Jim Cunningham – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jim Cunningham on 2016-09-05.

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what recent assessment he has made of the human rights record of the government of Bangladesh; and if he will make a statement.

Alok Sharma

As I said during the adjournment debate on Bangladesh on 8 September, we are concerned about the protection of human rights in Bangladesh. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office named Bangladesh as one of 30 Human Rights Priority Countries in its 2015 report. The report cited the confrontational actions of the two main political parties, extremist attacks against secular writers and religious minorities and pressure on free speech, plus continued use of the death penalty as particular areas of concern.