Will Bangladeshi Government Wake up in 2010?

New Year's Day 2010 marked the seventh straight year that began with the Bangladeshi government maintaining an admittedly false case against Weekly Blitz editor and publisher Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury. With a new decade beginning, we might ask what the Bangladeshi governments and people have gained by a case that has been maintained by BNP, civilian-backed caretaker, military-backed caretaker, and Awami League governments. The answer demonstrates that those groups have placed their own political well-being over that of the nation.

Criminologists often cite three purposes for any criminal justice proceeding: retribution (punishment), restitution (repayment of damages), and rehabilitation (preventing future crimes). With regard to retribution, the Bangladeshi government certainly has achieved its purpose. Shoaib Choudhury has been burdened with this persecution for years. It has suppressed his ability to further his professional standing, progress financially, and so forth, even lead a normal life. The prosecution has been financially and emotionally draining on him and his family even now with no end in sight. He has been attacked physically multiple times, abducted by the Rapid Action Battalion, imprisoned, and tortured; his newspaper offices bombed and occupied by hostile mobs; and the police have not done a thing about it. His life has not really been his own since November 2003. Even without formal, criminal sanctions, as one legal scholar told me, the Bangladeshi government has "made the process the punishment." What about restitution? That's hard to say because no one ever suggested that Shoaib took anything or established what, if anything needs to be restored. And rehabilitation? Laying aside the argument that Shoaib Choudhury has done nothing other than voice legitimate opinions, it is clear that he has not stopped voicing his opinions or pursuing the same principled journalism, including news and opinion favorable to Dhaka-Jerusalem relations. So, from either side's point of view, the only aspect of criminal justice that has been accomplished is retribution—and that has been accomplished thoroughly enough to justify the government declaring victory to itself in this matter.

On the other side, what has this cost the people of Bangladesh?

The amount of money that Bangladeshi politicians continue to expend on this hopelessly flawed case has in essence been food out of the mouths of Bangladeshi children, money that the government could have used to help its suffering citizens. The most concrete cost, however, has been in the area of trade. When I confronted Bangladesh's ambassador to the United States in 2003, Shamsher M. Chowdhury, it was clear that his top priority was bringing home a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with the United States. He even raised the issue during a meeting he and I had with Congressman Mark Kirk about the Shoaib Choudhury situation. The US receives a significant percentage of Bangladeshi garment exports, and that was being threatened. Larger producers like India and China were under cutting competitors and grabbing an ever-growing share of the US market. Garment exporting nations from Central America, most notably Guatemala and Honduras, were starting to benefit from a regional free trade agreement (CAFTA), passed a few years earlier during the Clinton administration. Their market share was also growing at the expense of Bangladesh. So, the government recognized that maintaining the status quo in Bangladesh-US trade relations would be unsustainable in the future. And it was right. Even before the economic collapse of 2009, Bangladesh's share of the US market declined precipitously and steadily. In 2008, Walmart, Bangladesh's largest US customer, cut its imports from that country. (Congressman John Boozman, whose district includes Walmart's corporate headquarters, was the Republican floor leader of a Congressional discussion that condemned the Choudhury.)

With the Bangladeshis being told by US officials that a FTA was not in the cards, they lobbied for some sort of consolation prize in the form of tariff reduction. There have been at least six such attempts since 2003—and every one of them has been defeated. In one 2007 attempt, the Bangladeshis sent no less a light than Nobel laureate Mohammed Yunis to plead their case. While Mr. Yunis was greeted with the respect due an individual of his stature, the bill went down to defeat nevertheless without ever getting a committee hearing. US lawmakers from both political parties are well aware of Shoaib Choudhury's persecution and are quickly notified of anything that might reward the government that continues it.

The lack of any progress on this front not only hurts the exporters but also those Bangladeshis who otherwise might have jobs in the garment industry.

In 2003, the Bangladeshi embassy in Washington was at pains to convince American lawmakers that it was a "moderate Muslim country," and with Bangladesh having such a low profile in Washington, it was having some success. But Shoaib Choudhury's persecution put an end to that low profile and caused us to take another look at the embassy's assertion. As such, that "moderate" argument became ever more difficult to make when Bangladesh pursued an admittedly false prosecution against a journalist for writing against Islamist radicals and in favor of Dhaka-Jerusalem relations. The impact of the Shoaib Choudhury prosecution is particularly acute in this area since several Bangladeshi officials have admitted that the only reason governments are maintaining the false prosecution is "for fear of how the [Islamist] radicals would react" if they dropped it. Despite Bangladesh's critical location and its having the fourth largest Muslim population in the world, the seventh largest overall, it has seen essentially no significant cooperation or additional aid coming from the United States. With no movement to end this cause célèbre, Congressional gaze is being focused on other problematic aspects of Bangladesh, including the ongoing persecution of minorities and the government's failure to repeal the Vested Property Act.

At several points, Bangladesh was given the opportunity to strengthen the image of its jurisprudence by following basic rules of law and dropping this case that the government could not make. Yet, it did not and confirmed among many people worldwide that Bangladesh's judiciary remains subservient to the political leaders in Dhaka.

International condemnation is growing. Countries condemning Shoaib Choudhury's prosecution (as a body or through individuals) include the United States; the European Union and individual European countries; Canada; and Australia. International journalist societies worldwide also have condemned it—and the fact that the Awami League dropped similar charges against other Bangladeshi journalists but continued these only highlighted the Islamist hand behind them. Current efforts will ask the United Nations to re-examine its use of Bangladeshi peacekeeping troops in light of these human rights violations.

Perhaps the greatest cost and shame is that all the energy used in these negative efforts could have been used to pursue positive goals for Bangladesh—goals to rehabilitate its damaged image, enhance its ability to grow export markets, gain cooperative ventures, and so forth. Instead, the government's continued refusal to end Shoaib Choudhury's false prosecution has galvanized a strong international opposition to its policies; an opposition composed of many individuals who otherwise would work to see Bangladesh prosper.

So we again ask: Will the government wake up to this in 2010?

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Will Bangladeshi Government Wake up in 2010?

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