86 people forcibly disappeared still missing
Nearly 600 people have been forcibly disappeared by security forces since 2009, Human Rights Watch said in a report released yesterday.
Many turned up dead, some came back alive, and at least 86 still remain missing.
The 86 cases were identified and documented in the HRW report.
Those who turned up dead, had become victims of extrajudicial killings that are falsely claimed to be deaths during gunfights, it said.
Meanwhile, those alive were released or produced in court after weeks or months of secret detention.
The report, based on more than 115 interviews between July 2020 and March 2021 with alleged victims, family members and witnesses, says authorities have consistently refused to investigate enforced disappearances or to hold those responsible accountable.
The global human rights watchdog urged the United States, the European Union, the United Kingdom and Canada to take a number of steps, from economic sanctions to travel restrictions to banning the export of surveillance technology to Bangladesh.
The report said the United Nations' Department of Peace Operations should sever all ties with any units and commanders found responsible for serious human rights abuses, including commanders who failed to prevent or punish abuses by individuals under their command.
"The US Department of State's Bureau of Political-Military Affairs should ensure that any support under the Global Peace Operations Initiative is not used to train members of RAB for deployment in UN peacekeeping operations," said the report.
The report suggests that civil and political rights should play a stronger role during future discussions around duty-free treaty programmes like the Generalised System of Preferences and Everything But Arms (EBA) schemes.
The report also urged the United Nations human rights experts to lead an independent investigation into the "enforced disappearances" at the hands of security forces in Bangladesh, an allegation the Bangladesh government has all along denied.
The watchdog suggested that Bangladesh prove that it is serious about investigating cases of enforced disappearances, by inviting the relevant United Nations special procedures -- including the Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances, the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, the special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, and the special rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.
It also demanded that Bangladesh also establish an independent commission of inquiry to investigate all cases of disappearances and custodial deaths.
The 86 cases the report documented were mainly opposition political activists, who went missing over the past decade.
"Senior UN officials, donors, and trade partners should step up measures to hold senior members of Bangladesh security forces accountable, stop enforced disappearances, and prevent future abuses," the HRW urged in its report.
The HRW also found that the authorities use enforced disappearances, and the threat of enforced disappearances, to silence critics, chilling free speech.
"Bangladesh authorities mock victims and routinely obstruct investigations, making clear that the government has no intention of meaningfully addressing enforced disappearances by its security forces," Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch, said in a news release.
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