A recent fact-finding report by the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) on human rights violations in Bangladesh during the July-August student-led uprising laid bare former leader Sheikh Hasina’s direct and commanding role in serious human rights violations.

The OHCHR report explicitly attributes responsibility for gross human rights violations during the protests to the Hasina regime. According to the report, Hasina, who was then Bangladesh’s prime minister, and her Home Affairs Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal personally coordinated brutal security operations. Despite warnings from senior officials regarding the excessive use of force, Hasina refused to change course and instead issued direct orders authorizing violent crackdowns, the report says.

The report’s findings will further taint Hasina’s image and legitimacy internationally, making her return and that of the Awami League (AL), the party she leads, to Bangladeshi politics tougher.

According to the OHCHR report, between July 1 and August 15, 2024, Bangladesh witnessed an unprecedented crackdown on dissent, triggered by student-led protests against the reinstatement of a “controversial quota system” in public sector jobs. The report details how Hasina’s government, in coordination with security forces and pro-government vigilante groups, resorted to violent suppression of peaceful demonstrators.

More than 1,400 people were killed with a significant number of fatalities caused by live ammunition fired........

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