Allow Khaleda Zia to seek treatment abroad: UN rights chief to PM Hasina
Turk said Khaleda Zia's release would be seen as "an important step towards political dialogue and reconciliation"
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk has urged Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to release ailing BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia for urgent medical treatment abroad.
"I appeal to your government to consider her [Khaleda] release to enable her to receive the urgent and specialised medical care that she requires outside of the country," the UN rights chief said in a letter, dated 1 November, to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.
Turk said Khaleda Zia's release would be seen as "an important step towards political dialogue and reconciliation", reports AFP.
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The UN rights chief also asked the government "to prevent any arbitrary detention including detentions that could be perceived as politically motivated or might impact the environment for fair and credible elections".
Khaleda Zia has been suffering from various ailments, including liver cirrhosis, arthritis, diabetes, kidney, lung, heart, and eye problems.
Since her conditional release in 2020, the 78-year-old former prime minister has been receiving treatment at Evercare Hospital in the capital under the supervision of a medical board. However, her health has not shown significant improvement.
Khaleda was sent to the Old Dhaka Jail after a lower court sentenced her to five years' imprisonment in the Zia Orphanage Trust corruption case on 8 February 2018. Later, she was found guilty in another corruption case the same year.
Amid the coronavirus outbreak, the government temporarily freed Khaleda Zia from jail through an executive order suspending her sentence on 25 March 2020, with the condition that she would stay in her Gulshan house and not leave the country. Since then, her release term has been extended every six months following the family's plea.
