Ilias Ali

Debate between Bob Stewart and Gerry Sutcliffe

Thursday 24th May 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gerry Sutcliffe (Bradford South) (Lab)]

I am delighted that Mr Speaker has given me the opportunity to raise this important subject, and that the hon. Member for Bedford (Richard Fuller) and my hon. Friends the Members for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick) and for Luton South (Gavin Shuker) are here to discuss it.

I applied for this debate following a meeting in Bradford with members of the Bangladeshi community. While they wanted to discuss the current political crisis in Bangladesh, which I will come to shortly, their immediate concern was for the safety of llias Ali, a former member of the Bangladeshi Parliament and a key activist in the main Opposition party, the Bangladesh Nationalist party. His family and friends are also concerned about his disappearance.

Mr Ali disappeared with his driver, Ansar Ali, less than a month ago on 17 April. Unconfirmed eye-witness reports suggest that they were pulled from a car at gunpoint and forced into a black minibus. The disappearance of Mr Ilias Ali is not the first such incident in recent months in Bangladesh, but it has been the catalyst for widespread protests throughout the country, including a number of general strikes. During the disturbances and protests, there have been further reports of deaths and disappearances at the hands of the police and security services.

Since winning independence from Pakistan in 1971, politics in Bangladesh has been marked by brief periods of democratic government, but all too often they have been ended by military intervention, followed by a period of military rule. Although economic and political corruption have been rife, Bangladesh’s economic growth rates have been among the highest in Asia, and significant progress has been made in education and health policy under former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia of the BNP and the current Prime Minister, Sheikh Hasina of the Awami League.

The political rivalry between the leaders of the two main political parties has dominated Bangladeshi politics since the 1970s. However, in 2007, following yet another state of emergency and the formation of a military-backed caretaker Government, both leaders found themselves under arrest on charges of corruption, along with more than 100 other politicians. Both leaders were subsequently freed by the High Court and allowed to lead their respective parties into the general election in December 2008. The Awami League and its coalition, under Sheikh Hasina, won a landslide victory in an election that international observers reported to be largely free and fair.

Following that election, and the attempts to eradicate corruption and clean up politics, there was optimism that a period of political stability would see the emergence of a truly democratic and pluralist Bangladesh. However, the recent political turmoil has put paid to that optimism, and there is concern that it could lead to another suspension of democracy in Bangladesh. The anti-corruption organisation, Transparency International, recently warned that a “growing partisan political influence” was

“eroding the capacity of the state to promote rule of law, justice, equality and basic human rights of the people”.

Although the disappearance of Ilias Ali has largely been the cause of the recent disturbances, it is unfortunately not an isolated incident. On 4 February, two student activists, Al Mukaddas and Mohammed Waliullah, went missing. They have not been heard from since. On 2 April, two BNP activists, Iftekhar Ahmed Dinar and Junaid Ahmed, were taken from their homes by plain-clothes police officers. Their whereabouts remain unknown. Two days later, on 4 April, a prominent trade union activist from the garment industry, Aminul Islam, went missing. He was found dead a day later.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

I have one question for clarification. Is the hon. Gentleman suggesting that the Bangladeshi Government are deeply involved in the kidnappings?

[Mr Sutcliffe]

I am not suggesting that. That is precisely the difficulty that exists in Bangladesh at the moment: there is no clarity about who is responsible, on one side or the other. I just want to highlight the fact that these people are missing, whatever the circumstances. It is the duty of the Government of Bangladesh to investigate those issues. I hope that the Minister—I am delighted that he is here—will exert some pressure, or at least tell us what we can do, because we have a large Bangladeshi population in the UK. I do not want to place blame on any particular body.