In Bangladesh, with the fall of the former prime minister, the veil has been lifted on 15 years of authoritarian rule. While opposition figures and protesters have now been released, other political prisoners have emerged from Sheikh Hasina’s secret prisons. A detention centre that uses particularly repressive methods. Our special correspondent in Dhaka was able to meet a lawyer who has just been released after eight years in prison.
With our correspondent back from Dhaka
His eyes filled with fear, his gait unsteady, Ahmed bin Kassim clutched his mother’s hand, as if in disbelief that he had found himself free, in this apartment in Dhaka. He was a lawyer and the son of a figurehead of Jamaat-e-Islami, Bangladesh’s main Islamist party. Like any religious organization, it had been banned from contesting elections since 2013. But on August 9, 2016, Ahmed saw his troubles with Sheikh Hasina’s regime take a dramatic turn.
” I was grabbed by a group of men in civilian clothes in front of my wife, sister and children… As a lawyer, the first thing I asked was “Why do you take me? Do you have an arrest warrant for me? “They told me?” “We don't need it.” »
An action outside any legal framework. According to Human Rights Watch, nearly 600 people have been victims of enforced disappearance during Sheikh Hasina's tenure.
” Once they put me in the car, they blindfolded me, and that was the beginning of eight agonizing years of darkness. I was kept in a windowless place, they didn’t tell me where I was being taken, what day it was, I couldn’t even tell what time it was! I had no idea if it was day or night, I was blindfolded and handcuffed 24 hours a day, I couldn’t see any faces or talk to anyone… The center I was in was specifically designed to give the inmate an experience worse than death. »
The name of this secret prison is Anyagar, or “House of Mirrors,” because the inmates can only see themselves there. It is run by the intelligence services, which, even when prisoners were released after the fall of Sheikh Hasina, have been careful to maintain a culture of secrecy.
” I was praying the evening prayer and they took me by car. I prepared for the worst. They drove for an hour, took me out, and sat on the floor. The commander grabbed me by the back of the head and said,Tell us: Do you know who we are?I said no, he said to me:Do you know where I spent the last eight years?I said no, he said to me:Excellent, that's exactly what you'll tell people.“ »
It is believed that his family's mobilization played a major role in his release.” I am so proud of my family, they never gave up. My wife, my mother and my children kept fighting. For eight years, they made my fight exist. »
While his daughters play in the kitchen waiting for their father, other Bangladeshis do not know the joy of reunion. More than a hundred people are still missing and families are still protesting outside the intelligence headquarters.
