Human Rights Report on Bangladesh Protests | United Nations
The UN Human Rights Office today (Feb 12) released a comprehensive, in-depth report on the human rights violations and abuses related to the protests that took place in Bangladesh last year, drawing on over 250 interviews with victims, witnesses, medics and senior officials, as well as individual pieces of digital information.
Drawing on these testimonies and other evidence, it found an official policy to attack and violently repress anti-Government protesters and sympathisers, raising concerns as to crimes against humanity requiring urgent further investigation.
OHCHR:
Bangladesh: UN report finds brutal, systematic repression of protests, calls for justice for serious rights violations
12 February 2025
GENEVA – Bangladesh’s former Government and security and intelligence services, alongside violent elements associated with the Awami League party, systematically engaged in a range of serious human rights violations during last year’s student-led protests, a report by the UN Human Rights Office has found.
Drawing on testimony of senior officials and other evidence, it also found an official policy to attack and violently repress anti-Government protesters and sympathisers, raising concerns as to crimes against humanity requiring urgent further criminal investigation.
Based on deaths reported by various credible sources, the report estimates that as many as 1,400 people may have been killed between 1 July and 15 August, and thousands were injured, the vast majority of whom were shot by Bangladesh’s security forces. Of these, the report indicates that as many as 12-13 percent of those killed were children. Bangladesh Police reported that 44 of its officers were killed.
The protests were triggered by the High Court’s decision to reinstate a quota system in public service jobs but were rooted in much broader grievances arising from destructive and corrupt politics and governance that had entrenched economic inequalities. To remain in power, the former Government tried systematically to suppress these protests with increasingly violent means, the report finds.
“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 Turk. “There are reasonable grounds to believe hundreds of extrajudicial killings, extensive arbitrary arrests and detentions, and torture, were carried out with the knowledge, coordination and direction of the political leadership and senior security officials as part of a strategy to suppress the protests.”
“The testimonies and evidence we gathered paint a disturbing picture of rampant State violence and targeted killings, that are amongst the most serious violations of human rights, and which may also constitute international crimes. Accountability and justice are essential for national healing and for the future of Bangladesh,” he added.
At the request of the Chief Advisor of the Interim Government, Mohammed Yunus, the UN Human Rights Office in September dispatched a team to Bangladesh, including human rights investigators, a forensics physician and a weapons expert, to conduct an independent and impartial factfinding into the deadly events.
The Interim Government extended significant cooperation with the inquiry, granted the access that was requested, and provided substantial documentation.
Former senior officials directly involved in handling the protests and other inside sources described how the former Prime Minister and other senior officials directed and oversaw a series of large-scale operations, in which security and intelligence forces shot and killed protesters or arbitrarily arrested and tortured them.
The report found patterns of security forces deliberately and impermissibly killing or maiming protesters, including incidents where people were shot at point-blank range.
The report examined in detail the emblematic case of Abu Sayed, among others, who was filmed shouting “shoot me” at police with his arms spread wide apart at a protest at Begum Rokeya University in Rangpur. Using video footage, images and geolocation technology, investigators reconstructed his killing to corroborate testimonies of how it occurred. A forensic analysis concluded his injuries were consistent with his having been shot at least twice with shotguns loaded with metal pellets, from a distance of about 14 metres. The report concludes there are reasonable grounds to believe that Abu Sayed was the victim of a deliberate extrajudicial killing by the police.
FULL PRESS RELEASE HERE: https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releas...
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