Human Rights Watch highlights dire situation of Rohingya in Bangladesh

Human Rights Watch (HRW) stated in its latest report, released on Thursday, that Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh face "impossible conditions" for safe and voluntary return to their homeland of Rakhine State in Myanmar.

"Rohingya suffer threats, extortion, and ill-treatment by Bangladeshi security forces and other authorities," the rights organization stated in its World Report 2023.

Bangladesh, a Muslim-majority country in South Asia, is currently hosting over 1.2 million persecuted Rohingya in 33 squalid refugee camps in the country's southern border district of Cox's Bazar. The majority of them fled a brutal military crackdown in their home country's Rakhine State in August 2017.

"In the Rohingya refugee camps, Bangladesh officials closed community-led schools, arbitrarily destroyed shops, and imposed new obstacles on movement," the report said.

Based on claims made by the refugees, the report stated that the Armed Police Battalion (APB) stationed in the congested makeshift tents is subjecting Rohingya to threats, extortion, arbitrary arrests, and torture.

"The (Bangladesh) government allowed humanitarian groups to begin teaching the Myanmar curriculum but continues to deny refugee children any accredited education," HRW said.

The report stated of the relocation of Rohingya to a remote island, citing Bangladeshi authorities' claim of better living facilities: "During 2022, the authorities moved about 8,000 Rohingya refugees to Bhasan Char, bringing the total to around 28,000 refugees living on the remote silt island where they face severe movement restrictions, food and medicine shortages, and abuses by security forces."

It also stated that, despite the involvement of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the Rohingya refugees have been prevented from returning to mainland camps to meet their other close relatives.

INCREASING ATTACKS ON POLITICAL OPPOSITION

Concerning the current political tensions in Bangladesh, the rights watchdog stated that increased attacks on members of the political opposition have raised fears of violence and repression ahead of parliamentary elections.

Following the Dec. 7 clashes between police and supporters of Bangladesh's main opposition political party, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), in which one person was killed and a hundred more were injured, Bangladeshi law enforcers sued thousands of opposition party members.

In addition, after a clash with police on Dec. 30 in Dhaka, police arrested over a hundred Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami leaders and activists. In five separate cases, police charged over 5,000 party workers and office bearers.

The Jamaat is the country's main Islamic political party and a key ally of the BNP.

"The ruling Awami League is promising free and fair elections in response to increased international scrutiny but is belying those claims by ramping up repression," Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia director at HRW, was quoted in the report as saying.

"Donors and strategic partners should insist that Bangladeshis can express themselves and select their leaders without fear, including by supporting independent election monitoring missions," she added.

HRW reviewed human rights practices in nearly 100 countries in its 33rd edition of the 712-page report.

However, the report added that after the US sanctioned Bangladesh's elite force Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) and some of its top commanders in Dec. 2021 under the Global Magnitsky Act of 2016, extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances were temporarily dropped.

"(However), authorities continued to arrest critics under the draconian Digital Security Act (DSA)," it said, citing the BNP as a source of information. It went on to state that at least 20,000 cases had been filed against BNP supporters.

In November, the Dhaka Police's Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime (CTTC) unit filed a case under the DSA against a Paris-based blogger, Pinaki Bhattacharya, and two others for "tarnishing the image of the state" in a Facebook post.

The government also cracked down on human rights organizations. Odhikar, a prominent group, was denied registration renewal, while its leaders, Adilur Rahman Khan and ASM Nasruddin Elan, face surveillance and ongoing trials as part of ongoing harassment, according to the report.