Bangladesh Authorities Continue Harassment on Peasant Group-BKF

Press Release
April 25, 2008

After arresting a number of Bangladesh Krishok Foundation (BKF) leaders some four months ago, the Bangladeshi police have once again harassed their ranks in the human chain they conducted in Muktangon, Dhaka last April 15, 2008.

The BKF organized the said event in critique of the government’s flawed food and market policy which results in worsening food crisis. The program was flowing smoothly when all of a sudden the police attacked the participants and forcibly took away their banners and placards. Furthermore, authorities brutally dragged the activists as they prevented the police from disrupting the human chain.

And to keep their hold on the group, police have fabricated cases against them; such as disrupting public order and falsely accusing some of the participants of beating the police and wrecking vehicles around the area.
Such harassments among the BKF manifest the repressive character of the Bangladeshi government which discounts the people’s concerns and issues over selfish interests. The Asian Peasant Coalition joins BKF in its position that the food crisis is definitely of primary concern rather than the Bangladeshi government’s efforts to secure “order” for self-preservation.