Asian editor, BBC News website
Former Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasin and her government have tried to adhere to the authorities using systematic, deadly violence against protesters who could represent “crimes against humanity,” the UN said.
The UN Investigators for Human Rights have accused the overthrown government Brutal response to mass opposition last year, saying that up to 1,400 people were killed, mainly by security forces.
The UN team said that political leaders and high security officers directed the official policy for the attack and the violent suppression of anti-government protesters. ”
Hasina, who had been in power for 15 years, fled the helicopter in India shortly before she had burned the crowd in her residence last August.
The unrest began as protests guided by students against quota in the civil service affairs and escalated into the movement across the country to throw out Hasin and her party Awami League after a deadly police action. Thousands of more injured in the worst violence that Bangladesh has seen since his war in 1971.
The UN findings show that the then government, including Sheikh Hasin, “was” aware and involved in very serious crimes, “said UN Human Law Chief Volker Türk at a press conference in Geneva.
“Among our key findings, there are reasonable reasons that believe that the former government officers, her safety and intelligence apparatus, together with the violent elements associated with the former ruling party, have committed serious and systematic violations of human rights,” said Mr. Türk.
The UN investigators documented the shooting in the range of some protesters, intentionally reinforcing other, arbitrary arrests and torture.
The children were also targeted – in the report an up to 13% of 1,400 people killed between 1 July and August 15th were children.
“The brutal response was to calculate and well co -operated strategy of the former government to hold on to power in the face of mass opposition,” said Mr. Türk.
He said the evidence collected his office painted a “disturbing picture of angry state violence and targeted killings.”
“There are reasonable reasons for believing that hundreds of out -of -court killings, extensive arbitrarily arrests and detention and torture have been carried out with the knowledge, coordination and direction of political leadership and high security officers as part of the Protest Suppression Strategy.”
The report was requested by the leader of the guardian of Bangladesh, Muhammad Yunus, who said he and his temporary government remain. “Devoted to converting a bangladesh into a country where all his people can live in security and dignity‘
The total number of deaths given by the UN team is far greater than 834 recently estimated by its government.
The UN team, which compiled a report, included human rights investigators, Forensics physicians and weapons experts. Their discoveries are mostly based on more than 230 interviews with survivors, witnesses and others. They were given access to medical files, photos, videos and other materials.
“Former senior officials who are directly involved in the treatment of protests and other internal sources have described that former prime minister and other senior officials directed and monitored a number of major operations, in which security and intelligence forces fired and killed protesters or arbitrarily arrested and tortured by them “, the report states.
“He found the safety forces patterns intentionally and inadmissibly killing or securing protesters, including incidents in which people were shot in the range.
Although the report attributes most of the violence to the government’s security forces, it also causes concern about the attack on those who are considered to be the supporters of the former governments and against some religious and ethnic groups.
And they have to investigate themselves, the UN’s Human Rights Office said.
