I went to the European Parliament last week to speak at a seminar hosted by Johan Van Hecke MEP about the political and human rights situation in Bangladesh.

My speech focused on the concerns I have about a free and fair election being held in Bangladesh at the end of this year. I pointed out that the current State of Emergency in the country means that a level playing field has not been created for credible elections to take place. I emphasised that an election is not merely a technical event which takes place on a particular day. It is one part of a huge political process that involves political parties reaching out to the people and putting forward their agendas and at the same time, going through their own internal processes in determining candidate selection etc. This is simply not possible in an environment, which does not permit basic freedoms and rights.

I also highlighted my concern about the Emergency Power Rules, 2007 framed under the Emergency Power Ordinance, 2007, which denies the arrestees right to bail, right to appeal and makes them ineligible to participate in any elections if convicted by even the lowest Court and even before the whole judicial process has been exhausted. Therefore, in effect, the Emergency Power Rules eliminates probable candidates of the major political parties for the next Parliamentary Elections.

I spoke about the over enthusiasm of the current regime in sequencing local government elections before parliamentary ones which indicates that the military is interested in creating a new and alternative power base at the local level. As history indicates, the military will probably use this as a platform to create a new political party backed by them to be formed at a later date.

We also discussed the effects of global warming and London Assembly Member Murad Qureshi spoke about the need for the European Union to play a more prominent role in helping Bangladesh combat natural disasters. Overall the seminar was very interesting but the lack of time meant that the Q&A session was cut short which was a pity!