The New Nation - Internet Edition

Md. Munsurul Hoque Chowdhury

Senior Advocate

Today's world is much more concerned about the right of individual human being and the concept "Protection of human rights" is being propagated widely in almost all the countries of the world. Any right of an individual, as protected under any law is an inherent right, not only of an individual but of the society, particularly at large of all the citizens of a sovereign country. Right is a legal right as one can rightfully or legitimately claim for himself or for any other. So Right as defined means legal right. Infringement of right against humanity or of any protective law may be termed as violation of human right. Now a days, almost everywhere around the world it is widely talked about violation of human right, but in most of the countries this way or that way human right is being violated in different names and with the excuses and pleas favouring to the infringers of human right.

World has now become very small because of electronic devices-Internet, mobile phones, etc. It takes no more than one pulse to know about any incident taken place at any part of the world and because of the device the whole world becomes very close, particularly the electronic media is playing a very pivotal role in exploring the slolgan of human rights around the world community.

In Bangladesh human right is being violated frequently mostly against women and children. The main reason behind this is lack of proper education to both male and female. To educate the femalefolk various intellectual ideas are working in the field primarily to expand scope of education to female child and this can only be stopped through education and mass awareness. To encourage the female child to go to school attractive scheme is undergoing in the rural areas namely offering wheat/rice against primary education but with little progress. It is frequently seen that the parents are interested to collect the food grains sending their children only on the day of distribution and this is because of extreme poverty.

So, our main problem is poverty and unless poverty is eliminated to a considerable rate, and within acceptable limit-all measures proposed for implementation shall obviously be delayed. Education, no doubt plays a pivotal role, to make any 'good reasoned endeavour' to success, but in our country our government should give more stress on elimination of poverty as poverty widely stands on the way of any good governance. Therefore, the first priority of any government should be on poverty elimination. In rural areas where parents compel their child to go for work including odd and risk- involved works even before attaining the age of 12 years which is no doubt an inhuman act and should be prevented.

We have already experienced the effect of various laws enacted in order to prevent criminal acts but with little progress. The main reason, if we look deeply, will be our unawareness and this unawareness is mainly because of poverty and lack of education. Still now in our country slogan "Human Right" runs counter to poverty and education. In order to achieve in this area, it should not be the only slogan fight for human right but should be the main theme to grow awareness within men and women of any age through the process of elimination of poverty and expansion of education. One should not only know but also understand logically what right he or she should express.

By enacting various laws one can be brought to justice for breach of law but in order to prevent abusive acts mass-education with poverty elimination may play a very important role protecting human right.

For the last few decades there has been legislation's in various names to protect the dignity of woman and children from various onslaughts of heinous nature, namely physical torture, acid burning, dowry repression, rape and other crimes violating human dignity which our Constitution, also guarantees.

Constitution of Bangladesh by enactment of several Articles ensures protection of human rights. It is clearly enacted in Article 11 of the Constitution as follows :

"11. The Republic shall be a democracy in which fundamental human rights and freedoms and respect for the dignity and worth and in which effective participation by the people through their elected representatives in administration at all levels shall be ensured."

With this embodiment of the element of human rights Part-III has been enacted accordingly with brief title "Fundamental Right", guaranteeing the basic fundamental rights of citizen of the country.

In order to protect the fundamental right of the citizen of the country numerous protective laws-have so far been enacted and also inherited. State organs namely the law enforcing agencies are at the helm to enforce those laws.

A very important role is played by the law enforcing agency to protect and preserve one's right but in past days, in many cases it is seen that the rights of citizens were not properly protected but rather violated in the hand of unscrupulous law enforcers; an instance is "Yasmeen Murder Case".

We have experienced in the past, immediately after each election the opponents were ill treated inhumanly-but legal measures and remedies were few. We should, as a nation, come forward to respect law as well as the constitutional mandate on "Human Right" and there should be safeguards on abuse of process of law, particularly against the "Law Enforcing Agencies".

Because of implementation of the directives of our Appellate Division by separating judiciary from the executive we have stepped in to a new era and the nation has welcomed the separation process with the best hope that this separation will directly help to protect Human Right through quick and proper dispensation of justice without fear or favour to anybody.

In conclusion, it can be said concept of Human Rights is no doubt an integral part of our social values, traditions and ethos but due to rapid changes in both social and economic life it is imperative now to have a fresh look at the concept of human rights. Because of independence of judiciary from the Executive it makes sense to thinf afresh on "Human Rights" because previously human rights have frequently been violated because of interference on judiciary.