UK minister accused of abandoning lawyer who disappeared under aunt’s regime in Bangladesh

Labour’s Tulip Siddiq could have used personal connections to try to free Mir Ahmad Bin Quasem Arman, his lawyers claimed

A Labour minister has been accused of failing to help a British-trained barrister detained for nearly a decade in brutal conditions under her aunt’s authoritarian regime in Bangladesh.
Lawyers representing 40-year-old Mir Ahmad Bin Quasem Arman, who vanished in 2016, said that Tulip Siddiq could have used her personal connections to free him earlier from eight years of secret imprisonment.
He was one of hundreds of people who disappeared under the regime of Ms Saddiq’s aunt, Sheikh Hasina, the former prime minister of Bangladesh. She fled the country earlier this month as her government collapsed.
Sheikh Hasina, 76, the longest-serving prime minister of Bangladesh, is now in India, having been ousted after 15 years in power. During her tenure, opponents were attacked, arrested and secretly imprisoned as the regime carried out extrajudicial killings.
The criticism of Ms Siddiq comes after it emerged she was renting a £2 million house owned by a businessman said to be political ally of her aunt.
A year before Mr Arman disappeared, Ms Siddiq told journalists after she was elected as an MP for Hampstead in 2015 that her aunt had “taught me the most”.
“I learned everything about politics from her – social justice, how to campaign and how to reach out to the people,” she said.
Hasina was also present in the House of Commons gallery as her niece made her maiden speech, and on social media later hailed her aunt as a “strong female role model” for her own daughter.
Mr Arman, who was called to the Bar of England and Wales and studied at the University of London, was finally freed this month after the army ordered his release from a notorious detention centre following the collapse of Hasina’s government.
Lawyers said that Mr Arman was “snatched from his family” by the country’s Rapid Action Battalion, blamed for killing more than 1,000 people and hundreds of forced disappearances.
Michael Polak, a lawyer who fought to free Mr Arman, said he was”interned in a secret internal detention facility called Aynaghar, where he was kept blindfolded and not allowed to speak with anyone” and feared he would be executed.
The detention centre’s name translates to “House of Mirrors” because a detainee in the Aynaghar cannot see anyone other than himself.
When the father-of-two was finally freed, he “believed he was about to be murdered”, but he was dumped in a muddy field outside Dhaka.
Mr Polak, the director of Justice Abroad, said that his detention was a direct result of the policies of Sheikh Hasina.
“It is clear that there was an official policy of enforced disappearances and arbitrary detention under Sheikh Hasina’s regime, and it is telling that Arman was released immediately upon her fleeing to India.”
He said that both he and Mr Arman’s family pleaded with Ms Siddiq to lobby her aunt directly to release him, but they did not receive any assistance.
“We made respectful requests to Tulip Siddiq to intervene with her aunt, who she described as a great role model, even after being informed about enforced disappearances in Bangladesh,” he said.
“These came from me as well as from Arman’s mother, who asked for Tulip to intervene to return her son to his family including his two young daughters. Unfortunately, Tulip decided not to assist.”
He said that following a Channel 4 News report in November 2017 where Ms Siddiq was asked about the case, Bangladeshi police “attended the family property in Dhaka where Arman’s elderly mother, sister, wife, and two young daughters were residing in an attempt to intimidate them into stopping the broadcast.”
“This shows that what was happening in London was influencing actions on the ground in Dhaka,” Mr Polak said.
It is understood that Ms Siddiq wrote to then Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson over the case in December 2017, after it was raised by constituents, believing this was the correct protocol.
While Shabana Mahmood, now Justice Secretary, asked parliamentary questions about the case in January 2017, Ms Siddiq has not raised it in the House of Commons.
The City Minister has been criticised for not using her personal connections to try to free the barrister.
“The familial connections between Tulip and the regime, her aunt being the then Prime Minister Hasina and an uncle being Hasina’s feared security adviser Tarique Siddique, who himself has been accused of being involved in enforced disappearances should have been enough for her to get involved and for her to disassociate herself from this regime,” Mr Polak said.
Ms Siddiq once said on a blog that she worked for her aunt’s Awami League Party. She has attended official Bangladeshi government events such as a meeting between Hasina and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Mr Polak added: “Despite all of this, Tulip decided not to intervene to bring Arman back to his family. Had she done so, he could have spent the last 8 years with his wife and two daughters watching them grow up rather than in a secret cell without any access to sunlight, hearing the cries of those tortured in the same facility, thinking that the regime might end his life at any time.
“I still do not understand why Tulip made this choice and described Hasina as a strong role model for her children, despite the huge amount of evidence, including from organisations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, in relation to the hundreds of disappeared ripped away from their loved ones, some never to return.”
Last week, it emerged she was renting a £2 million house owned by a businessman said to be political ally of her aunt.
Labour said this is paid at “market levels” and relevant disclosures had been made to the Treasury, but did not provide an on-the-record statement on the case of Mr Arman.
However, sources said she was unable to raise the issue as a constituency MP and only able to do so when it was raised by her constituents