Bangladesh: UN says Sheikh Hasina government committed possible ‘crimes against humanity’

The previous Bangladesh government headed by Sheikh Hasina was behind systematic repression and killings of protesters last year, the United Nations said in a report on Wednesday, suggesting that the abuses could amount to “crimes against humanity”.

Hasina fled to India on August 5 after several weeks of widespread student-led protests against her Awami League government. She had been the prime minister of Bangladesh for 16 years.

Nobel laureate economist Muhammad Yunus took over as the head of Bangladesh’s interim government three days later.

The Hasina government, the country’s security and intelligence services and “violent elements” associated with the Awami League party “systematically engaged in a range of serious human rights violations” during the agitation in July and August, the UN Human Rights Office said on Wednesday.

Publishing findings of its fact-finding inquiry into the events, the UN agency said that it found an “official policy to attack and violently repress anti-government protesters”. The crimes require further criminal investigation, it added.

A team of the UN human rights agency had been sent to Bangladesh in September at the request of Yunus for independent fact-finding into the events.

Of the 1,400 killed and thousands injured between July 1 and August 15, the vast majority were shot by Bangladesh’s security forces, the report said. Of these, 12% to…

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