• Bangladesh’s government took no significant steps to investigate and prosecute torture in custody and extrajudicial killings during 2011. Although the number of killings by the paramilitary force, the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), dropped following domestic and international criticism, enforced disappearances increased. Activists and journalists were harassed or tortured. The government took some steps to promote women’s rights but failed to take adequate measures to protect women and girls from violence. Trials against those accused of war crimes during the 1971 war of independence were riddled with concerns over due process rights. Trials against members of the Bangladesh Border Guards accused in the 2009 mutiny were similarly rife with complaints.
  • The Bangladesh government should immediately order an independent and impartial investigation into the growing number of cases where opposition members and political activists have vanished without trace.

Reports

Bangladesh

  • Apr 26, 2012

    The Bangladesh government should immediately order an independent and impartial investigation into the growing number of cases where opposition members and political activists have vanished without trace.

  • Apr 11, 2012

    The Bangladesh authorities should  immediately and impartially investigate the killing of the labor rights activist Aminul Islam .

  • Apr 11, 2012

    I am writing on behalf of Human Rights Watch to follow-up our earlier letters to you on August 10, 2010 and May 3, 2011 that raised our grave concerns about the safety of Babul Akhter, Aminul Islam, and Kalpona Akhter of the Bangladesh Center for Workers Solidarity (BCWS). 

  • Jan 30, 2012

    The Indian government should prosecute members of the security forces for recent high-profile cases of torture, to send a message that such practices will no longer be tolerated.

  • Jan 23, 2012

    The government of Bangladesh took no significant steps to investigate and prosecute torture in custody and extrajudicial killings during 2011 and showed an increasing intolerance for criticism .

  • Nov 2, 2011

    The Bangladeshi government should investigate threats to defense lawyers and witnesses in cases at the International Crimes Tribunal (ICT) and take steps to prevent them.

  • Jul 26, 2011
    The Bangladeshi government should immediately stop the mass trials of the alleged mutineers of the Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) to ensure fair trials.
  • Jul 11, 2011
    Amendments to the rules of procedure for Bangladesh's International Crimes Tribunal (ICT) address some key problems but fail to bring other areas of the law and rules into compliance with international standards.
  • Jul 6, 2011
    The Bangladesh government should take urgent measures to make sure that religious fatwas and traditional dispute resolution methods do not result in extrajudicial punishments, Human Rights Watch said today. The government is yet to act on repeated orders of the High Court Division of the Supreme Court, beginning in July 2010, to stop illegal punishments such as whipping, lashing, or public humiliations, said the petitioners who challenged the practice.
  • Jun 20, 2011
    Doe-eyed and frail, with a mellow voice and a cheery smile, nothing about Sara (not her real name) suggested she had been through ordeal after ordeal in her 22 years. Forcibly married at 15 to a much older man, she discovered after the marriage that her husband had HIV, and that he had infected her. When her in-laws found out, they subjected her to a barrage of abuse and accused her of infecting her husband. Before he died, her husband apologized to her: Deported as a migrant worker from Malaysia for testing HIV positive, he knew he was positive before he married her. He told her he had not known much, though, about HIV itself, how it is transmitted, or that condoms could have kept him and her from becoming infected.