By IANS
Dhaka : The European Union (EU) has said that it is watching the human rights situation in Bangladesh and that economic assistance to the country was dependent on Dhaka “matching with the European standards”.
“We are watching the human rights situation in Bangladesh as we have to report to our headquarters about the issue,” Bea Ten Tusscher, ambassador of the Netherlands, told a roundtable confab on EU human rights guidelines here.
The embassy of the Netherlands and the European Commission delegation had arranged the roundtable, which covered six key concerns: death penalty, torture, human rights defenders, human rights dialogue, children and armed conflict, and international humanitarian law.
Tusscher said that EU taxpayers wanted to know the state of human rights in a third country where the money was being spent, New Age newspaper said Wednesday.
The EU human rights guidelines say it can take negative measures, including suspension of cooperation programmes with the third countries and even impose sanctions on them, in the event of serious violation of human rights.
“Challenges still remain. The chief adviser (Fakhruddin Ahmed) to the caretaker government has assured us that the situation has improved. But we have inquired some cases that (drew) our attention,” said the Dutch envoy, who also represents the EU presidency in Bangladesh.
Rights activists, who took part in the discussion, also blamed the government’s “lack of political will” for problems in taking effective measures for improvement of human rights situation, the newspaper said.