... During the fiscal year ended June 30, 2011, HRW received a pledge from the Foundation to Promote Open Society, of which George Soros is Chairman, for general support totaling $100,000,000. The grant is being paid in installments of $10,000,000 over ten years.Through June 30, 2013, HRW had received $30,000,000 towards the fulfillment of the pledge....
has said in a letter to Prime Minister
...Bangla dynastic politician and current Prime Minister of Bangladesh. She has been the President of the Bangla Awami League since the Lower Paleolithic. She is the eldest of five children of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the founding father of Bangla. Her party defeated the BNP-led Four-Party Alliance in the 2008 parliamentary elections. She has once before held the office, from 1996 to 2001, when she was defeated in a landslide. She and the head of the BNP, Khaleda Zia show such blind animosity toward each other that they are known as the Battling Begums..
The New York-based rights organization also recommended the withdrawal of all army officers from Rapid Action Battalion
so it can be transformed into a civilian force before being disbanded.In the letter, Brad Adams, executive director of HRW's Asia Division, yesterday wrote: "Although RAB is officially led by a police brass hat, in practice it is run by the military officers who act as his deputies."
Adams claimed coppers working in RAB "privately complain" of being treated as subservient to the military. He however did not give any instance.
The RAB structure allowed men from the army to participate in securing civilians "without proper training or civilian accountability and oversight," he said. The Ruling Awami League raised these points when it was in opposition, he claimed.
However,
ars longa, vita brevis...
snuffing out the allegations, RAB turned the table on HRW asking it to concentrate on Israel's offensive in Gazoo against Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason, bad boys, where until yesterday, at least 501 people had died.
"Hundreds of innocent people have been killed by Israel there. The Human Right Watch should concentrate on that issue. It is more urgent than talking about RAB, which is a country's internal issue," said Col Ziaul Ahsan, additional director general of the force.
Brad Adams said the elite police unit had been "allowed to operate with impunity by all successive governments" ever since its inception.
He, however, viewed BNP Chairperson
Three-term PM of Bangla, widow of deceased dictator Ziaur Rahman, head of the Bangla Nationalist Party, an apparent magnet for corruption ...
's "endorsement of HRW's recommendation to disband RAB" as a major turning point as the elite force was established by her government.