Interim government of Bangladesh needs to work on long-term systemic reforms to address issues like arbitrary arrests, reprisal violence, enforced disappearance and extra-judicial killings and to restore democracy in the country, Human Rights Watch said in a report released on Tuesday.
The 50-page report titled After the Monsoon Revolution: A Roadmap to Lasting Security Sector Reform in Bangladesh offers recommendations for systemic reform after Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina鈥檚 autocratic administration was ousted in August 2024.
The report urges the interim government to establish legal detention practices and repeal laws used to target critics.
鈥楴early 1,000 Bangladeshis sacrificed their lives fighting for democracy, ushering in a landmark opportunity to build a rights-respecting future in Bangladesh,鈥� said Elaine Pearson, Asia director at Human Rights Watch.
鈥楾his hard-won progress could all be lost if the interim government does not create swift and structural reforms that can withstand any repression by future governments.鈥�
Reforms should be centred on separation of powers and ensuring political neutrality across institutions, including the civil service, police, military, and the judiciary.
The recommendations are based on over 20 years of Human Rights Watch research and documentation in Bangladesh as well as recent interviews with human rights activists, members of the interim government, and current and former law enforcement and military officials.
The report recommended disbanding the Rapid Action Battalion to deter future abuses, and to send a strong message that security forces will no longer be a tool for successive governments to carry out repression.
Since the formation of the RAB in 2004, when the Bangladesh Nationalist Party was in power, the force has been allowed to operate with impunity and it was acting like an in-house death squad.
Headquartered in New York, HRW asked the authorities to end enforced disappearances and incommunicado detention.
It said that during Sheikh Hasina's regime over 1,600 cases of enforced disappearance had been recorded by the new commission of inquiry, with the commission estimating that the number could ultimately be more than 3,500.
HRW asked the government to act on the recommendations of the National Commission of Inquiry, including disbanding the RAB.
It also urged the interim government to instruct security forces to identify secret detention sites, and not to destroy evidence.
It also asked the government to publish a list of all recognised places of detention and empower the National Human Rights Commission to carry out unfettered and unannounced access, and to speak confidentially with any individual in the facility.
鈥楾he law ministry should prohibit 鈥渆nforced disappearance鈥� as a distinct crime under Bangladesh law,鈥� the release stated.
HRW said that, over the last 15 years, the security forces served as a core component of Sheikh Hasina鈥檚 repressive apparatus, systematically targeting members of the opposition, critics, journalists, and human rights activists with trumped-up cases, torture, extrajudicial killings, arbitrary arrests, and enforced disappearances.