UN calls for thorough investigation into all killings during Bangladesh unrest

A top United Nations human rights official called Wednesday for a thorough investigation of all killings and other rights violations during the violent unrest leading up to and after the fall of Bangladesh’s former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.

The U.N.’s High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk concluded a two-day visit to Bangladesh on Wednesday, as an interim government headed by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus is navigating through challenges to establish order in the country.

Hasina ended her 15-year rule when she fled the country to India on Aug. 5 after a student-led demonstration morphed into an anti-government protest movement in July. Hundreds of students, security officials and others were killed during the protests, and after Hasina’s fall hundreds more, including Hasina’s supporters, were killed in revenge attacks or in mob violence across the South Asian nation.

Türk has already sent a fact-finding mission to look into the killings after the Yunus-led government formally requested an investigation by the U.N. Hasina had also sought an investigation into the killings.

Türk highlighted the need to thoroughly investigate the allegations of attacks on the country’s minority groups including its Hindu religious minority, which has been protesting on streets demanding safety and other rights.

“The pursuit of justice for the brutal violence against protestors and other people -– including children –- killed and seriously wounded in July and August is a priority,” he told a press conference in Dhaka, the nation’s capital.

During his visit to Bangladesh, Türk met with Yunus, other officials in the government, student leaders, civil society members as well as injured protesters who were still being treated in hospitals.

Türk praised the Yunus-led government for its desire to pursue crucial reforms in the country.

“There are real opportunities, and certainly high expectations, for fundamental change for the better -- for a new approach to governance, development and economic policies grounded in human rights, drawing on the achievements of the recent movement,” he said.

“This time, there must be justice. This time, reforms must be sustainable and durable, so that the abusive practices of the last decades are not repeated,” he added.

Journalists’ groups in the country said many pro-Hasina journalists were facing fictious charges of murder and other crimes, and demanded the release of journalists who had been detained and sent to jail in recent months on those charges.

Paris-based group Reporters Without Borders, or RSF, in August called for the detained journalists’ immediate release and for unfounded charges to be dropped.

Türk said there should be transparency and accountability in the process of filing charges.