The State Department Secretary of Bangladesh, Antony Blinken, made comments suggesting that Bangladeshi garment workers’ leader Kalpana Akter feels intimidated. The Bangladeshi government will demand an explanation from the United States for these remarks.
In response to a reporter’s question on Tuesday, Md. Shahriar Alam, the State Minister for Foreign Affairs, stated as much.
A Presidential Memorandum on “Advancing Worker Empowerment, Rights, and High Labor Standards Globally” was released on November 16 by US Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken.
He mentioned the name of Bangladesh’s readymade garment worker leader Kalpana Akter.
“We want to be there for people like Kalpana Akter, a Bangladeshi garment worker and activist, who says that she is alive today because the US embassy advocated on her behalf,” he said.
Asked about this, Shahriar Alam said that surely they would ask the US about this in the next discussion. Kalpana Akter was arrested only once in Bangladesh in 2010. She was not alone, several labour leaders were arrested while waging movement on duty. Later, the case against them was withdrawn. You know the type of chaos or problems that appear in the garment sector is temporary in nature. They appear suddenly and vanish immediately, he added.
The state minister said, “I don’t know whether you know or not. Kalapana Akter and a few others were arrested in the US while protesting as several western buyers’ declined to pay any compensation after the collapse of Rana Plaza. Now that Kalapana Akter said that she was threatened by us or somebody else; we will seek an explanation of this from the US.”
