The Bangladesh government has cancelled the operating licence of one of its top human rights groups, in a move critics say is intended to send a “chilling message” to the rights defenders in the country.
Odhikar, the rights group, on Sunday said Bangladesh’s NGO Affairs Bureau, which comes under the remit of the prime minister’s office, refused to renew its licence, accusing the group of “tarnishing the image of the state to the world”.
Odhikar had been raising human rights issues in the South Asian country since its foundation in 1994. It worked closely with the United Nations in recording thousands of extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances allegedly perpetrated by the Bangladeshi security forces.
The group had documented alleged rights abuses by Bangladesh’s notorious Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), an elite police unit sanctioned by the United States in December last year.
The RAB is accused of involvement in hundreds of disappearances and nearly 600 extrajudicial killings since 2018.
The US sanctions stopped extrajudicial killings in Bangladesh for nearly two months, according to local media reports and top government officials, who were seen gloating about the improvement in the human rights situation in various public forums.
Bütün xəbərlər Facebook səhifəmizdə
.jpg)
USD
EUR
GBP
RUB
