'Worse than death': Victims describe the nightmare of Bangladesh's secret prisons during former regime

'Worse than death': Victims describe the nightmare of Bangladesh's secret prisons during former regime

As Bangladesh tries to rebuild a robust democracy following the student-led uprising that ousted PM Sheikh Hasina, a clearer picture is emerging of the previous regime's treatment of dissenters. Hasina is accused of overseeing a system of enforced disappearances that targeted hundreds of political opponents.

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When the guards barged into his cell one evening as he was saying his nightly prayers, Mir Ahmad Bin Quasem Arman was convinced it was over. “I thought I was being taken for execution,” the lawyer said. “I said a last prayer in my mind for my passing to be quick.” It had been eight long years since Quasem was abducted from his Dhaka, Bangladesh, home by paramilitary forces and taken to a windowless cell in a secret prison, where he was kept in t…

‘Worse than death’: Victims describe the nightmare of Bangladesh’s secret prisons during former regime

When the guards barged into his cell one evening as he was saying his nightly prayers, Mir Ahmad Bin Quasem Arman was convinced it was over. “I thought I was being taken for execution,” the lawyer said. “I said a last prayer in my mind for my passing to be quick.” It had been eight long years since Quasem was abducted from his Dhaka, Bangladesh, home by paramilitary forces and taken to a windowless cell in a secret prison, where he was kept in t…