Zakir Hossain / Dhaka
Bangladesh’s human rights situation stabilised after last year’s July–August uprising, but serious concerns remain, the US State Department said in its Bangladesh 2024 Human Rights Report released Tuesday.
“After weeks of mass student protests and hundreds of persons killed in clashes with police and Awami League party youth wings, on August 5 former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina fled the country. On August 8, the president swore in an interim government headed by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus in the role of ‘Chief Advisor’,” the report noted. It added that “after some incidents in August, the human rights situation… stabilised, although some concerns persisted.”
The report listed major violations– mostly under the previous Awami League govt– including arbitrary killings, enforced disappearances, torture, arbitrary detention, transnational repression, restrictions on media freedom, threats and violence against journalists, censorship, curbs on workers’ rights, attacks on labour activists, and the worst forms of child labour.
It said there were “numerous reports of widespread impunity” for abuses under the Awami League, which “rarely took credible steps to identify and punish officials or security force members responsible.” Following the regime change, “the interim government arrested members of the previous administration accused of committing human rights abuses.”
Credible reports also documented serious abuses by the Awami League’s student wing, Bangladesh Chhatra League, during the unrest. “The interim government worked with the United Nations and used both its ordinary justice system and the Bangladeshi International Crimes Tribunal to hold the perpetrators accountable,” the report said.