Sunday, 09 March, 2025
The UN rights office has said its fact-finding mission found no 'genuine effort' by the ousted regime to hold the security and law enforcement agencies and their activists accountable for serious rights violations and abuses during last year's uprising.
The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) report on human rights violations in Bangladesh in July-August 2024 stated that despite being warranted by Bangladesh's own domestic laws, former senior officials confirmed that no investigations into the security forces' use of firearms were conducted.
Between July 1 and August 5, 2024, OHCHR was unable to ascertain any genuine efforts by the former government's authorities to investigate, let alone ensure accountability for, any of the serious violations and abuses committed by security forces and Awami League supporters, it said.
The report said allegations of torture and serious ill-treatment were not investigated either while former officials cited the pressing security situation prevailing at the time, claiming that no victim complaints were received.
But the OHCHR said numerous reports detailing alleged violations published by credible local and international media, and reports issued by human rights groups should have given ample cause to open investigations at their own initiative.
The foreign ministry information from international human rights organisations about violations forwarded to the prime minister's office (PMO), and the home ministry, about human rights concerns raised by foreign and international leaders.
It said a senior official also personally raised concerns about excessive force in a meeting with the Prime Minister at the very beginning of August.
The report noted that on July 17, the then premier Sheikh Hasina announced the formation of a judicial inquiry headed by three judges, while blaming all incidents on "opposition instigators" and "terrorists."
The OHCHR said inquiry was assigned to investigate the "incidents of death, violence, vandalism, arson, looting, terrorist activity and damages caused by the quota reform movement".
It said the purview of the enquiry suggested "an exclusive and one-sided focus on the acts of protesters alone, leaving to one side the much more widespread violence of the security forces".
Moreover, the report said, testimonies received from two former senior government officials, this judicial inquiry never issued any even interim report or findings, nor left behind any other record of its activities when it stopped functioning on August 5, 2024.
"Rather than taking steps towards ensuring accountability, the authorities appear instead to have made coordinated efforts to suppress the truth about violations that had occurred," the report read.
The OHCHR said the intelligence agencies of police and other forces maintained a presence at hospitals where many victims were treated and also confiscated records with important evidentiary value from them.
"In some cases, police also took bodies from hospitals, hid bodies from families or burned bodies in an apparent effort to conceal killings. In some cases, projectiles were removed from the bodies of victims in the hospital and handed over to police officers without any record of their provenance," it read.
The UN rights office said it also received information about police and RAB units being given unrecorded allotments of ammunition, so that their extensive volume of shooting would not be picked up in ammunition expenditure accounts.
The report stated that RAB then claimed that 14 out of its 15 battalions deployed during the uprising did not shot a single rifle bullet "which would be entirely inconsistent with the cases of RAB shooting at protesters in different places that were documented by OHCHR".
It said police and other authorities also intimidated victims, their families, lawyers, journalists and others who called for accountability or otherwise drew attention to killings by security forces.
"The authorities also sought to conceal violations by the security forces by falsely accusing others. Notably, hundreds of people were wrongly accused and arrested in connection with the emblematic case of the killing of Abu Sayed, even though widely circulating video footage and other information made it evident that police had killed him," the report read.
The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), the report said, within its own mandate, "also failed to hold authorities accountable for human rights violations and protect victims".
The OHCHR, however, noted that the NHRC issued a "vague statement" on July 30, describing the loss of life as "very unfortunate and a violation of human rights" and urged the authorities not to make mass arrests.
But, the report said, the national rights watchdog did not make any further public interventions nor launch any investigations during the entire period up to 5 August, as far as OHCHR could ascertain.
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The UN rights office has said its fact-finding mission found no 'genuine effort' by the ousted regime to hold the security and law enforcement agencies and their activists accountable for serious rights violations and abuses during last year's uprising.
The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) report on human rights violations in Bangladesh in July-August 2024 stated that despite being warranted by Bangladesh's own domestic laws, former senior officials confirmed that no investigations into the security forces' use of firearms were conducted.
Between July 1 and August 5, 2024, OHCHR was unable to ascertain any genuine efforts by the former government's authorities to investigate, let alone ensure accountability for, any of the serious violations and abuses committed by security forces and Awami League supporters, it said.
The report said allegations of torture and serious ill-treatment were not investigated either while former officials cited the pressing security situation prevailing at the time, claiming that no victim complaints were received.
But the OHCHR said numerous reports detailing alleged violations published by credible local and international media, and reports issued by human rights groups should have given ample cause to open investigations at their own initiative.
The foreign ministry information from international human rights organisations about violations forwarded to the prime minister's office (PMO), and the home ministry, about human rights concerns raised by foreign and international leaders.
It said a senior official also personally raised concerns about excessive force in a meeting with the Prime Minister at the very beginning of August.
The report noted that on July 17, the then premier Sheikh Hasina announced the formation of a judicial inquiry headed by three judges, while blaming all incidents on "opposition instigators" and "terrorists."
The OHCHR said inquiry was assigned to investigate the "incidents of death, violence, vandalism, arson, looting, terrorist activity and damages caused by the quota reform movement".
It said the purview of the enquiry suggested "an exclusive and one-sided focus on the acts of protesters alone, leaving to one side the much more widespread violence of the security forces".
Moreover, the report said, testimonies received from two former senior government officials, this judicial inquiry never issued any even interim report or findings, nor left behind any other record of its activities when it stopped functioning on August 5, 2024.
"Rather than taking steps towards ensuring accountability, the authorities appear instead to have made coordinated efforts to suppress the truth about violations that had occurred," the report read.
The OHCHR said the intelligence agencies of police and other forces maintained a presence at hospitals where many victims were treated and also confiscated records with important evidentiary value from them.
"In some cases, police also took bodies from hospitals, hid bodies from families or burned bodies in an apparent effort to conceal killings. In some cases, projectiles were removed from the bodies of victims in the hospital and handed over to police officers without any record of their provenance," it read.
The UN rights office said it also received information about police and RAB units being given unrecorded allotments of ammunition, so that their extensive volume of shooting would not be picked up in ammunition expenditure accounts.
The report stated that RAB then claimed that 14 out of its 15 battalions deployed during the uprising did not shot a single rifle bullet "which would be entirely inconsistent with the cases of RAB shooting at protesters in different places that were documented by OHCHR".
It said police and other authorities also intimidated victims, their families, lawyers, journalists and others who called for accountability or otherwise drew attention to killings by security forces.
"The authorities also sought to conceal violations by the security forces by falsely accusing others. Notably, hundreds of people were wrongly accused and arrested in connection with the emblematic case of the killing of Abu Sayed, even though widely circulating video footage and other information made it evident that police had killed him," the report read.
The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), the report said, within its own mandate, "also failed to hold authorities accountable for human rights violations and protect victims".
The OHCHR, however, noted that the NHRC issued a "vague statement" on July 30, describing the loss of life as "very unfortunate and a violation of human rights" and urged the authorities not to make mass arrests.
But, the report said, the national rights watchdog did not make any further public interventions nor launch any investigations during the entire period up to 5 August, as far as OHCHR could ascertain.
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