Labor Leaders Arrested Over Bangladesh Protests

By VIKAS BAJAJ and JULFIKAR ALI MANIK

Source: The New York Time

Published: August 16, 2010

MUMBAI — Police in Bangladesh have arrested three garment-industry labor leaders and 18 other people on charges that they organized and participated in violent protests last month.

International advocacy groups like Human Rights Watch and the International Labor Rights Forum have criticized the arrests, calling them a tactic for intimidating workers in a powerful industry that supplies Western buyers like Wal-Mart and H&M. The protesters were angry over a recent increase in the minimum wage, calling it insufficient.

The arrests, made over the last several weeks, came after street protests in Dhaka and other hubs of the fast-growing clothing industry, which employs more people than any other industrial sector with about 3 million workers.

Last month, a government-appointed wage board raised the minimum wage in the industry to 3,000 taka a month, or $43. That was up from 1,662.50 taka and was the first increase since 2006. The country’s labor groups had sought an increase to 5,000 taka. While some labor groups agreed to accept the 3000 taka wage, which will take effect in November, several other organizations have not and tens of thousands of protestors took the streets at the end of July.

The protests were much more violent than in the past. Police shot rubber bullets and tear gas into the crowds and protestors set cars ablaze and attacked factories and stores in several Dhaka neighborhoods, including the affluent Gulshan area that is home to the city’s elite and many foreigners.

Police said they arrested several workers after identifying them in television news footage and in newspaper photographs. When questioned about the violence, workers identified several leaders, who were then arrested in the following days, said Molla Nazrul Islam, a deputy police commissioner.

The three leaders arrested were Montu Ghosh, an adviser to Garment Sramik Trade Union Kendra; Babul Akhter, the executive director of the Bangladesh Garment and Industrial Workers Federation; and Kalpana Akhter, the executive director of the Bangladesh Center for Workers Solidarity. Associates of the arrested labor leaders could not be reached for comment.

“We arrested the leaders of the garment workers on charges of instigating violence and rampage by the factory workers in the garment factories and other business centers,” Mr. Islam said.

But labor and human rights advocacy groups said at least one worker has told his colleagues that he was tortured into giving false evidence against himself and other labor leaders before he escaped from custody. Advocates also said that they were worried about the safety of people arrested in recent days.

Mr. Islam, the police official, denied that the authorities tortured workers and said those arrested were being held for interrogation under court orders.

In a statement, several Western labor-rights groups including the International Labor Rights Forum and The Clean Clothes Campaign said the arrests “were part of a strategy by the government of Bangladesh to deal with recent riots among garment workers by scapegoating peaceful worker advocates rather than addressing the true underlying cause of such turmoil: the country’s abysmal working conditions.”

Prime Minister Sheik Hasina has previously sympathized with workers, calling their wages were “inhuman,” but she said last month her government would not tolerate further violent protests.

Julfikar Ali Manik reported from Dhaka, Bangladesh