Staff Reporter :
The recent wave of killings and the brutal crackdown on students, ordinary citizens, and opposition party members in Bangladesh have elicited strong condemnation and severe criticism from the international community, individual leaders, and global organisations.
International entities have called on the Sheikh Hasina-led Awami League government to cease all violent measures immediately and conduct thorough investigations into each incident of killing, excessive force, and unwarranted mass arrests.
In addition to ongoing statements from the United Nations, the European Union, the U.S. State Department, Human Rights Watch, and Amnesty International, prominent global figures have also voiced their concerns.
On Tuesday, a group of U.S. senators, including Senator Ben Cardin, Chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Senator Cory Booker, issued a statement denouncing the actions of Bangladeshi security forces against student protesters.
The senators criticised the use of force and violence, noting that some of the security forces involved are part of a paramilitary unit whose leaders have faced U.S. sanctions for human rights abuses.
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee, one of the original ten standing committees of the Senate, has played a significant role in shaping U.S. foreign policy since its establishment in 1816.
The committee has historically influenced presidential and secretarial policies, supporting and opposing various strategies as necessary.
The international condemnation underscores the urgency of addressing human rights concerns in Bangladesh and highlights the global demand for accountability and justice in the face of ongoing repression.
The Senators said, “In recent weeks, thousands of students have taken to the streets in Bangladesh to protest a lack of economic opportunity and
to end the government’s inequitable quota system for public sector employment that reserves government jobs for relatives of veterans of Bangladesh’s 1971 war of independence.”
“Rather than engage the legitimate grievances of the protestors, the Bangladesh security forces, including the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), responded with brute force, killing hundreds of protestors, and arresting and injuring thousands more,” they said.
“The right to peacefully assemble and protest is one of the foundations of a democratic society. We call on Bangladeshi authorities to urgently conduct an independent and impartial investigation into the security services’ human rights violations, as well as to respect the rights of the protestors, and work in good faith to address their grievances,” they said.
“The United States stands with these courageous individuals who are advocating for their dignity and for a prosperous future, and we will continue to speak up for human rights in Bangladesh and seek to hold accountable those involved in such abuses,” they said.
Earlier, on Tuesday the Secretary General of the Amnesty International Agnes Callamard wrote a letter to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, stating grave concern over the recent violent crackdowns on the quota-reform protesters and urged her to take urgent and concrete to end the violence and ensure justice and accountability for the death of over 200 people during the protests.
Several INGOs, including Amnesty International, and UN bodies, such as the OHCHR and UN Special procedures, have called for the Government of Bangladesh to uphold its obligations under international law to respect, protect and fulfil the rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly, and also to adopt a rights-respecting approach in the policing of protests, she said.
Despite these calls, the Government of Bangladesh has repeatedly shown an unwillingness to uphold is international human rights obligations and has failed to take any meaningful action to end the violence, Agnes Callamard mentioned.
She has urged the government to immediately and fully lift the curfew, restore full access to social media platforms and guarantee that shoot on sight curfew orders and internet shutdowns will not be used in the future to crack down on protesters or to repress any other fundamental rights.
The secretary general has also called upon to immediately and unconditionally release all the people detained or arrested solely for exercising their right to protest peacefully; instruct law enforcement agencies to exercise restraint, not to use unnecessary or excessive force against demonstrators and to implement measures to prevent the recurrence of such incidents.