DHAKA: At least 1,400 people were killed in Bangladesh during student-led protests last year with the majority shot dead by military rifles, the UN’s human rights office has said in its latest report investigating the events leading up to the ousting of the country’s long-serving prime minister.
The initially peaceful demonstrations, triggered by the reinstatement of a quota system for the allocation of civil service positions, began in early July. Two weeks later they were met with a violent crackdown by security forces and a communications blackout.
In early August, as protesters defied nationwide curfew orders and stormed government buildings, former prime minister Sheikh Hasina resigned and fled the country, ending 15 years in power for her Awami League party-led government.
The new interim administration, led by Nobel Prize-winning economist Muhammad Yunus, has pledged to cooperate with the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights to ensure justice and accountability for all violence committed during the month-long uprising.
UN investigators arrived in Bangladesh in late August and, on Wednesday, released their first fact-finding report.
“OHCHR assesses that as many as 1,400 people could have been killed during the protests, the vast majority of whom were killed by military rifles and shotguns loaded with lethal metal pellets commonly used by Bangladesh’s security forces,” read the document.
“Thousands more suffered severe, often life-altering, injuries. More than 11,700 people were arrested and detained, according to information from the police and RAB (Rapid Action Battalion) provided to OHCHR.”
More than three-quarters of all deaths were caused by firearms “typically wielded by state security forces and not readily available to civilians in Bangladesh.”
The number of casualties is at least double the initial assessment by investigators, who also indicated that around 3 percent of those killed were children subjected to “targeted killings, deliberate maiming, arbitrary arrest, detention in inhumane conditions, torture and other forms of ill-treatment.”
The UN’s human rights office has concluded that between July 15 and Aug. 5, 2024, the former government and its security and intelligence apparatus, together with “violent elements” linked to the Awami League, “engaged systematically in serious human rights violations and abuses in a coordinated effort to suppress the protest movement.”
A special tribunal in Dhaka, which in October issued arrest warrants for Hasina and her cabinet and began trial procedures in cases related to the killings, said it would rely on the OHCHR’s findings and recommendations in its proceedings.
“It will facilitate the ongoing trial in the International Crimes Tribunal. The information we have received through the investigation aligns with the UN report, which will also validate our findings. This will add credibility to the results of our investigation,” the tribunal’s chief prosecutor, Tajul Islam, told Arab News on Thursday.
Established in 2010 during Hasina’s rule, the International Crimes Tribunal is a domestic court tasked with dealing with war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The most important takeaway of the report is that identifies the ousted prime minister and her government as the “responsible authority” behind the rights abuses, Islam said.
“The report clearly identified the attacks as widespread and systematic, targeting students and civilians. Sheikh Hasina and her administration were the primary orchestrators of these attacks, utilizing all of the state’s security and law enforcement ... Since it (the probe) was conducted by the UN, it has a neutral character.”
