US Congress members' latest letter on Bangladesh draws flak

The recent letter by Congressman Bob Good to the US Ambassador to the UN with 13 of his colleagues has drawn criticism on social media for its "biased" contents.

Demands made in the statement are completely irrational, just like the previous one as exposed by eminent rights activists, critics said.

The first demand of Bangladesh’s suspension from UN Human Rights Council is a sheer disregard to the overwhelming vote Bangladesh received during the last election held in October 2022, they said.

Bangladesh received 160 votes out of 189 casted, earning the membership of the UNHRC for the term 2023-25.

As reference in the letter a foreign organisation FIDH has been added but critics said reality is that Odhikar happens to be the member Organization of FIDH — Odhikar’s record for faking rights issues has long been proven.

"Congressman, I thought that after the reactions you received to your last letter on Bangladesh, including. from mainstream civil society and rights groups, you'd have realised that you are being used politically by a vested group, who have invested a lot in lobbying the US," Barrister Shah Ali Farhad tweeted reacting to the letter. 

"By essentially repeating the talking points of a partisan group, you're appearing to be taking sides in what is basically an internal political feud of Bangladesh. And emboldening a camp with parties like the Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated Jamaat-E-Islami and other Islamists," he added.

In the letter, Good and his colleagues urged that the UN act immediately to suspend Bangladesh’s membership on the United Nations, Human Rights Council.

They also demanded that the UN Department of Peace Operations temporarily prevent any member of Bangladesh’s Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) from deploying to UN peacekeeping operations until full and transparent investigations into their record on human rights abuses have concluded.

"The people of Bangladesh deserve free and fair elections. I sent a letter to the U.S. Ambassador to the UN with 13 of my colleagues, expressing concern over violence by the Bangladeshi government against peaceful demonstrators," Congressman Good tweeted.

Earlier, several noted minority community leaders including Advocate Rana Dasgupta and Archbishop Emeritus Patrick D'Rozario, academics and anti-war crimes campaigners have pulled up six US congressmen for what they called “absolutely false projection” of the state of minorities in Bangladesh in a letter to President Biden, asking to take “appropriate measures” for banning Bangladeshi law enforcement and military personnel from participating in UN peacekeeping missions.

They called it a “threat to the existing communal harmony in Bangladesh.”