Rapid Action Battalion alleged to have beaten Salauddin Quader Chowdhury and subjected him to electric shocks
A Bangladeshi MP who has been been behind bars for more than two months after allegedly being detained and tortured by a paramilitary unit trained by the British government has given a harrowing account of his mistreatment in a letter from prison.
In the letter, which appears to be addressed to the British government, Salauddin Quader Chowdhury describes how he was severely beaten and a man he believes to have been a doctor monitored his blood pressure while he was subjected to a series of electric shocks.
Human rights groups say torture is employed routinely by the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB). The unit has also admitted responsibility for so many extra-judicial killings that it is condemned by Human Rights Watch as a "government death squad".
US diplomatic cables posted on the internet last year after being leaked to WikiLeaks disclosed the degree of British support for the RAB, which includes training in "investigative interviewing techniques" and "rules of engagement".
Chowdhury, 63, was detained in Dhaka last December by RAB officers and a number of officials from a Bangladeshi intelligence agency, the Directorate General of Forces Intelligence. In the letter, Chowdhury says he lost consciousness while being beaten around the head and back. When he came to, he says, he had been strapped to a metal table."My abductors were engaged in clamping on metal clips and clamps on various parts of my body ? my toes, my knees, my genitals, my hernia incisions, my chest nipples and my armpits. A bearded doctor strapped a blood pressure measuring [device] on to my arm and started instructions to first insert needles under my toenails and switch on electric surges."
Chowdury says he suffered repeated shocks, and was revived with cold water whenever he lost consciousness. He was then taken to hospital for treatment ? where journalists filmed him, looking distressed and in pain ? before being returned to custody. He says that similar torture continued for six days.
Initially, Chowdhury was charged with instigating a firebomb attack on a car, which claimed the life of a passenger. That charge was withdrawn and his family has been told that he is to be charged with war crimes committed during the country's 1971 war of independence, which he denies.
After appearing in court, Chowdhury was permitted to see family members, who say they saw clear evidence of physical mistreatment.
Amnesty International considers the allegations of torture to be credible, describing them as "wholly unacceptable", and has called on the Bangladeshi government to investigate the matter.
Earlier this month Chowdhury suffered what appears to have been a heart attack or stroke while detained at Kashimpur jail north of Dhaka.
A copy of the three-page letter has been sent to William Hague, the foreign secretary, by Phil Shiner, the British lawyer representing Chowdhury's son. Shiner is starting proceedings in the high court aimed at forcing the British government to take steps to bring the alleged mistreatment to an end, and challenging British support of the RAB.
A Foreign Office spokesman said it took allegations of torture seriously and had raised Chowdhury's case at a high level in the Bangladeshi government when he was first detained.
"The allegations in the letter about Mr Chowdhury's treatment are harrowing and if confirmed would be utterly unacceptable," a spokesman said. "While the Bangladesh authorities gave us assurances over his treatment and due process, we have continued to raise Mr Chowdhury's case regularly with the Bangladeshi authorities at a senior level, including over the last week."
Since the RAB was established seven years ago, it is estimated by some human rights activists to have been responsible for more than 1,000 extrajudicial killings, described euphemistically as "crossfire" deaths. In March last year the director general of the RAB said his men had killed 622 people in "crossfire".
The UK foreign office said on Thursday that the training it offered the unit had been "for the purpose of seeking to positively improve the human rights standards and the conduct of ethical policing in Bangladesh, although we are aware that institutional and wider changes will not happen overnight". The unit's head of training, Mejbah Uddin, has told the Guardian that he was unaware of any human rights training being provided by the British since he was appointed last summer.
According to human rights groups the number of extrajudicial killings admitted by the RAB is rising. Bangladeshi human rights organisation Odhikar says the RAB was involved in at least 80 extrajudicial killings in 2010, compared with 63 the previous year.
Since the start of this year, a further 11 people have been shot dead by the unit. The latest killings took place on 18 February, when a 31-year-old man and a 33-year-old man were shot by the RAB and police on the banks of the Kali river, in Jhenidah, 110 miles southwest of Dhaka.
The figures have prompted victims' families to question the nature of the British training being given to the RAB. The secretary of Odhikar, Adilur Rahman Khan, said: "Victims' families think that RAB are not getting human rights training, but they're being trained for extrajudicial killings and torture."
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/law/2011/feb/25/bangladeshi-mp-tortured-rapid-action-battalion
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