Police in Bangladesh have raided a meeting of a local gay group and accused the attendees of being in possession of illegal drugs.
Bangladesh’s notorious Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) raided the gathering in Dhaka on May 19, arrested 28 men, paraded them in front of the media while saying they were gay, and accused them of drug possession.
Police said that the men were found with condoms and lubrication but because they were not observed having sex they would not be charged with engaging in homosexual activities. Homosexual sex is illegal in the country, and those found guilty can be sent to prison for up to ten years.
The police were reportedly tipped off by a resident near the venue where the group had gathered regularly in recent months.
Human Rights Watch has described the action as an abuse of authority by RAB officers describing their attempts to humiliate the men as a flagrant privacy rights violation for an already-vulnerable minority.
Police said the men, who were mainly in their 20’s and from different parts of the country, were acting suspiciously.
Jahangir Hossain Matubbar, the commander of the RAB said the men had begun communicating on Facebook about six months ago and had pooled their resources to hire the community centre.
The commander defended his action saying that local people had become concerned about the men’s meeting as it was unknown what they were discussing in the community centre.
All 28 men were remanded in custody for two days. Police requested to hold the men for an additional 10 days so they could obtain more information about homosexual organisations. The judge rejected the request for all the men to be detained, but granted permission for four men to be held longer.
Via Human Rights Watch, a local LGBT rights organisation – that has asked not to be named out of fear of reprisals -said officials were complicit in creating stigma for LGBT people.
“What both law enforcement and the media have forgotten is that they are complicit in upholding the colonial legacy of criminalizing and stigmatizing diverse sexual and gender identities and expressions.” the group said.
Bangladesh is one of several South Asian countries that continue to criminalize LGBTQ people using an archaic British colonial-era law known as Section 377.
Despite the presence of several LGBTQ rights organizations in the country, sexual and gender minorities in the country face severe social and economic challenges as well as violence, discrimination and even murder.
The Human Rights Campaign has urged the Bangladeshi government to take immediate action to uphold the human rights of the men by stopping targeted arrests of people based on their sexual orientation and gender identity.
Last year two of the countries more visible activists were hacked to death in the nation’s capital Dhaka. Xulhaz Mannan, was the editor of Bangladesh’s first LGBT magazine, he was killed alongside LGBT activist Mahbub Rabbi Tonoy.
The local LGBT community recently launched a blog to commemorate the lives of the two men.
OIP Staff
