Bangladesh summons US ambassador to protest sanctions of top police officials
Bangladesh has summoned the US ambassador to Dhaka to protest sanctions targeting the country’s senior law enforcement officials.
The US government has imposed sanctions on seven former and current top officials of Bangladesh’s Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), including the country's national police chief, over allegations of human rights abuse.
Bangladesh's Foreign Secretary Masud Bin Momen summoned the US ambassador "to convey Dhaka's discontent" over the move, the ministry said in a statement on Saturday.
The top diplomat "regretted that the US decided to undermine an agency of the government that had been on the forefront of combating terrorism, drug trafficking and other heinous transnational crimes that were considered to be shared priorities with successive US administrations," the statement added.
Bangladesh's Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan said that the US sanctions were “based on exaggerated information” and were not “in line with facts.”
One of the sanctioned individuals, RAB deputy chief K.M Azad, defended the special unit's police operations against criminal gangs, saying RAB has never violated human rights.
"If bringing down a criminal under the law is a violation of human rights, then we have no objection to violating this human rights in the interest of the country," he explained.
The US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), however, claimed that RAB’s conduct was a threat to US national security interests.
“Widespread allegations of serious human rights abuse in Bangladesh by the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) - as part of the Bangladeshi government’s war on drugs - threaten US national security interests by undermining the rule of law and respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, and the economic prosperity of the people of Bangladesh.”
“RAB and other Bangladeshi law enforcement [agencies] are responsible for more than 600 disappearances since 2009, nearly 600 extrajudicial killings since 2018, and torture,” the statement alleged, citing reports in the media, rights organizations, and NGOs.
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