18,000 Brought to Prisons in 11 Days

Bangladesh created an all time world record for pulling in 18,000 persons into prisons countrywide in a space of 11 days beginning from 28 May 2008. Reason given was to ensure safe communities in view of the upcoming general election to be held in December 2008.

Totally dictatorial situation in Bangladesh. No democracy at all even though it was supposed to be one. Human rights organisations such as the Human Rights Watch and Democracy Watch said that such arrests have no basis and it was political driven. The situation started when two major political parties, Awami League and the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, decided not to co-operate with the military-backed caretaker government in the upcoming general election.

The two political parties said that those arrested by the caretaker government were in fact their members. In applying the Emergency Powers Rules, it allowed the caretaker government to make the necessary arrests without police warrants and place the person in prison till the caretaker government felt it is right timing to release them.

But the caretaker government said that those arrested were actually criminals. Wow, that's certainly highly efficient on the part of the Bangladesh police. They would be the best police team in the whole wide world with such arrest ratio in eleven days.

The Malaysian police contingent has lots to learn from their Bangladeshi counterpart.

Scotland Yard would be sending a team to Bangladesh to learn a trick or two from the police force in capturing so many criminals without any of the criminals being tipped off on the police actions.

All this sounds like those disputed arrests under my government's Internal Security Act ("ISA") where people held under the ISA were detained without trials and released upon the government's approval and not the courts. Under ISA rulings, as long as the government felt that they have enough suspicions of you, they could place you under ISA detention for a minimum two years.

Reading: 18,000 held in Bangladesh 'political crackdown' - CNN Asia

Last but not least, I really wonder whether Bangladesh has enough prison cells to fit in the 18,000 human beings. Or how many human beings are being squeezed into one cell?
Tags: Prison, Jail, Lock Up, Bangladesh, Political Crackdown, Awami League, Bangladesh Nationalist Party, Human Rights Watch, Democracy Watch