UN fact-finding team to stay a month in Bangladesh

The United Nations fact-finding team will investigate how brutally the previous Awami League government tried to suppress the movement of students in July and August. The members of the delegation will visit the eight divisional cities of the country including Dhaka, Chittagong and Rangpur for one month. The team will take the testimony of the victims of violence, relatives of the victims and eyewitnesses and collect various types of data.

A UN source from Geneva told Prothom Alo that two of the eight-member fact-finding team are coming to Dhaka on Monday. Three more members will arrive in Dhaka tomorrow. Tuesday. The investigation will officially start tomorrow. Other members of the fact-finding team will also come to Dhaka in the next few days.

The UN team will initially stay in Bangladesh for four weeks and might extend its stay if necessary. Multiple sources of interim government and UN confirmed Prothom Alo about these developments. Sources said the fact-finding committee will investigate 15 types of human rights violations including incidents of crime against humanity and extrajudicial killings. The investigation report might be submitted to the interim government in the last week of November.

Interim government’s foreign adviser Md Touhid Hossain told Prothom Alo on Sunday evening that the UN team will carry out an investigation independently. For that the UN team will stay for around a month. The UN fact-finding team will give the report to the government before making it public. But any view of the government won’t be reflected in the final report of the fact-finding committee.

Sheikh Hasina's government was overthrown in a student-mass uprising on 5 August. On 8 August, the interim government was formed. After assuming office, the interim government decided to investigate the incidents of human rights violations in Bangladesh in July and early August. To this end, the interim government’s chief adviser Muhammad Yunus wrote a letter to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk.

Earlier on 22-29 August, a three-member UN exploratory team led by Rory Mungoven, chief of the Asia Pacific region at the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva, visited Bangladesh. The team held at least 40 meetings with several advisers, senior government officials, politicians, student movement leaders and victims during its 8-day stay in Bangladesh. The exploratory team set the modalities of their work based on those discussions.

Several sources of the foreign ministry said Volker Turk is sending the team under his own jurisdiction at the request of chief adviser Dr Mohammad Yunus who requested the UN rights chief to start investigation within quickest possible time in the letter on 25 August. The chief adviser wrote that the government wants to ensure accountability by carrying out an independent and impartial investigation by the UN from the human rights abuse during the student-mass uprising and post-uprising (1 July to 15 August).

According to the UN report published on 16 August, at least 650 lives were lost in Bangladesh between 16 July and 11 August.

A senior official of the UN told Prothom Alo that the fact-finding team will visit the places where violence took place during the time. It has selected Dhaka and some adjacent areas and at least eight divisional and district towns outside the capital including Chattogram and Rangpur for collecting testimony and data.

It was learnt that the allegation of involvement of state agencies and non-state actors will be taken into cognizance during investigation. The 15 types human rights abuse include crime against humanity, extrajudicial killing by security forces, killing and torture by political and private entities, use of excessive force in name of maintaining public order, repressive arrests, enforced disappearance, internet shutdown and damage to public and private properties.  

The UN team will work jointly with government officials, security and law enforcement officials. It will also discuss with student movement leaders, representatives of private organisations and human rights activists. Moreover, the UN delegation will also discuss with victims and witnesses and other organisations for the sake of verifying information.

A source of the UN said it won’t just depend on primary sources, rather will take into account medical records, inquest reports, unpublished videos and pictures and other digital elements.

The fact-finding committee will submit a detailed report based on its field work in Bangladesh. The report will also make recommendations to prevent recurrence of such incidents in future.

The source said the UN team will maintain secrecy about the evidence collected as part of the investigation. International human rights laws and other legal procedures will be maintained in collecting evidence.

Sufiur Rahman, former permanent representative of Bangladesh in Geneva told Prothom Alo last night that involving the UN in ensuring accountability of atrocities committed in July and August is a positive move. The issue of lack of accountability is supposed to come up in the recommendations.