Tuesday, July 24, 2012

People frustrated with slow justice: US Ambassador Dan Mozena,Bangladesh


BANGLADESH NEWS

US Ambassador to Dhaka Dan Mozena on Tuesday said the people were frustrated with the slow delivery of justice through the judicial process.

"The judicial process is so slow to deliver justice and sometimes there is a temptation to take justice in your own hand," Mozena told journalists after a meeting with members of National Human Rights Commission in the city.

"There is a process to deliver justice and it must work," he said.

RAB record

The US envoy said Washington was sending an expert again to re-embed in RAB to strengthen internal inquiry cell.

"We embedded an expert inside RAB for four months to set up internal inquiry cell and we hope to bring back that same expert again and have him re-embed to further strengthen the cell," Mozena said.

The cell is a mechanism to hold RAB members accountable for violating human rights.

RAB has been subject to considerable criticism as extra-judicial killings and disappearance by the law-enforcing agencies were discussed in the US Congress last week, the envoy said.

"This is an opportunity for RAB to make significant progress on its human rights record."

Awareness

Mozena said National Human Rights Commission could play an active role in building awareness among the people about human rights.

"According to a commission study, 51 percent of the people don't hear the term human rights and I was quite taken aback by that."

He, however, said it was a tough mandate for NHRC as it has only two full members with five honourary members and 28 staff to serve 153 million people in Bangladesh.

Killing of Aminul

The commission Chairman Mizanur Rahman said he and his other colleagues met Home Minister Shahara Khatun and asked her to come up with concrete evidence on the case.

"This is a sensitive case and she just can't say that the investigation is going on. She must come up with something concrete," he told the journalists after his meeting with US envoy.

Aminul Islam, a labour rights activist, disappeared and was brutally killed in the first week of April and his murder is drawing huge international attention.  

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