e_Paper, Tuesday, December 13, 2016

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2 TUESDAY, DECEMBER 13, 2016 DT News LEAD STORY A screen shot of a video footage shows a member police setting fire to the houses of Santals in November New video shows police role in Santal arson • Tribune Desk In light of new evidence, police are seen to be directly responsible for setting fire to the Santal houses in Gaibandha in November. A video acquired by Bangla Tribune, available at www. dhakatribune.com, shows a platoon of armed policemen marched towards an abandoned Santal village. The police kicked on the doors as if carrying out a raid on a militant den. Finding the huts unoccupied, a handful of policemen proceeded to set fire to the houses. The villainous act was matched solely by the ineptitude shown by the police as they fumbled in lighting a fire. One of the civilians accompanying the police then proceeds to set the house on fire, and within a matter of hours, the whole village is ablaze. The police and their civilian cohorts strolled nonchalantly amid the burning huts – an honest-to- God implementation of “scorched earth” policy – as part of a “clash” that has since killed three Santal men and displaced 2,000 families from their ancestral lands. On November 6, a clash was reported between the police and Santal community in Gaibandha. A sizable number of trained law enforcers bearing firearms against Santals with bow and arrows guaranteed the Santals would have to relent. The reason behind the conflict was revealed to be eviction of the Santals when they attempted to reclaim their lands granted to the Rangpur Sugar Mill which the Santals alleged the sugar mill reneged on the contract. Santals lament they were deceived by the local lawmaker who promised them his support in securing their lands. The same lawmaker, they alleged, was involved in the attack that saw a small-scale invasion in the form of police, Rab, sugar mill workers, local Bangalis, AL-JAZEERA and many more essentially expel the Santals from their lands. In the wake of the initial conflict, 15 Santal villages in the Shahebganj-Bagda area were raided by police and sugar mill authorities with the support of local politicians. Police filed a case against 42 Santals arrested who were granted bail by the High Court. Although many human rights organisations have pleaded for justice to be carried out and the Santals be returned to their lands, the scorched earth remains witness to the schools burnt down and the BGB patrolling the fences affirm the land is anyone’s but the Santals’. • Deaths of land rights defenders treble • Thomson Reuters Foundation The battle over land and resources turned bloodier in the past year with treble the number of land rights defenders killed, amid fears the violence will get even worse. An average of nearly 16 farmers, indigenous people and advocates of land rights were killed every month through November worldwide, or three times the average in 2015, according to advocacy group Pan Asia Pacific (Panap). From January to end-November, 171 people were killed in relation to land rights, Panap’s data showed. At least 118 were detained through November, compared with 82 last year, as conflicts with rural communities and indigenous people intensified. In the fight for land and the environment - which UK-based watchdog Global Witness calls “a new battleground for human rights” - communities are locked in deadly struggles against governments, companies and criminal gangs exploiting land for products including timber, minerals and palm oil. Global Witness documented 185 murders in 16 countries last year, or more than three people a week being killed defending land, forests and rivers in the deadliest year on record. In Asia, the Philippines, Indonesia and Cambodia saw the most number of victims, while in Latin America, it was in Honduras, Bolivia and Peru, Panap data showed. Harassment and killing of land rights defenders in India are also on the rise. In Brazil, more than 20 land rights activists were killed as of August this year, according to the Pastoral Land Commission. But communities are fighting back. In Cambodia, for example, a group of farmers is at the centre of a landmark legal case that could change the way global corporations manage large-scale land acquisitions. • Investigator: Some Bangladesh Bank officials involved in heist • Reuters Some Bangladesh central bank officials deliberately exposed its computer systems and enabled hackers to steal $81million from its account at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in February, a top investigator in Dhaka told Reuters on Monday. The comments by Mohammad Shah Alam of Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) are the first sign that investigators have got a firm lead in one of the world’s biggest cyber heists. He said arrests are likely to take place very soon. On Thursday, the head of a Bangladesh government panel that investigated the heist said five bank officials were guilty of negligence but that they were only unwitting accomplices. Shah Alam told Reuters his investigations had discovered that some bank officials had knowingly created vulnerabilities in the bank’s connection to the Swift system, used for global transactions. “Bangladesh Bank’s Swift network was made insecure by some bank employees in connivance with some foreign people,” he said. “They knew what they were doing.” He said investigators were now trying to find out how the mid-ranking officials were connected to the hackers and whether they benefited financially from the heist. Asked if the officials would be arrested, Shah Alam said: “We are very close to it.” Bangladesh Bank spokesman Subhankar Saha declined to comment. Another investigator, who declined to be named, said more than 100 Bangladesh Bank employees had been interviewed in connection with the heist, and some were barred from leaving the country. The hackers used fake orders to order the transfer of nearly $1billion from Bangladesh Bank’s account at the New York Fed, using the international Swift payments network. Many of the transfer orders were blocked or reversed but $81million was successfully transferred to four fake accounts in a branch of Rizal Commercial Banking Corp (RCBC) in the Philippines. Most of the funds then disappeared into Manila’s loosely regulated casino industry. •
News 3 TUESDAY, DECEMBER 13, 2016 CHILD LABOUR IN SYLHET STONE QUARRIES When education becomes a luxury DT • Mohammad Jamil Khan, back from Sylhet At the beginning of every year, the atmosphere in the primary schools of Sylhet’s Gowainghat upazila is the same as schools in the rest of the country: crowded with children who are excited about starting a new school year and getting new books. But as the year progresses, the situation changes in all 124 primary schools of Gowainghat; the classrooms lie empty, the teachers have no pupils to teach. The students who should have been in school are found working diligently in the stone quarries. “In Jaflong, no less than 70-80% of the students who enrol in school stop going to classes to work, particularly in winter,” said Mahfuzur Rahman, headmaster of Ballapunji Government Primary School. “They are mainly found collecting and extracting stones in the Piyan River.” “We frequently visit our students’ houses to bring them back to the classroom, they rarely come back as most of them work for the stone quarries,” said Nurun Nahar, associate teacher at Ballapunji Government Primary School. “The majority of the absentee students turn up for the final exams, but it is not much of an improvement as they barely pass the exams,” she added. However, while the absence rate is extremely high, the drop out rate is impressively low. The official student drop out rate at primary schools varies between 9% and 11%, which usually rises in Classes IV and V, according to Gowainghat Education Office. The readmission rate in the same class varies between 4% and 6%. Students make sure that they are enrolled in school by making sporadic appearances throughout the year and appearing in the exams, but most of the time they are absent, said several school sources. Poverty is the biggest reason behind this alarming trend, said Shahid Miah, education officer in Gowainghat. “To support their impoverished families, these children stop going to school and start working,” he told the Dhaka Tribune. “We are working to raise awareness in this regard; we have been meeting with their mothers to make them understand the importance of being regular in school.” The situation has started to improve, he said. “Students are slowly coming back. We are hopeful that it will gradually become even better.” ‘Poverty makes us illiterate’ This correspondent went to Jaflong, Bisanakandi and Bholaganj – three border areas in Sylhet where the stone quarries are located – last week on a visit arranged by Bangladesh Shishu Adhikar Forum and funded by Terre des Hommes, an international child relief agency. Most of the children that this correspondent saw working at the stone quarries or in the rivers collecting and extracting stones were aged between 8 and 16 years. Most of them were seen working with their parents. Kamrun Nahar is one such parent. Her nine-year-old daughter Shila was working with her near Piyan River when this reporter approached them. Asked why she was keeping her daughter from school, Kamrun Nahar snapped at this reporter. “Will school put food in our belly? If we do not work, we will have to go to sleep with an empty stomach.” Shila wants to go to school, but she understands that she has no option. “I go to school once a week, sometimes once in two weeks – whenever we have some money saved up so we can take a break from working. I cannot go to school regularly. If I do not work, how will I eat?” asked the nine-year-old. SC: Jan 15 deadline for finalising judicial code • Ashif Islam Shaon A child worker prepares to dive into the Piyan River in order to extract more stones from the riverbed in Jaflong, Sylhet MOHAMMAD JAMIL KHAN The apex court has directed the government to issue a gazette notification finalising the rules determining the discipline and conduct of lower court judges by January 15, 2017. The eight member bench of the Appellate Division headed by Chief Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha also fixed that date for further hearing and orders while holding a hearing yesterday on the Masdar Hossain case, widely known as the judiciary separation case. Later Attorney General Mahbubey Alam, who represented the state at the hearing, told reporters that they have informed the court about Sunday’s Law Ministry notification which says that the president has decided that there is no need for a gazette notification on the matter. “We prayed for two months’ time before the court to settle the matter. The court granted time till January 15,” he said. In the earlier order, the Apex court had asked the government to issue the gazette notification and place it before the court Monday. Besides, it asked the two secretaries of Law Ministry – ASSM Zahirul Haque and Mohammad Shahidul Haque to appear before the bench. The two secretaries appeared before the court yesterday morning. But the Sunday’s Law Ministry notification said that there is no need to publish a gazette notification on the Disciplinary Rules for the Judicial Officers and Judicial Officers Conduct Rules. During the hearing, the court asked the attorney general why the two secretaries have not brought the gazette notification. As Mahbubey mentioned the Law Ministry’s notification, the court asked him to read it out. In response the court expressed dissatisfaction saying the court had delivered 12-point directives in the Masdar Hossain case but those were not fully implemented in the last 14 years. The government sent a draft to the court and the court made some corrections but the final gazette is yet to be published. The court said the whole thing was conveying a wrong message to the public and lawyers that the court was behind all of these, which is not correct. The court just made some changes to the draft and asked to publish the final gazette. The court said, “Do not misunderstand us. This court handles 80-90% of government-related cases. We are not government’s antagonists.” The apex court said the president might have been misinformed about the matter of the gazette. The Law Ministry officials could not have done this if they had the minimum knowledge. The court criticised the government for seeking time from the court on several occasions to issue the gazette and then saying there is no need for a gazette. Law and Justice Division Secretary ASSM Zahirul Haque told the court they prepared the letter as per Shila’s situation is what most children are going through in the region. In some cases, there are children who cannot manage to go to school more than once in a month. In Bisanakandi, this reporter met Ashraful, 8, who is a boatman’s assistant in a tourist boat. He said his daily earning is Tk50 after he works from dawn to dusk. “Some days are better when tourists give me tips,” the child told this correspondent. He said he goes to school when he can save enough money to take a break from work. Speaking to numerous child and adult labourers, this reporter learned that most of them did not cross the threshold of primary education. Assraf Seddiky, assistant professor at the department of public administration in Shahjalal University of Science and Technology, conducted a study on stone quarry workers in 2014, where he found that 58.83% of the workers managed to study until Class V, while 33.33% were found to be illiterate. Only 10.84% of the workers have studied beyond the primary level, some studying up to Class VIII. But none of the workers have gotten to Secondary School Certificate exams. “People in this region do not know better than working at the stone quarries, because there are no alternative livelihood options available,” Assraf told the Dhaka Tribune. “Unable to pursue education, they remain detached from the rest of the country, let alone the world.” He said the government must take steps to alleviate this situation, otherwise it would be extremely difficult to change these people’s lives. • the direction of the President’s Office. While the court said it did not want any confrontation with the government, it pointed out that in the parliamentary system the president had no power except appointing the prime minister and chief justice. “The president acted as the government recommended in the file.” The court said that the gazette is necessary for the independence of the judiciary. The control of the judiciary needs to be in the Supreme Court’s hand and it cannot be compromised. The court asked to issue the gazette by January 15. It said there was no need to place the rules before parliament or cabinet. The government can finalise the rules through a notification. •
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