UN Investigative Team to Address Human Rights Violations in Bangladesh

A United Nations team will engage with Bangladesh's interim government to discuss investigating alleged human rights violations during recent violence. Roughly 300 people, mainly students, died in protests. An interim government led by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus requested the U.N.'s assistance in probing the incidents.

A United Nations team will engage with Bangladesh's interim government and other stakeholders starting Thursday to discuss investigating alleged human rights violations during the recent deadly violence in the South Asian country, according to officials.

An estimated 300 individuals, many of whom were university and college students, lost their lives in protests that began in July. Initially agitating against quotas in government jobs, the demonstrations escalated into calls for the ousting of former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. In the wake of the student-led uprising, an interim government, headed by Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus, came into power after Hasina fled to New Delhi.

The U.N. office in Bangladesh announced that a team from the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights would be in Dhaka from Sept. 22-29 to comprehend their priorities for promoting human rights. Bangladesh's interim government had requested the U.N. to investigate the protest-related killings. Rory Mungoven, chief of the Asia-Pacific region at the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, is leading the team, which met Foreign Secretary Masud Bin Momen on Thursday.

Regarding the visit, U.N. human rights chief Volker Turk recently assured Yunus that a U.N.-led investigation would be launched soon to probe the protester deaths. A fact-finding team will be dispatched to Dhaka in the coming weeks.

(With inputs from agencies.)