HRW wants Bangladesh to back UN investigation into grave abuses

Human Rights Watch (HRW) has said the interim government in Bangladesh should seek a resolution at the upcoming session of the United Nations Human Rights Council to establish an independent mechanism to investigate and pursue accountability for recent grave abuses in Bangladesh.

The global rights body said this in a letter to Chief Adviser Prof Muhammad Yunus and other interim government officials.

Bangladesh’s human rights situation should be monitored by the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and reported to the council, it said. The 57th session of the UN Human Rights Council will begin on September 9, 2024.

The interim government should also work with OHCHR and relevant UN experts to set up an independent domestic inquiry into enforced disappearances, torture, and extrajudicial killings during former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s 15-year administration, Human Rights Watch said.

This domestic mechanism should operate with UN support and monitoring to ensure its independence and adherence to international human rights standards.

“Following Sheikh Hasina’s resignation amid mass protests, Bangladesh’s interim government has the heavy responsibility of accounting for the past to steer the country toward a rights-respecting future,” said Lucy McKernan, deputy UN Geneva director at Human Rights Watch. “The government should support a Human Rights Council-backed investigation into recent abuses while also seeking UN backing for an independent domestic inquiry into the former government’s 15 years of rights violations.”

The interim government should urgently implement measures to bring civilian oversight over security forces, disband the notorious Rapid Action Battalion, reform institutions in line with international human rights standards, and revise abusive laws.

The crackdown on protests leading to Sheikh Hasina’s departure was the deadliest in Bangladesh’s recent history. 

At least 440 people were killed and thousands were injured between July 15 and August 5, with most deaths and injuries attributed to excessive force by law enforcement and violence by student and youth groups affiliated with the Awami League, Sheikh Hasina’s political party.

An estimated additional 250 people died after August 5, mostly in violent reprisals against Sheikh Hasina’s supporters, HRW said.

Since taking office, the interim government has replaced officials who had allegedly engaged in political partisanship. The Supreme Court chief justice stepped down after protests demanding his resignation. Law enforcement had collapsed after the Hasina government’s fall, leaving Hindus and other minority communities at risk of violence, but the interim government has said that most police stations are now functioning, it said.

However, activists fear that the authorities are replicating the abuses of the previous government by arbitrarily arresting Awami League officials and supporters, including journalists, and denying due process and proper access to legal counsel, the HRW letter observed.

The Yunus administration has publicly urged calm, acted to quell the violence, and committed to investigate and prosecute those responsible for unnecessary and excessive use of force to crush the protests.

The interim government also swiftly released political prisoners detained during the protests, dropped charges against activists, committed to signing the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, and pledged to investigate the over 700 cases of enforced disappearances committed under Sheikh Hasina’s rule.

To effectively follow through on its commitments to justice and accountability amid a highly divisive political environment, the interim government should ask the Human Rights Council to establish an independent mechanism with a comprehensive mandate to investigate, collect, store, and analyze evidence and cooperate with credible and independent national and international judicial bodies toward accountability for the July and August violence and its root causes, HRW said.

A Human Rights Council-mandated investigation would have the greatest independence and credibility for Bangladeshis, who distrust domestic institutions and could avoid the political interference that could undermine purely domestic measures.

The council resolution should also mandate OHCHR to monitor the human rights situation in Bangladesh through the transition period until there are free and fair elections, and report back regularly, it added.

The recent protests reflect the frustration that Bangladesh’s economic progress has been unevenly shared. Social protection should be reformed to guarantee an adequate level of protection for all, and to ensure that no one is excluded from public benefits because of their inability to pay bribes or because they lack social or political connections.

The interim government needs to reform institutions, the security sector, and its justice and legal system, all of which have been deeply eroded under the previous government and earlier administrations, to bring about lasting, human rights changes, Human Right Watch said.

In addition to disbanding the Rapid Action Battalion, the interim government should implement robust human rights training protocols across all security forces and remove laws that enable impunity for security force abuse, it said.

“Without deep institutional reform and UN support to ensure independence and transparency, the hard-won advancements in Bangladesh could be easily lost,” McKernan said. “The UN and member states should demonstrate their support for all Bangladeshis by backing fact-finding and accountability measures and by investing in rights-based institutional and security sector reform.”