The interim Bangladesh government of Nobel laureate Mohammed Yunus is falling short in implementing its challenging human rights agenda a year after mass protests toppled Sheikh Hasina’s authoritarian rule, said Human Rights Watch (HRW).
While some of the fear and repression that marked Hasina’s 15-year tenure, including enforced disappearances, appear to have ended, HRW warned that arbitrary detention of political opponents, lack of systemic reforms, and growing violence are undermining hopes for a rights-respecting democracy.
“The hope of the thousands who braved lethal violence a year ago when they opposed Sheikh Hasina’s abusive rule to build a rights-respecting democracy remains unfulfilled,” said Meenakshi Ganguly, deputy Asia director at HRW. “The interim government appears stuck, juggling an unreformed security sector, violent religious hardliners, and political groups more focused on vengeance than rights.”
HRW noted that despite forming 11 reform commissions and ratifying the UN convention on enforced disappearances, the government has yet to implement key recommendations. Rising mob attacks, such as the destruction of 14 Hindu homes in Rangpur in July, ongoing violence in the Chittagong Hill Tracts, and harassment of journalists, women’s rights defenders, and LGBTQ+ activists reflect the deepening crisis.
Political detentions remain widespread, with police filing cases against over 92,000 people, including hundreds of Awami League leaders, many on dubious charges. The first trial involving Sheikh Hasina in absentia begins on August 3, but hundreds languish in jail without charge, many arrested under the Special Powers Act.
HRW criticised impunity for security forces, with only 60 police officers arrested for last year’s crackdown that killed 1,400 protesters. A commission investigating enforced disappearances has received 1,800 complaints but faces obstruction and destroyed evidence from security agencies, while senior figures implicated in abuses have fled.
HRW urged the Yunus government to end arbitrary detentions, prosecute security force abuses, disband the Rapid Action Battalion, ensure judicial independence, and prioritise women’s representation in decision-making. It also called on foreign governments and the UN to support reforms, impose targeted sanctions on abusers, and link Bangladesh’s participation in UN peacekeeping to accountability.
“No one doubts Yunus’s interim government faces enormous challenges,” Ganguly said. “But urgent action is needed to ensure lasting human rights protections and prevent the return of past abuses.”
