{"id":2100,"date":"2018-10-10T00:10:38","date_gmt":"2018-10-10T00:10:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/?p=2100"},"modified":"2018-10-10T00:10:38","modified_gmt":"2018-10-10T00:10:38","slug":"bangladesh-sets-death-penalty-for-drug-offenses-in-draft-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/2018\/10\/10\/bangladesh-sets-death-penalty-for-drug-offenses-in-draft-law\/","title":{"rendered":"Bangladesh Sets Death Penalty for Drug Offenses in Draft Law"},"content":{"rendered":"

DHAKA \u2014\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Bangladesh’s cabinet on Monday approved a draft law prescribing the death penalty for drug offenses, despite widespread criticism over a narcotics crackdown in which police have shot dead more than 200 people since May.<\/p>\n

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has launched a campaign to toughen punishments for drug crimes ahead of a general election due by December. But the police killings have prompted fears among rights groups of a bloody Philippines-style campaign to wipe out drugs offenders.<\/p>\n

The proposed amendment to the 1990 Narcotics Control Act for the first time defines methamphetamine pills, also known as ‘yaba’, as narcotics, Cabinet Secretary Mohammad Shafiul Alam told reporters after a meeting chaired by Hasina.<\/p>\n

The current maximum punishment for possession of yaba is a prison term of 15 years.<\/p>\n

The draft law “proposes the death sentence as maximum punishment for producing, smuggling, distributing and using more than 5 grams of ‘yaba’,” Alam said, adding possession of less than 5 grams (0.18 oz) would attract a maximum jail term of five years.<\/p>\n

The amendment also targets the smoking of cannabis in shisha water pipes.<\/p>\n

Tougher punishment was needed to curb the spread of yaba, a highly potent stimulant smuggled in from neighbouring Myanmar, Alam said, adding that the bill had been prepared in line with other international legislation on drugs.<\/p>\n

Bangladesh has said an influx last year of Rohingya fleeing Buddhist-majority Myanmar is partly to blame for soaring methamphetamine use.<\/p>\n

But many Rohingya say their young people are being pushed into crime because they cannot legally work or, in many cases, even receive aid.<\/p>\n

Hasina has vowed to continue the campaign until Bangladesh is freed of the drug menace, but critics say it as a sign of her increasingly authoritarian rule ahead of the election.<\/p>\n

In more than a third of the killings recorded by Dhaka-based human rights group Odhikar since mid-May, the suspects were arrested before they were killed.<\/p>\n

The government has dismissed accusations of extrajudicial killings, saying the crackdown has popular support.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

DHAKA \u2014\u00a0 Bangladesh’s cabinet on Monday approved a draft law prescribing the death penalty for drug offenses, despite widespread criticism over a narcotics crackdown in which police have shot dead more than 200 people since May. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has launched a campaign to toughen punishments for drug crimes ahead of a general election due by December. But the… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":109,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[46],"class_list":["post-2100","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article-post","tag-voa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2100","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/109"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2100"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2100\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2101,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2100\/revisions\/2101"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2100"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2100"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2100"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}