30 August is the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances. About the origin of the day, the United Nations wrote, “On 21 December 2010, by its resolution 65/209 the UN General Assembly expressed its deep concern about the increase in enforced or involuntary disappearances in various regions of the world, including arrest, detention and abduction, when these are part of or amount to enforced disappearances, and by the growing number of reports concerning harassment, ill-treatment and intimidation of witnesses of disappearances or relatives of persons who have disappeared”.
On the 2024 International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances, CHRD Bangladesh welcomes the signing yesterday, 29 August 2024, of the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, by the Nobel Laureate Dr. Muhammad Yunus, the Chief Advisor to the Interim Government of Bangladesh, which is a new government formed on 8 August 2024. We fervently hope that human rights and democracy would be made the cornerstone of the policies of this government. Amnesty International, in a statement issued today, 30 August 2024, wrote, “Bangladesh: Signing of Convention on Enforced Disappearances is a much welcome first step.”
The previous government of Bangladesh under Sheikh Hasina most brutally and callously trampled under feet both human rights and democracy. This unelected Hasina government for 15 years was toppled on 5 August 2024 by the student-people uprising. According to the Bangladeshi Human Rights organization Odhikar between 2009 and June 2024 of the Hasina regime, at least 708 cases of enforced disappearances were reported.
The Sheikh Hasina perpetrated 4 massacres, indiscriminately killed thousands, imprisoned about one hundred thousand and often brutally tortured many of them, lodged millions of false court cases against the opposition leaders and activists, etc. As the country heaved a sigh of relief with the fall of this brutal government, which brought an end to the tyranny and abuse of human rights, we urge the new government of Bangladesh to investigate the abuses of human rights by the previous government, take actions against the abusers of human rights and redress the injustices as far as possible. We urge the Yunus government to uphold human rights and democracy, and set a good example for the long suffering people of Bangladesh.
