Staff Reporter :
Bangladesh authorities suppressed dissent including by arresting people for criticising the government in social media posts, and undermined pledges of a free and fair vote with widespread repression and violence against opposition members ahead of the general election, Human Rights Watch said on Thursday in its World Report 2024.
The Sheikh Hasina government returned to office for a fourth consecutive term after the January 7 elections which were boycotted by the main opposition parties because they had no faith in a free and fair polling process, it said.
Abuses including arbitrary arrests, torture, extortion, and intimidation by security forces were replicated in the refugee camps where over 1 million Rohingya remained, unable to safely return to Myanmar.
“Bangladesh’s key trade partners should insist upon an independent inquiry into security force abuses as a condition of their continued business,” said Meenakshi Ganguly, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch.
“The lack of accountability for serious rights violations is fomenting a corrupt culture where Bangladeshis fear being killed or disappeared by law enforcers for their political views, or even because they fail to pay a bribe,” she said.
The Awami League-led government of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina arrested over 8,000 leaders and supporters of the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) ahead of the elections, in an overt attempt to incapacitate the competition and disqualify opposition leaders from participating.
Many were allegedly “disappeared” when police arrested and kept them in unlawful detention for days or weeks before eventually producing them in court, HRW said.
According to Bangladeshi human rights monitors, security forces have carried out more than 600 enforced disappearances since 2009, and nearly 100 people remain missing.
Human rights monitors have also noted a disturbing rise in allegations of torture in custody.
Enforced disappearances reduced significantly after the US government placed the Rapid Action Battalion, an armed law enforcement agency, under sanctions.
Regarding the Rohingya, the HRW said, the authorities not only failed to ensure protection amid rising violence by armed groups, but also intensified restrictions on livelihoods, movement, and education that appear designed to induce refugees into considering returning to Myanmar.
“The Bangladesh government cannot continue to coast on the international accolades of hosting Rohingya refugees while simultaneously making conditions in the camps unlivable,” Ganguly said.
