Former Government Systematically Committed Serious Human Rights Violations Against Protesters In Bangladesh: UN Report

United Nations Human Rights released a report of a fact-finding mission inside Bangladesh’s political turmoil in the past two years. According to the unnerving findings of the report, former government and security officials systematically committed serious human rights violations against the protesting masses of Bangladesh, last summer. The high Commissioner for human rights, Volkar Turk, presented the report on Wednesday from the headquarters in Geneva. Turk told reporters that crimes against humanity may have been carried out amid a climate of fear and mass arrests during protests.

What the Report Said

The report draws conclusions from the testimonies of senior Bangladesh officials along with other evidence that show that an official policy to attack and violently repress anti-government protesters and sympathisers was put in place by the government. 

These protests began as a student-led movement against the public sector job quota. Sooner than one could imagine, the protest amplified into a nationwide uprising that forced the then Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to resign and flee to India, in August last year.

Hasina and her party ruled Bangladesh since 2009 and are now being charged with serious allegations of crime against humanity, genocide, murder, corruption, and money laundering.