Bangladesh needs systemic reform to end rights abuse: HRW
NGO warns interim government must act to avoid return of rights abuses seen under former PM.
Bangladesh risks the return of the rights abuses seen under ousted Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina unless robust reform is instituted, an international NGO has warned.
The interim government in Bangladesh risks losing “hard-won progress” if it does not implement reform that can withstand repression by future governments, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a report published on Monday.
Ongoing arbitrary arrests and reprisal violence underscore the threat to “the country’s once-in-a-generation opportunity to end the legal abuses” that were seen on Hasina’s watch, the report said.
HRW used the publication to urge Dhaka to establish legal detention practices and repeal laws used to target critics.
“Reforms should be centered on separation of powers and ensuring political neutrality across institutions, including the civil service, police, military, and the judiciary,” it declared.
Hasina fled into exile in August after mass protests ended her 15 years in power.
An interim government led by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus has since taken charge of the country, pledging to institute far-reaching democratic reforms and stage new elections.
Human Rights Watch noted that Yunus’s administration has begun the process of reforming degraded institutions used as tools to persecute opponents of Hasina’s Awami League party.
But it also highlighted that in targeting the ex-premier’s supporters, the police have “returned to the abusive practices that characterised the previous government”.
Family members of those killed by security forces in the protests have been pressured into signing case documents without knowing who was being accused