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🇧🇩 Bangladesh /Crime & Justice

Rights group: Bangladesh tribunal's flaws risk justice, due process

From Daily Star · () English

Translated from English, summarized and contextualized by DistantNews.

At a glance

News Named sources Context piece
  • Human Rights Watch stated that Bangladesh authorities are not meeting international legal standards at the International Crimes Tribunal.
  • The group warned that the tribunal's shortcomings risk denying justice, undermining the rule of law, and leading to false imprisonment of political opponents.
  • HRW cited due process concerns, including arrests without evidence, prolonged detention, and restricted defense access, in its review of tribunal cases.

Human Rights Watch has accused Bangladesh authorities of failing to uphold international legal standards at the International Crimes Tribunal (ICT). The rights group warned that the tribunal's shortcomings risk denying justice to victims, undermining the rule of law, and leading to the false imprisonment of political opponents.

Those responsible for the many abuses committed under the Sheikh Hasina government should be appropriately held to account, but many prosecutions are falling short of international fair trial standards.

— Meenakshi GangulyHRW's deputy Asia director commenting on the shortcomings of the International Crimes Tribunal.

"Those responsible for the many abuses committed under the Sheikh Hasina government should be appropriately held to account, but many prosecutions are falling short of international fair trial standards," said Meenakshi Ganguly, HRW's deputy Asia director. She urged Bangladesh to reform its criminal justice system, emphasizing that the new government must prevent political vendettas through shoddy investigations and arbitrary allegations.

Bangladesh needs to urgently reform its criminal justice system, and the new government should ensure that there is no room for political vendettas through shoddy investigations and arbitrary allegations.

— Meenakshi GangulyHRW's deputy Asia director urging reforms to the Bangladeshi criminal justice system.

Her statement followed ICT prosecutors submitting charges against 41 individuals, including politicians, security forces members, and journalists, for alleged crimes against humanity and genocide. HRW's review of over a dozen ICT cases revealed serious due process concerns. These included arrests without an evidential threshold, extended detention without written reasons, limitations on defense lawyers' access, insufficient trial preparation time, and the use of identical witness statements across multiple cases.

Bangladesh authorities need to recognise that they cannot repeat the abuses of the past.

— Meenakshi GangulyHRW's deputy Asia director commenting on the need to avoid past mistakes in legal proceedings.

The rights group also criticized the prosecution of journalists Mozammel Babu and Farzana Rupa for their reporting on a 2013 rally. HRW highlighted the case of "Dr Muhammad Hasan Mahmud Chowdhury and others," noting that 55 publicly available prosecution witness statements contained nearly identical passages. Allegations of bribery against a tribunal prosecutor, who later resigned, remain under incomplete investigation, further fueling concerns about the tribunal's integrity.

Allegations based on duplicated witness statements, however, show the lack of a credible justice process, which will once again fail victims, their families, and all Bangladeshis.

— Meenakshi GangulyHRW's deputy Asia director on the implications of using duplicated witness statements.
DistantNews Editorial

Originally published by Daily Star in English. Translated, summarized, and contextualized by our editorial team with added local perspective. Read our editorial standards.

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