disappearance.

1Scovazzi, Tullio and Citroni, Gabriella; The Struggle Against Enforced Disappearance and the
2007 United Nations Convention, Koninklijke Brill NV, Netherlands: Leiden, 2007.
2 1971: Martyred Intellectuals’ Day in Bangladesh,” December 14, 2009, available at:
http://www.executedtoday.com/2009/12/14/1971-martyred-intellectuals-day-inbangladesh/ (accessed on March
21, 2013); The Daily Star, “Profiles of martyred intellectuals,” December 14, 2006.
3 Human Rights Watch, Judge, Jury, and Executioner: Torture and Extrajudicial Killings by Bangladesh’s
Elite
Security Force, 2019, https://www.hrw.org/reports/2019/bangladesh1206/index.htm.
Literature Review:

From the journal published by Bangladesh Journal of Law named, " ENFORCED
DISAPPEARANCE IN DEFIANCE OF HUMAN RIGHTS: A CRITICAL REVIEW OF
LEGAL AND INSTITUTIONAL ASPECTS FROM BANGLADESH PERSPECTIVE "
written by Noor Mohammad Sarker and Monirul Islam, they describe the concept , nature and
the factor of enforced disappearance and its necessity of legal reforms to combat the crime.
Their study shows that as Bangladesh has not signed and ratified ICCPED, there is no
binding legal obligation against such practice which eventually lead to another problem
which is absence of specific law. Furthermore they claim that enforced agencies use section
54(1) of the CrPC as legal weapon to justify the practice and enjoy impunity. Finally they
concluded by saying that absence of joint collaboration on the case of disappearance and
ineffective National Human Rights Commission made the situation worst. Another 57 page
report published by Human Rights Watch named “‘Where No Sun Can Enter’: A Decade of
Enforced Disappearances in Bangladesh,” finds that, despite credible and consistent evidence
that Bangladesh security forces routinely commit enforced disappearances and the ruling
government has ignored calls by donor governments, the UN, human rights organizations,
and civil society to address the culture of impunity. Alongside the report, they found that
nearly 600 people have been disappeared by enforced agencies where RAB was the
notoriously abusive and mentioned by the name of 'Death squad' and Asia director of Human
Rights Watch Brad Adams claims that Bangladesh authorities mock victims and routinely
obstruct investigations, making clear that the government has no intention of meaningfully
addressing enforced disappearances by its security forces. Furthermore, report from Paris-
based International Federation for Human Rights, better known as FIDH ‘Vanished Without
a Trace: The Enforced Disappearance of Opposition and Dissent in Bangladesh,’ shows that
how state actors, including military and police, worked in tandem to make people disappear
where some returned home, alive but silenced, while some were found dead, supposedly
killed in crossfire and others never came back .According to the secretary-general of FIDH,
Debbie Stothard ‘Far from being spontaneous and arbitrary acts, these attacks are systematic
and amount to a state policy and combined with the fact that most of the victims were
targeted on political grounds, activism or critics which qualifies these acts as a crime against
humanity. Nevertheless, from another report published by OMCT and Odihkar named
"CYCLE OF FEAR COMBATING IMPUNITY FOR TORTURE AND STRENGTHENING
THE RULE OF LAW IN BANGLADESH " we came to know that the systematic failure to
investigate, prosecute, and punish perpetrators compounds the problem and constitutes a
serious breach of Bangladesh’s international obligation, first and foremost its obligations
under the UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment
or Punishment which Bangladesh ratified more than 20 years ago. It is telling in this regard,
that respective governments in Bangladesh have failed for two decades to submit any report
to the UN CAT as required by the Convention, making it one of the longest overdue and non-
reporting States in the world today which eventually questioned the 'zero tolerance policy ' of
the government towards torture and serious human rights violation.

Scope of the Research:

In this paper the author will present a critical analysis on the existing laws and institutional
mechanisms in relation to the practice of enforced disappearance in Bangladesh. In doing so,
the paper also seeks to clarify the conceptual issues as well as the modus operandi and share
some national and international historic evidences relating to that particular type of offence.
Subsequent to a brief discussion on the existing laws and institutional mechanisms relating to
enforced disappearance in Bangladesh, the author focuses on the setbacks throughout the
mechanisms as well as provides a set of recommendations to overcome these discrepancies.

Research Question:

Whether Bangladesh is capable to combat the enforced disappearance through the existing
legal framework or not?

Research Hypothesis:

In this paper the author will analysis the existing legal and institutional functions in
Bangladesh relating to the practice of enforced disappearance. Prior to that, the paper
attempts to make the readers acquainted with the conceptual issues, modus operandi and
national and international legal standard concerning to that particular approach of criminal
offence.Focusing on the drawbacks of the laws addressing enforced disappearance, the
current laws need to be changed in such a manner that the law becomes much stronger and
easy to access for all including the victims also.
Methodology:

To do this research paper the author used secondary sources such as books, journals, articles,
newspapers, legal documents, and web sites to gather information. The reports of different
national and international human rights organisations were the primary sources of secondary
data such as FIDH, OMCT, HRW, Amnesty International, Odhikar and many more.
Furthermore, discourse analysis was used to investigate several existing case studies in order
to assess the evolution of crime with ethnographic descriptions.

Chapterization:

The author divided the journal in several chapters and in some of the chapters also included
sub-chapters for better understanding.

1) INTRODUCTION
2) ENFORCED DISAPPEARANCE: CONCEPTUAL ISSUES
3) MODUS OPERANDI OF ENFORCED DISAPPEARANCES IN BANGLADESH
3.1 - Trends and Patterns of Enforced Disappearance
3.2 - Categories of Victims
3.3 - Alleged Perpetrators
4) ENFORCED DISAPPEARANCE AS A CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY
5) A CRITICAL REVIEW ON THE EXISTING LEGAL AND INSTITUTIONAL
MECHANISM
6) RECOMANDATIONS

Bibliography:

Primary Sources

The Constitution of the People‌‌‍’s Republic of Bangladesh( ACT NO. OF 1972 )

The Code of Criminal Procedure, 1898 (ACT NO. V OF 1898)

The Evidence Act, 1872 (ACT NO. I OF 1872)

The Penal Code 1860 (Act No. XLV OF 1860)

National Human Rights Commission (Act NO.53 OF 2009)

National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), Annual Report 2020

International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance” (ICCPED), June 26,
2006

Secondary Sources

Cases:

The Sandoval Case; Case No. 517 of 2004, the Supreme Court of Chile (available at:
<http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/ papers.cfm? abstract id=915720> (accessed on May 20, 2013)

Books:

Scovazzi, Tullio and Citroni, Gabriella; The Struggle Against Enforced Disappearance and the 2007 United
Nations Convention, Koninklijke Brill NV, Netherlands: Leiden, 2007.

Journals:

Odhikar Annual Human Rights Reports from 2009 to 2021(http://odhikar.org/statistics/statistics-on-

disappearances/)

BANGLADESH JOURNAL OF LAW, 2013. ENFORCED DISAPPEARANCE IN DEFIANCE OF HUMAN

RIGHTS: A CRITICAL REVIEW OF LEGAL AND INSTITUTIONAL ASPECTS FROM BANGLADESH
PERSPECTIVE. 13(1 & 2), pp.105 - 128.

OMCT, Odihkar, 2019. CYCLE OF FEAR COMBATING IMPUNITY FOR TORTURE AND
STRENGTHENING THE RULE OF LAW IN BANGLADESH "

FIDH ,2019. Vanished Without a Trace: The Enforced Disappearance of Opposition and Dissent in Bangladesh

Human Rights Watch ,2021.Where No Sun Can Enter’: A Decade of Enforced Disappearances in Bangladesh

Articles:

“1971: Martyred Intellectuals’ Day in Bangladesh,” December 14, 2009, available at:
http://www.executedtoday.com/2009/12/14/1971-martyred-intellectuals-day-inbangladesh/ (accessed on March
21, 2013); The Daily Star, “Profiles of martyred intellectuals,” December 14, 2006
Section 54 of the Cr. P. C. and abusing the Law,” November 08, 2011, available at:
<http://www.lawyersnjurists.com/resource/articles-and-assignment/section-54-of-thecr- p-c-and-abusing-the-
law/> (accessed on April 26, 2013)

Ahmad, Syeed ;“For an independent Human Rights Commission,” The Daily Star, March 14, 2011.