After the chilling end of Saudi Arabian journalist Jamal Khashoggi in his country’s consulate in Istanbul, one would think that other dictatorships would pause. But leave it to the Bangladeshi regime to make sure that diplomatic immunity can be used to harass and intimidate the large diaspora, especially in West, which keeps dissenting from the official line. https://www.dhakatribune.com/bangladesh/government-affairs/2019/02/06/police-to-be-appointed-to-bangladesh-s-embassies It is a tried and tested method of intimidation by dictatorships–going back to the earliest era of the Soviet Union–who often use the freedom of movement accorded to ‘diplomats’ by liberal democracies to track down and do surveillance on their own citizens abroad and, use that information to extract concessions from family members at home or blackmail during needed consular services. Sometimes the blackmail goes awry like with the late Saudi journalist. Iranian and Libyan security services were notorious in the 1980s for doing the same; in fact to this day former Libyan foreign minister Mansour Khikia has never been found. Any pro-democracy expatriate Bangladeshi with a social media presence should soon think twice before entering a Bangladeshi diplomatic mission. The thugs are on their way.
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Expats need to know that, through the Vienna Convention, embassies and high commissions are considered to be part of the country which they represent. If you set foot inside, you are no longer protected by the laws of the host country, which is why the Turks can do nothing about Khashoggi’s murder except make noise.
Doc Esam is right: any ‘deshi who has the least reason to fear the regime would be advised to think *now* about what s/he has to do to avoid, at all costs, visiting a BD embassy that has BD cops inside it.