Former Bangladesh prime minister implicated in enforced disappearances News
DelwarHossain, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Former Bangladesh prime minister implicated in enforced disappearances

Former prime minister of Bangladesh Sheikh Hasina has been implicated in alleged enforced disappearances in Bangladesh, according to a provisional interim government-commissioned report by the Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearances released to local media on Saturday.

The report also implicated a number of units of the Bangladesh Police including the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), Detective Branch (DB), and Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crimes (CTTC). The police officers from these units would allegedly carry out abductions in plain clothing and are accused of coordinating abductions between different police units. For instance, a police officer from one unit would allegedly abduct a victim and hand them to another unit to detain, kill or release them.

Enforced disappearances in Bangladesh have occurred since 2009. The commission approximated the total number of enforced disappearances to be 3,500 during Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League regime. According to HRW, while some people have been released or arraigned in court, some remain missing. As per a report by Odhikar, a human rights organization in Bangladesh, other violations of human rights that were carried out during Hasina’s regime include mass arrests, torture and unlawful restrictions to the freedom of expression, media and assembly.

The interim government headed by Chief Adviser Mohammed Yunus set up the Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearances in August with a view to bring to justice the victims of enforced disappearances as well as their families. The government also acceded to the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance in August. The Convention defines enforced disappearance as “the arrest, detention, abduction or any other form of deprivation of liberty by agents of the State…followed by a refusal to acknowledge the deprivation of liberty or by concealment of the fate or whereabouts of the disappeared person, which place such a person outside the protection of the law”. It stipulates that no person shall be subjected to enforced disappearance in any circumstances.

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