Feedback Mr. Adilur Rahman Khan, globally known to have critiqued the incumbent government of Bangladesh against its human rights abuses, has been released from prison today, October 11, 2013, after 62 days of prolonged arbitrary detention.
Adilur, a practicing lawyer of the Supreme Court, who served as Deputy Attorney General for Bangladesh, is the Secretary of Odhikar, one of the prominent human rights organisations in the country. The Detective Branch Police arrested him on the basis of two General Dairy entries lodged with the Gulshan police under Section 54 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1898, and Section 57 of the Information and Communications Technology Act, 2006, for publishing a fact-finding report. The report covers the alleged murder of 61 demonstrators of Hefazat-E-Islam on May 6, 2013, in what was a heavy-handed crackdown by security forces and law-enforcement agencies at Motijheel in Dhaka.
“We welcome the decision of the High Court Division to release our friend Adil on bail, but obviously the fight continues. We now call for the end of any act of harassment against Adil and Odhikar. The extreme pressure they have all been suffering is not tolerable, and we all stand by their side. We will continue to use the best of our peaceful legal and advocacy means for Bangladesh’s international human rights obligations to prevail for the very sake of the country” FIDH President Karim Lahidji said today.