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Armed groups and criminal gangs are terrorizing Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh, and Bangladesh authorities are doing little to stop it.

A new report documents murder, kidnapping, torture, sexual assault, rape, and forced marriage. Many of those killed have been Rohingya community leaders or their family members. Scores of refugees have been abducted for ransom and threatened or tortured.

About one million ethnic Rohingya refugees live in Bangladesh, in the sprawling, overcrowded camps in Cox’s Bazar or on an isolated silt island called Bhasan Char.

Most escaped Myanmar in 2017, when the military went on an atrocity spree against the Rohingya, including forced deportation, persecution, murder, and rape, resulting in countless deaths and mass displacement.

In short, they fled for their lives to Bangladesh. But they’re not safe there.

Now, the obvious question is: Where are Bangladesh authorities in all this?

Short answer: pretty much nowhere.

There is no criminal justice system available to these refugees. Victims cannot even go to the police to file a complaint without approval from the camp-in-charge, a Bangladesh official. Refugees who clear that hurdle and manage to submit a report to police then see no follow-up later, often because they can’t afford the bribes and legal fees demanded.

People also face similar bureaucratic barriers to access legal and medical assistance.

So, authorities fail to provide protection, and don’t prosecute criminals. It’s a situation almost guaranteed to increase crime and insecurity.

It also doesn’t help that Bangladesh authorities have placed ever more restrictions on education and livelihoods in the camps. If kids can’t learn, and young people can’t work, criminal activity starts to look like a rational career choice.

It’s becoming increasingly evident Bangladesh’s government hopes to repatriate these Rohingya refugees back to Myanmar – where, as we’ve noted before in this newsletter, it’s still not safe for them.

But as my colleague and HRW’s deputy Asia director, Meenakshi Ganguly, says, that intention for tomorrow, “does not absolve the government of its responsibility to ensure their protection” today.

The African body tasked with looking into atrocities in Ethiopia’s Tigray conflict has been terminated.

The African Union’s Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights has “quietly liquidated” its Commission of Inquiry on the Situation in the Tigray Region. It was established in June 2021 to look into reports of grave human rights violations in the war in northern Ethiopia.

Since the outbreak of armed conflict in Tigray in November 2020, Amhara security forces and interim authorities have carried out a campaign of ethnic cleansing against the Tigrayan population in Western Tigray, committing war crimes and crimes against humanity.

A truce was signed in November 2022, but local authorities and Amhara forces in Western Tigray have continued their ethnic cleansing campaign.

The liquidation of the African Union’s investigation was somewhat expected – though it’s only now coming to light because of a report from a non-governmental organization released this week. Ethiopia’s lack of cooperation with and resistance to the inquiry was well-known.

Ethiopia has also shown hostility toward the International Commission of Human Rights Experts on Ethiopia, established by the UN Human Rights Council in December 2021 to examine abuses in Tigray. Ethiopia has threatened to terminate that UN investigation, as well.

The decision by the African Union’s Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights to kill the inquiry is a terrible failure to survivors and victims in this atrocity-ridden conflict.

The more Ethiopia demonstrates it doesn’t want the outside world to know what’s happening in Tigray, the clearer it is that what’s happening demands international attention.

(written by Lisa Maier) 

Turkey’s top court of appeal is currently reviewing one of the most infamous political show trials in the country’s recent history: the Gezi trial. 

Last August, an Istanbul court convicted rights defender Osman Kavala and seven others on baseless charges of attempting to overthrow the Turkish government for their alleged role in the 2013 Gezi Park mass protests. 

Now, in 77 pages of rambling conspiracy theory and unsupported assertions, one of the prosecutors is asking the court to uphold the conviction of Kavala and the other defendants. It lacks any legal reasoning. 

The prosecutor’s opinion also ignores not one, but two binding judgments of the European Court of Human Rights ordering Kavala’s release and entirely discrediting the evidence presented in the trial. 

The trial is a mockery of justice and exemplifies Turkey’s rule-of-law crisis and downward spiral on human rights. 

The Gezi show trial needs to end. Kavala and his codefendants should be acquitted of all charges and immediately and unconditionally released.

(compiled by Lisa Maier)

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• Japan passes law to ‘promote understanding’ of LGBT people (HRW) 
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• Tunisia’s rights decline: EU lawmakers call out Commission inaction (HRW)