Commentary- Rule of law vs use of law to intimidate: AL is behaving as if it will never be in opposition by Mahfuz Anam

We have seen an inordinate rise of violence in opposition politics — injuring, burning and killing of ordinary people during hartal.

We have also noticed with disgust that no leader of the opposition either condemned such brutality or expressed regret when so many children died or were severely injured.  They just couldn’t care less that so many innocent lives were lost. This paper and this writer have, on previous occasions, condemned them in the strongest of terms.

Today we intend to address a different issue: that of using the legal structure to repress the opposition ahead of a national election.
The way opposition leaders are being arrested, implicated in cases of murder, use of explosives and violence is not rule of law but terrorising the opposition by abusing the law.
What Sheikh Hasina’s government is doing is destroying the whole notion of rule of law by flouting it, bending it, distorting and downright abusing it. It is taking the desire of the people to see strong action taken against the violence unleashed by the recent hartals and using it against the criminals among the BNP rank and file, but instead using it against top leaders who cannot even remotely have been associated with it.
By so doing the Awami League government is setting a dangerous precedent of how to use the legal system to harass, weaken and selectively imprison opposition leaders before a national election and thereby cripple the opposition.  The ruling party is behaving as if there is no tomorrow, and that political power will never change and a day will not come when it will have to sit on the opposition benches.
Yesterday, three senior leaders of the BNP, namely, Moudud Ahmed, M.K. Anwar, Rafiqul Islam Mia, and two others, Shamsur Rahman(Shimul Bishwas) and Abdul Awal Mintoo, were sent on an eight-day remand for questioning in the following two cases:
1. On 24th September, 2013, according to the case statement, 54 BNP leaders and activists named in the FIR along with 80/90 other unnamed persons, under the planning and instruction of the detained five BNP leaders, brought out a sudden procession in front of Ideal School and College and stopped the flow of traffic to create panic amongst the public. They also vandalised cars and attacked their drivers in order to kill them. The procession also attacked the police and prevented them from carrying out their duties.
In addition, the accused five detainees on various TV talk shows and in public meetings termed this government as “illegal” and thereby instigated government officials to desist from obeying the law.
2. On 5th November, 2013 the same accused five BNP leaders are supposed to done the same things with similar results, only the location being different.
Earlier, in April 2012, the acting Secretary General of BNP, Mirza Fakhrul, among the better educated politicians in the country, was sent to jail, along with many other top leaders, for torching a vehicle in front of the PMO. In this case M.K. Anwar, Brig. Gen.(retd)  Shah Hannan and former energy minister Khandakar Musharraf were also sued.
In May 2012, Fakhrul and others were also charged with throwing a handmade bomb inside the secretariat.  In this case BNP alliance party leaders Oli Ahmed, a former minister, and Andaleeve Rahman Partho, MP and a barrister, were also sued.
Can it be credible that these leaders who have spent years in politics and had been years in power as ministers, with some being elected members of parliament, can become common thugs and criminals?
The reason for the appeal for remand in the two cases filed most recently is that they need to be questioned to dig further as to their future plans to cause disruption and violence.
According to the police FIR (First information Report) Moudud has been recorded to be 73 years old and M.K. Anwar 81 and Rafiqul Islam 71.  Is it credible that these people, given their age, can actually be involved with the type of violence that we  have been recently seeing in the streets?    There is no record of these people being involved with terror and violence politics in their own parties. In fact they are known for being voices of moderation in intra-party debates.
In both parties there are two very distinct groups.  Just as in AL there are those who take a hardline on the opposition, there are others who preach understanding. The same is true of the opposition as well. The BNP leaders under discussion are known for their moderate positions.  So arresting them and not the ones who are actually masterminding the violence can only lead to a weakening of the moderates within BNP and a strengthening of the hands of the violence seekers.
We all know what it means to take one on remand. It is where all means (read illegal and violent) are used to extract information. These methods include torture, or methods verging on torture, which is never admitted by the police or the government. In the best case scenario these aged and veteran politicians will be subjected to long stretches of sleep deprivation, high voltage light, high decibel noise, uncomfortable bed, restricted access to toilet and windowless rooms.  Taking political leaders on remand was unimaginable till most recently. But gone are the days when politicians were treated with dignity in  prison.
We can anticipate ruling party mockery about how our heart is bleeding for opposition politicians and not for the victims of the violence. They may even taunt us by saying where was our bleeding heart when AL leaders were mistreated by BNP, totally forgetting our vigorous protest on all such occasions.
The reason for our protest today is the selective, partisan and distorted use of the law in tying to suppress the opposition in the name of suppressing violence. If, instead of these leading figures of the opposition, the real criminals of BNP- and there are many- had been arrested we would not only have heaved a sigh of relief but cheered the government all the way.
Tragically, that is not the case. It is a case of electioneering by misusing the legal system, the police and other law enforcement agencies. It is a case of electioneering by distorting the various arms of the executive branch of the state – a distortion that will take years to mend, if it ever can be, and for which we will have to pay a very high price in the future.
While we condemn the opposition for its gruesome and wanton violence in recent politics and their refusal to renounce it, we also condemn the government for using the incidents of violence not to arrest the real culprits but the party veterans in an attempt to cripple the opposition before the election.
When the law becomes an instrument of partisan politics rather than a source of justice, we really need to think where we are headed.