Now Human Rights Watch has published its full report on the torture and near disappearance of Tasneem Khalil. Tasneem and I are friends 2.0, which is to say we are friends thanks to the Web 2.0. He is a Bangladeshi journalist with strong design and technical skills, and I found his blog on WordPress when I was browsing for good templates with white backgrounds.
I was looking for design and found it, but I also found excellent writing and amazing content. So I started to follow the blog, and then it stopped, and because of what was happening in Bangladesh I deduced that he had been disappeared. I did not know it for a fact, but I knew it, and did not know what to do. I found out that it had been a fact months later, when his wife e-mailed from Sweden to say they were now all right. They, of course, only had my blog e-mail at that point and did not know my IRL name.
My question was and is, knowing, or having deduced what was going on, how could I have gone about doing something? The Web 2.0 disseminates news, or in this case, one can read news between the lines of the Web 2.0, but what does one then do with the information? What I wanted to do last year was call all the human rights organizations and say I just know, I can tell this person has been disappeared, I want you to look into it or help me look into it. But how could I prove I was not imagining things, but making an educated deduction? It is a mystery. Axé, Tasneem.
Axé.
coldhearted scientist وداد 
But how could I prove I was not imagining things, but making an educated deduction? It is a mystery. Axé, Tasneem.
Well I guess a lot of diplomacy is played through bluff.
so glad to hear they are ok…
Yes … it was a close call! So: next time something like this happens, I contact HRW, AI, et al., and say something like this:
Dear Persons, and Dear Organization: I have good reason to believe Tasneem Khalil, a journalist for the Star-Tribune, may have been disappeared in Dhaka.
[Or, if I didn’t know which paper he worked for, find the Dhaka papers and figure it out by looking for his byline. And actually, first contact the paper to see if they knew anything. That right there would have solved a lot.]
I have spoken with his employers who said [X]. The situation in Bangladesh is [Z], with [A, B, and C] having happened recently. I strongly recommend, and also request that you investigate the whereabouts of Mr. Khalil if you are at all able. I would be grateful as well if you could advise me as to additional action I might be able to take, or direct me to further entities who may be of help.
Yours very truly, & c.
Greetings…I just noticed your post on Tasneem Khahil…and part of this disjunct is from very little overlap in blog worlds. I’ve been working in Bangladesh (and my day professor job in usa) since 2001. I’ve followed Tasneem’s disappearance through mostly ex-pat Bangladeshi blogs since he first disappeared and reemerged and has been blogging from exile. Very scary times in Bangladesh with a military backed caretaker government since Jan 07, which still has not held elections and where people disappear, are tortured, place on endless remands. Here are some insightful blogs:
ttp://rezwanul.blogspot.com/2008/02/bangladesh-press-being-silenced-about.html, http://www.drishtipat.org/blog/
Profacero…pls keep up your wonderful blogs, commentary, and musica….and readers pls continue to monitor such events in the so-called usa funded democracies in the world
kbw (pagol nari=crazy woman in bangla) y prof on the industrial university complex and alternative skills for women in Bangladesh
Hi KBW and welcome … thanks for the references! 🙂