EU Mission plans to visit CHT

Members of the visiting European Union Exploratory Mission expressed their willingness to visit the Chittagong Hill Tracts during their meeting with the acting secretary of the CHT affairs ministry.

The six-member delegation also met with the Chairman of the National Human Rights Commission, Kamal Uddin Ahmed, officials of the foreign ministry, and senior officials of the Police.

In the evening, they had a meeting with the members of the international affairs subcommittee of the ruling Awami League.

Talking to reporters after his meeting with the EU delegation, acting Secretary of the CHT Affairs Ministry Aminul Islam said that the delegation members told him that they want to visit CHT areas to meet a cross-section of people to assess whether the situation is conducive for the visit of the EU election observers team of the European Union.

"I advised them to talk to the home ministry for the visit. I assured them that we would provide logistical support if they visited CHT," Mr Islam added.

"They want to visit the Chittagong Hill tracts to discuss the election atmosphere with the local people, and I have told them that the Election Commission will take measures in this regard."

The acting secretary also said that the security situation also came up during the discussion, and he told them that at present,  the situation is much better compared to 2008, when they last visited the area.

"But I told them that they should remain cautious about the security situations."

In the meeting between the EU team and the NHRC Chairman, issues related to election violence and enforced disappearances came up.

Asked about the meeting, the NHRC chairman said that the EU delegation wanted to know about the threat of election violence, and in response, he told them that the situation is much better compared to the previous years.

The Commission told the EU delegates that the volume of election violence has reduced a lot now, and during the recent City Corporation polls, no major incident of violence was reported apart from some sporadic incidents in Barisal.

He said the issue of enforced disappearances was also discussed during his meeting with the EU delegation.

"I told them that we have taken all the cases related to enforced disappearances very seriously and we are conducting an investigation into them."

"I have also provided them with our annual report, which contains data regarding those enforced disappearances," the Chairman said. However, he said the Commission found that in some cases, several persons who were in custody were included in the list of enforced disappearances by some organisations because their whereabouts were not known to their relatives.

The chairman told the delegation that the Commission takes the issue of conducting free and fair polls seriously and will start an awareness campaign in all the divisional headquarters very soon.

"We will meet with the deputy commissioners in those meetings to sensitise them about the human rights issues to ensure free and fair polls.

"We have some guidelines for the election, and these guidelines will be modified again to ensure human rights during the polls."

The Chairman said, as per the constitution, every eligible voter has the right to cast their vote without intimidation, and all stakeholders have to ensure it."

He also noted that the issue of custodial death is a serious violation of human rights. In this regard, he cited the example of the death of Sultana Jesmin under the custody of law enforcers.

He said that the commission investigated the case and found that a serious violation of human rights took place in this incident.

In the morning, the six-member EU Election Exploratory Mission had a meeting with foreign ministry officials on the third day of its two-week visit to Bangladesh to assess the environment surrounding the next national elections.

The Foreign Ministry's Additional Secretary Asad Alam Siam and other senior officials took part in the meeting.

The mission, which arrived in Dhaka on Saturday, has held meetings with the EU ambassadors and some other Western diplomats, including those from the US and the UK.

It is also scheduled to hold meetings with all stakeholders, including government, political parties, Election Commission, security officials, civil society and media.

Based on the assessment report, which would be submitted to the EU High Representative Josep Borrell, the EU will decide whether it will send a full-fledged Election Observation Mission (EOM) before the next general election, scheduled for December this year or early next year.

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