British Minister assures UN probe into rights violations in Bangladesh

Minister for Indo-Pacific, Catherine West.
| Photo Credit: ANI

GUWAHATI

A British Minister has assured a New Delhi-based rights group of the U.K.’s support for a United Nations inquiry into human rights violations in Bangladesh.

The Rights and Risks Analysis Group (RRAG) wrote to Catherine West, the British Minister for the Indo-Pacific, about Bangladesh’s situation before she visited Dhaka on November 16-17. The group raised concerns over the deteriorating law and order situation, vendetta politics, increased attacks on indigenous peoples and religious minorities, and the need to support the demand of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to establish a country office in Bangladesh.

Ms. West replied to RRAG director Suhas Chakma’s letter on December 4.

Ms. West said that during her visit to Bangladesh, she had urged the country’s Chief Advisor Muhammad Yunus, and Foreign Affairs Advisor Md Touhid Hussain “to restore peace and order, ensure accountability, and create a peaceful pathway to an inclusive and democratic future, respect for human rights and the rule of law”.

She also said that the U.K. supported the United Nations’ work in conducting an impartial and independent fact-finding mission to identify human rights violations.

The RRAG highlighted criminal cases filed against 2,71,587 persons, mainly political opponents, from August 5 to October 31; acts of violence against at least 74 journalists; increased attacks on indigenous peoples, with the killing of at least four indigenous persons and injuries to at least 75 indigenous Jumma people; damages to at least 142 houses, shops, and Buddhist temples from September 19 to October 1 in the Chittagong Hill Tracts; over 2,000 acts of violence against Hindu minorities; and absence of independence of the judiciary.

The RRAG requested Ms. West to urge Bangladesh to allow the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to establish a country mission to extend the mandate of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights to investigate incidents beyond August 20 to cover the human rights violations against religious minorities and indigenous peoples.

The rights group also sought the implementation of the Chittagong Hill Tracts Accord of 1997 in letter and spirit, and the publication of the report of the inquiry commission headed by the Additional Divisional Commissioner of Chittagong Mohammad Nurullah Noori into the recent acts of violence upon indigenous peoples in the Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh.