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February 12, 2025 | 08:12 pm
TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Officials from Bangladesh's former government and security apparatus systematically committed serious human rights violations against protesters staging mass demonstrations last summer, the U.N. human rights chief said on Wednesday, February 12, 2025.
According to Arab News, High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk told reporters in Geneva that the abuse against protesters could amount to “crimes against humanity.”
Testimony from senior Bangladesh officials and other evidence showed an official policy to attack and violently repress anti-government protesters and sympathizers, the report said.
The U.N. called for urgent further criminal investigation into the violations.
The protests began as a student-led movement against public sector job quotas but quickly morphed into a broader, nationwide uprising that forced then-prime minister Sheikh Hasina to resign and flee to India as the unrest peaked in early August.
Hasina, who had ruled Bangladesh since 2009, is being investigated on suspicion of crimes against humanity, genocide, murder, corruption and money laundering, and Dhaka has asked New Delhi to extradite her. Hashina fled into exile in neighboring India.
Hasina and her party deny wrongdoing, while New Delhi has not responded to the extradition request. Neither Hasina nor officials of her Awami League party could not be reached for comment on the U.N. Human Rights report.
The U.N. fact-finding mission visited Bangladesh at the invitation of the interim government led by Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus.
"Top echelons of the previous government were aware and were involved in the commission of very serious violations, including enforced disappearances, arbitrary detentions and suppression of the protests through violence," Turk told reporters, as quoted from Reuters.
When asked for examples of the worse violations found in the report, Turk told Reuters: "It's a very brutal read; 78% of the over 1,000 people killed was by firing - military rifles, shotguns with pellets." Others suffered "horrific", life-changing injuries, he added.
REUTERS | ARAB NEWS
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