UN findings substantiate AL regime’s role in enforced disappearances

UN investigators have found evidence of abduction, arbitrary detention and concealment involving Bangladesh’s security and intelligence agencies under the deposed Awami League government, identifying patterns closely associated with enforced disappearance.

The findings of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) assume renewed significance as Bangladesh joins the world today in observing the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances.

Observed annually on 30 August, the day draws global attention to disappeared persons and their families and reinforces calls for truth, justice, accountability and measures to prevent recurrence.

Following an independent fact-finding inquiry into violations surrounding the July-August 2024 mass uprising, OHCHR found reasonable grounds to believe that the former government, its security and intelligence apparatus, and violent elements associated with the Awami League systematically committed serious human rights violations.

The report detailed the role of state agencies in abductions and arbitrary detention during the protests. “Detective Branch and DGFI colluded in the abduction and arbitrary detention of student leaders and sought to coerce them to renounce the protests,” it said.

The finding implicated the police’s Detective Branch (DB) and Directorate General of Forces Intelligence (DGFI) in taking protest leaders into custody outside normal legal protections.

OHCHR also found that DB routinely used arbitrary detention and torture to extract information and confessions. The headquarters of the Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime (CTTC) unit was another location where many arbitrarily detained people, including children, were held.

The investigation found that DGFI, National Security Intelligence (NSI) and National Telecommunication Monitoring Centre (NTMC), along with specialised police branches, played roles in violations aimed at suppressing dissent.

The agencies shared intelligence, including information obtained through surveillance that violated the right to privacy, to facilitate mass arbitrary arrests in late July 2024, according to OHCHR.

UN investigators also identified a “systematic and organized effort to conceal serious violations”. DGFI, NSI and Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) pressured media outlets not to report fully and truthfully on the protests and their violent suppression, while DGFI joined police in intimidating victims, their families and lawyers into silence.

The findings are particularly relevant to enforced disappearance, in which deprivation of liberty is followed by a refusal to acknowledge detention or concealment of a person’s fate or whereabouts, placing the victim outside the protection of the law. The inquiry traced responsibility for the broader pattern of violations beyond individual security personnel to the highest levels of the political and security establishment.

Based on testimony from senior officials involved and other inside sources, OHCHR said an integrated and systematic operation involving police, paramilitary, military and intelligence actors, as well as violent elements associated with the Awami League, operated with the “full knowledge, coordination and direction of the political leadership”.

The then prime minister and home affairs minister led parallel efforts to coordinate the security and intelligence apparatus and received regular reports from multiple sources on the situation on the ground, it said.

The political leadership also issued direct orders and other directives authorising and guiding operations by Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB), RAB, DGFI, Bangladesh Police and its Detective Branch that involved serious human rights violations, including arbitrary detention, against protesters and other civilians.

OHCHR pointed to an institutional environment in which safeguards against arbitrary deprivation of liberty and torture had effectively failed.

“Neither prosecutorial authorities nor the judiciary took any meaningful action to curb acts and practices of arbitrary detention and torture, or to ensure that any officials perpetrating such acts were held accountable,” it said.

The UN body said the violations were enabled by corrupted governance structures, erosion of the rule of law, politicisation of the security and justice sectors and institutionalised impunity.

It found that the former government had relied on and expanded an elaborate legal and institutional framework to repress peaceful civic and political dissent and, until its fall on 5 August 2024, had made no apparent genuine effort to investigate or ensure accountability for serious violations committed by security forces or Awami League supporters.

Conducted at the invitation of the then Interim Government, the fact-finding inquiry examined alleged violations and abuses between 1 July and 15 August 2024, during the mass uprising and its immediate aftermath.

OHCHR conducted more than 230 in-depth interviews with victims and other witnesses, as well as 36 interviews with government, security sector and political party officials, including serving and former senior officials with direct knowledge of the events. 

Testimony was corroborated through authenticated photographs and videos, medical forensic analysis, weapons analysis and other information.

OHCHR said its conclusions met the “reasonable grounds to believe” standard, which does not establish individual criminal guilt but provides a basis warranting further investigation.

The UN body called for independent and impartial investigations and accountability, alongside truth-seeking, reparations, memorialisation and security sector reforms to prevent the recurrence of serious human rights violations.