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The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) called for national healing in a report on the Bangladesh 2024 protests. Credit: UN Photo

By IPS Correspondent
UNITED NATIONS, Feb 14 2025 (IPS)

A new report from the UN Human Rights Office confirms that Bangladesh’s former government coordinated and committed human rights violations against its civilians to suppress the protest movement in July last year, with the high commissioner calling for justice and serious reform to end the cycle of violence and retribution.

On 12 February, the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) released a long-awaited report on the human rights violations and abuses that took place during and following the anti-government protests in Bangladesh from 1 July to 15 August, 2024. This report is the outcome of a fact-finding mission conducted in September at the invitation of the interim government and its Chief Advisor, Dr. Muhammad Yunus.

The student-led movement began as a protest against the country’s high court’s decision to reinstate an unpopular quota system for civil service jobs. The movement spread across the country and garnered national attention when senior officials of the Awami League, the former ruling party, decried the students’ requests. As the students faced escalating retaliation from the Awami League and security forces, protestors shifted their demands towards wider government reform and the resignation of former prime minister Sheikh Hasina. She fled to India on August 5, 2024, marking an end to her regime.

The report found that Hasina’s government and the security and intelligence teams systematically engaged in serious human rights violations. These included hundreds of extrajudicial killings, use of force on protestors, including children, and arbitrary detention and torture. OHCHR states that these human rights violations were conducted with the full knowledge and at the direction of the political leaders and security personnel, with the intent to suppress the protests.

“The brutal response was a calculated and well-coordinated strategy by the former government to hold onto power in the face of mass opposition,” said UN Human Rights Chief Volker Türk.

The OHCHR investigation found that senior Awami League officials mobilized their supporters and the Chhtra League, the party’s student wing, to carry out armed attacks on student protestors to dissuade dissent. When the protestors held their ground, police forces were instructed to take more forceful measures, and the government prepared to deploy paramilitary forces armed with military rifles.

The report confirmed the presence and use of metal pellets, rubber bullets, and tear gas on protestors, who were often unarmed. Excessive force was used against protestors by police and military personnel, notably the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), a paramilitary group that have been criticized by human rights groups for their excessive use of violence and intimidation. An examination from Dhaka Medical College of 130 deaths from that period revealed that 80 percent were caused by firearms. Bangladesh’s Ministry of Health recorded over 13,000 injuries, many of which are long-term damage to the eyes and torso.

Women that participated in the protests faced verbal abuse and physical assaults from the police and Awami League supporters. Female students were also threatened with sexual violence to dissuade them from joining the protests. OHCHR references at least two accounts of women who were physically assaulted and groped by Chhatra League members before being turned over to the police. They remark in the report that it was possible that many more such cases might have occurred but were unreported.

OHCHR estimates that as many as 1,400 deaths occurred relating to the protests, with children accounting for approximately 12 percent of those deaths. These deaths occurred among underage students who participated in the protests or children who were bystanders and were fatally shot by stray bullets.

The report also notes the state’s efforts to suppress information and conceal the extent of the unrest. Journalists faced intimidation from security forces; by the end of the protests, at least 200 journalists were injured and six were confirmed dead. Meanwhile, the former government’s intelligence and telecommunications agencies implemented internet and telecom shutdowns without providing legal justification. This was to prevent the organization of protests through social media and prevented journalists, activists and the general public from sharing or accessing information about the protests and the government’s retaliation.

In the immediate aftermath of Hasina’s departure, the violence did not end. Instead, there were reported cases of revenge violence targeting the police, Awami League supporters, or those perceived to be supporting them. Reports also emerged of attacks on indigenous communities from the Chittagong Hill Tracts and the minority Hindu communities. Although 100 arrests relating to these attacks were reportedly made, many of the perpetrators still faced impunity.

OHCHR remarks that the former government’s crackdown on the protest movement constituted violations of international law. It is emblematic of a deeper trend towards employing intimidation and even lethal force to clamp down on civic and political activity.

The report concludes with a series of recommendations for sweeping reforms across the justice and security sectors and to implement broader changes to the political system.

Since the report’s release, the interim government has indicated they welcome its findings and will take steps to implement the recommendations. “I, along with everyone else working in the interim government and millions of other Bangladeshis, am committed to transforming Bangladesh into a country in which all its people can live in security and dignity,” Yunus said on Wednesday. Noting the report’s reference to structural issues within the law enforcement sectors, Yunus called on the people in those sectors to “side with justice, the law, and the people of Bangladesh in holding to account their own peers and others who have broken the law and violated the human and civil rights of their fellow citizens.”

Türk expressed that his office would be ready to support Bangladesh in the process of national accountability reform. “The best way forward for Bangladesh is to face the horrific wrongs committed during this period through a comprehensive process of truth-telling, healing and accountability and to redress the legacy of serious human rights violations and ensure they can never happen again.”

The interim government’s acknowledgement of the human rights report is to be welcomed. In the past, it was common for previous governments to dismiss any such reports. Healing and retribution must be owed to the lives lost during the protests. At the same time, this government and the people they represent must also recognize that in their efforts to seek justice and accountability, they should not fall into the trap of mob violence or a total otherizing of former leaders, even as the ousted regime carries out a campaign against the interim government and last year’s protests.

Meenakshi Ganguly, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch, warns that the government “should not repeat the mistakes of the past” and instead ensure the proper procedures for impartial rule of law. “Bangladeshis are angry over the repression by the Hasina administration and they deserve justice and accountability, but it has to be in a rights-respecting manner,” she said. “All crimes, including mob violence, should be punished, but when authority figures characterize opponents as the ‘devil,’ it can fuel abuses by security forces that have never faced accountability.”

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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