The fact-finding team of the United Nations will look into the severity with which the former Awami League government attempted to stifle student activity in July and August. For a month, the delegation’s members will travel to eight different divisional cities around the nation, including Rangpur, Chittagong, and Dhaka. The group will gather a variety of facts by listening to the testimonies of witnesses, family members, and victims of violence.
Two of the eight-person fact-finding team will arrive in Dhaka on Monday, according to a UN source based in Geneva who spoke with Prothom Alo. Tomorrow, three more will arrive in Dhaka. Tuesday. Tomorrow is when the official investigation will begin. In the coming days, more fact-finding team members will visit Dhaka.
The UN team may decide to stay longer in Bangladesh if needed, but their initial stay is scheduled to last for four weeks. Prothom Alo was able to confirm these events with multiple sources from the UN and interim administration. According to sources, the fact-finding commission would look into 15 different categories of human rights breaches, such as extrajudicial executions and crimes against humanity. The final week of November could see the submission of the investigative report to the temporary administration.
Md. Touhid Hossain, the foreign adviser to the interim government, said Prothom Alo on Sunday night that an independent investigation will be conducted by the UN team. The UN team will remain for about a month in order to do that. The government will receive the report from the UN fact-finding mission prior to its public release. Nevertheless, the fact-finding committee’s final report will not include any opinions from the administration.
On August 5, there was a massive movement by students that toppled Sheikh Hasina’s administration. The provisional government was established on August 8. The interim administration chose to look into the human rights breaches that occurred in Bangladesh in July and early August after taking office. In order to do this, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk received a letter from Muhammad Yunus, the chief adviser of the interim administration.
Earlier, from August 22 to 29, Bangladesh was visited by a three-person UN investigative team under the direction of Rory Mungoven, head of the Asia Pacific division at the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva. During its eight days in Bangladesh, the team met with victims, legislators, top government officials, advisors, and leaders of student movements at least forty times. These conversations determined the work modes for the exploratory team.
According to multiple foreign ministry sources, Volker Turk is putting the team under his direct supervision at the chief adviser Dr. Mohammad Yunus’s request, which was sent in a letter dated August 25 and asks the UN rights chief to begin the probe as soon as feasible. According to the chief adviser’s letter, the administration hopes to establish accountability by having the UN conduct an unbiased, independent investigation of the violations of human rights that occurred both during and after the student revolt (1 July to 15 August).
In Bangladesh, between July 16 and August 11, at least 650 people lost their lives, according to a UN study released on August 16.
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