Geneva, Switzerland, Feb 12 (EFE).- At least 1,400 people were killed in anti-government protests in Bangladesh in July and August 2024, out of which between 12 percent and 13 percent were children, the UN Human Rights Office said in a report published on Wednesday.
The 114-page document concludes that the government ousted in those protests, the security forces and intelligence services, as well as violent groups associated with the then ruling party, the Awami League, perpetrated serious human rights violations that could constitute crimes against humanity.
“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,” UN Human Rights Chief Volker Turk said while presenting the report.
The protests, started by students against a controversial quota system reserving jobs for the descendants of former fighters in Bangladesh’s war of independence (1971), sparked discontent towards a government perceived as increasingly authoritarian and corrupt.
“To remain in power, the former government tried systematically to suppress these protests with increasingly violent means,” says the report, which was drawn up after the leader of the current interim government of Bangladesh, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus, requested the UN office to send a team to conduct an independent probe into the events.
The report, through testimonies from security officials involved in the response to the protests, says that Bangladesh’s then-Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and other senior officials directed and oversaw a series of large-scale operations in which protesters were killed, arbitrarily detained, or tortured.
“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 document says that many women who participated in the protests suffered gender-based violence, including physical assaults and threats of rape.
It also details many cases of children killed, such as a 12-year-old boy in Dhanmondi, one of the suburbs of the capital Dhaka, who bled to death after about 200 metal shot pellets were fired at him.
The report also highlights cases in which security forces denied or obstructed critical medical care for injured protesters, interrogated patients, and took their fingerprints when they were treated in hospitals.
The report concludes with several recommendations to the police and justice systems of Bangladesh, and advises the abolition of repressive laws and institutions designed to suppress all dissent.
“The best way forward for Bangladesh is to face the horrific wrongs committed during this period, through a comprehensive process of truth-telling, healing, and ability, and to redress the legacy of serious human rights violations and ensure they can never happen again,” Turk said. EFE
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