BANGLADESH GOVERNMENT’S RESPONSE TO THE HUMAN RIGHTS REPORTS OF THE INGOS: AN EXAMPLE OF ‘INFORMATION POLITICS’ FROM THE GLOBAL SOUTH

This chapter investigates how the Government of Bangladesh responds to human rights reports of INGOs. It is argued that the Government’s responses mostly deny these reports since they go against Bangladesh’s image and human rights commitments. It is also argued that these INGO reports are not always neutral, and the reporting system is problematically fragmented and inordinately shaped by ‘organisational self-interest’ which gives a kind of de facto impetus to the Government to disregard, manipulate, or block them in their national sphere, which debars the creation of an integrated knowledge base required for building a human rights culture. The information politics as a politics of ‘exploitation and liberation’ suggests that in the absence of compelling strain for change, INGOs will continue to adopt a possessive and predilected approach to report human rights situations, and the Government will continue to disregard and disown these reports. It concludes that both INGO monitoring and Government’s responses need to be made in a succinct and principled way otherwise the current practice may deepen the risk of violations of human rights through the rise of a political antagonism of information.