Co-author Faiyaz Hossain

The OHCHR report attributes the most serious incidents, including mass shootings and organized attacks, to Sheikh Hasina’s command.

The OHCHR’s Fact-Finding Report on Bangladesh’s July–August 2024 protests arrived under the guise of impartial justice, yet beneath its lofty language lurks a narrative unmistakably tilted in favor of the July anarchists. Marketed as a breakthrough for human rights accountability, the report accuses the former Awami League government and its security agencies of widespread repression and arbitrary killings.

But a closer examination reveals a document that selectively amplifies certain voices, overlooks key actors, and compresses timelines in a way that seems designed to exonerate protestors while vilifying the state. Far from the neutral lens of international justice, this report reads more like a chronicle of grievances for one side, raising urgent questions about political bias masquerading as fact-finding.

Previous UN and OHCHR reports have faced significant criticism from various global actors. The US Senate and Congress have criticized these reports, highlighting concerns about the UN Human Rights Council’s credibility, with the US even withdrawing from the Universal Periodic Review process. Former Australian Prime Minister John Howard notably opposed UN declarations related to indigenous rights and showed skepticism toward some UN findings.

Scott Morrison also contested narratives about Australia’s climate and human rights issues at the UN, defending national achievements against criticism. UN Watch has criticized the OHCHR reports as biased and often based on selective and unverified data, with some allegations treating urban destruction as evidence of genocide. Despite the International Commission of Jurists declaring the 1971 Bangladesh war as genocide, the UN has not officially recognized it. It is time to question the investigators on their approach to findings.

A Methodology That Omits More Than It Reveals

The OHCHR report claims to have interviewed over 250 people and examined thousands of pieces of evidence, yet it provides almost no insight into how these sources were selected. Who were these witnesses? Were they victims, bystanders, or protest organizers? Crucially, the report does not include testimony from state actors, police command, the deployed army, or the accused political leadership. The omission is glaring: while protestors’ grievances are amplified in rich detail, state narratives are largely absent.

Transparency is critical in any fact-finding exercise, especially one accusing a government of “systematic abuse” (UNOG Newsroom, 12 Feb 2025). Yet the OHCHR provides no methodology annex, no criteria for witness selection, and no explanation for why key actors were excluded. The report’s timing—released under the interim Yunus government after Sheikh Hasina’s ouster—further complicates its claim to neutrality.

It reads less like an independent UN inquiry and more like a politically convenient document, quietly validating protestor claims while sidelining alternative accounts. The OHCHR factfinding team omitted interviewing the Chief of Bangladesh Army, key in forming the interim government post-August 5. Ignoring such sources questions the report’s credibility and methodology of sampling integrity.

The lack of oversight from an ethics committee for this research and the sampling anonymity of the fact-finding mission could have led to too many loopholes. It was risking the report to have significant methodological limitations to generate neutral findings.

Selective Storytelling: Elevating Protestors, Ignoring Contradictions

Throughout the report, protestors are depicted almost universally as innocent victims, while state forces are cast as unprovoked aggressors. This framing is reinforced by repeated references to “brutal, systematic repression” without adequately acknowledging the broader context of escalating violence, destruction of property, or attacks on law enforcement during the protests (UN Bangladesh, 12 Feb 2025).

Evidence that complicates the narrative is largely ignored. The report notes deaths and injuries among protestors but largely omits the fatal consequences suffered by police officers and civilians caught in the crossfire. Multiple sources, including local media investigations, highlight how some fatalities attributed to state violence actually resulted from protestor actions or unrelated incidents (AFP Fact Check, 14 Aug 2024; Prothom Alo, 2024).

Yet the OHCHR report repeatedly presents protestor casualties as a settled fact, while state casualties are minimized or absent. The report also failed to mention until the time Protesters were peaceful, there was no violence or repression from Government’s side.

The consequence is a one-sided story that exalts protestors’ suffering while rendering state actions inherently malicious. Such selective storytelling erodes the credibility of the report and undermines the very principle of impartial investigation.

The August 5 Timeline: Convenient Compression of Events

The OHCHR report attributes the most serious incidents, including mass shootings and organized attacks, to Sheikh Hasina’s command. Yet the timeline it presents raises serious doubts. Hasina left Bangladesh early on August 5, hours before many of the reported killings occurred. The report makes no attempt to distinguish between pre- and post-departure events, effectively compressing the timeline to assign maximum blame to the former government.

This approach conveniently shields protestors from scrutiny, while painting the state as singularly culpable. In reality, the situation on the ground involved a chaotic power vacuum, with multiple actors—including armed protest groups—engaging in violence. By neglecting to account for these dynamics, the report simplifies a complex scenario into a politically charged narrative favoring protestors.

Anonymity and Lack of Oversight

Unlike formal UN commissions, this report does not disclose the identities of its investigators or panel members. This lack of transparency raises serious questions about impartiality. Who selected the team? What qualifications or affiliations did they have? Could prior biases or political connections have influenced the findings?

When investigators operate in anonymity, the credibility of their conclusions suffers. In this case, the absence of oversight amplifies concerns that the report may have functioned more as a political tool than a neutral fact-finding exercise. The tilt toward protestors becomes even more conspicuous when viewed alongside selective sourcing and omitted perspectives.

Inflated Numbers and Uncorrected Errors

The OHCHR cites up to 1,400 deaths during the protests (UN Bangladesh, 12 Feb 2025), yet multiple investigations reveal serious discrepancies. AFP Fact Check (14 Aug 2024) confirmed that a Bengali newspaper’s original death toll of 201 was later revised to 193. Prothom Alo found numerous cases where accidental deaths or land dispute-related killings were falsely counted among “July martyrs” (Prothom Alo, 2024). The Business Standard reported cases of individuals presumed dead who later reappeared alive (The Business Standard, 2024).

Despite mounting evidence, the OHCHR made no effort to correct these figures. Inflated numbers serve the narrative of widespread state repression, reinforcing the portrayal of protestors as victims while ignoring inconvenient facts. In a credible fact-finding exercise, such discrepancies would necessitate correction—yet here, accuracy appears subordinate to political storytelling.

Overlooked Forensics and Contradictory Evidence

Several deaths attributed to state forces are questionable upon closer forensic examination. The report cites numerous fatalities caused by 7.62 mm ammunition, yet police insist they do not use this caliber (Prothom Alo, 2024). Other deaths occurred far from police presence or inside private homes, including the killings of children. While the OHCHR acknowledges these anomalies, it provides no independent forensic follow-up, no annex, and no detailed review of ballistic evidence.

This lack of rigorous verification strengthens the impression that the report prioritizes narrative over truth. By selectively presenting evidence that supports protestor claims while sidelining contradictory facts, the OHCHR risks transforming fact-finding into advocacy.

Weaponization of a Human Rights Report

Perhaps the most alarming outcome is how the report is being used. Despite its own disclaimer that findings “cannot themselves be used as a criminal charge” (The Daily Star, 12 Feb 2025), the report has already been cited in prosecutions against Sheikh Hasina. This effectively converts a flawed human rights document into a political weapon, legitimizing charges that might otherwise be challenged for lack of due process.

When a report meant to uphold justice becomes an instrument for political prosecution, the damage extends beyond Bangladesh. It undermines international human rights mechanisms, showing how moral language can be harnessed to serve partisan objectives rather than truth.

The Costs of Bias Toward Protestors

The OHCHR report’s bias toward protestors carries real consequences. By portraying protestors as universally innocent, it obscures the violent and destructive elements within the uprising, neglects state and civilian casualties, and inflates the scale of repression. Such skewed framing inflames polarization, diminishes accountability, and undermines public trust in both domestic and international justice systems.

Moreover, the report risks normalizing selective fact-finding in future crises. If protestor narratives are automatically elevated and state actors demonized, subsequent inquiries may repeat the same errors, leaving real victims—on all sides—without a voice. The OHCHR Report’s findings standard may lead to confirmation bias due to reliance on selective, unverified data, narrow timeframes, and predetermined narratives, undermining neutrality and comprehensive analysis.

Conclusion: Demand for Balanced Accountability

No one disputes the tragedy of the July–August 2024 protests. Innocent civilians were killed, and violations occurred. But justice cannot emerge from a report that elevates one side while marginalizing others. The OHCHR Fact-Finding Report, for all its moral rhetoric, reads as a politically convenient document favoring protestors, leaving fundamental questions of accuracy, context, and fairness unresolved.

Bangladesh—and the international community—must demand a genuinely impartial investigation. Such an inquiry would engage all parties, rigorously verify claims, and resist the temptation to craft a narrative that fits political convenience. Until then, the OHCHR report stands less as a testament to justice than as a cautionary example of how human rights language can be weaponized to serve partial agendas.

The OHCHR report reads like an exploratory discussion highlighting one side while completely ignoring the previous Government. It is time the UN call for a impartial judicial investigation with international oversight and documentations.

Disclaimer: Views expressed by writers in this section are their own and do not reflect Milli Chronicle’s point-of-view.

Co-Author SM Faiyaz Hossain

Under the current interim regime, extrajudicial violence has not merely been tolerated; it has been routinized.

Once lionized as the “banker to the poor,” Mohammad Yunus the microcredit mythologist now presides—directly or symbolically—over a Bangladesh in slow-motion disintegration. Over the past fourteen months, the mounting crises—economic, legal, social and political—no longer speak of mere instability; they shout systemic collapse and kleptocracy. Yunus’s promise of reform now rings hollow amid daily horrors.

The promise reflects his longstanding fictitious tales of donor friendly rhetoric and fundraising manuals pertaining to three zeros; and sending poverty to museums. 

Economic Stagnation and Social Collapse

Bangladesh’s long-praised growth trajectory has lost traction. In FY 2024–25, growth fell to 4.1 %, the weakest since the COVID era, per World Bank assessment. If the investment drought deepens, projections suggest a drop toward 3.3 % in 2025.

Over 100 garment factories have shuttered over the past year, costing tens of thousands of jobs (Daily Industry BD). Official unemployment hovers at 4.6 %, but a deeper reckoning of underemployment, youth joblessness, and hidden labor markets suggests far higher human cost (Daily Observer). Nearly 85 % of workers remain informal—no contracts, no social protection (Dhaka Tribune).

In industrial belts like Gazipur, police acknowledge many arrested for petty theft or street mugging are recently laid-off factory workers (New Age). When the state fails to provide, survival becomes the only logic, and crime swells to fill the void.

Theories of Yunus delivered to convince his Western philanthropists have failed to make financial relevance with Global investors. Yunus doesn’t just lack political acumen, he was too naïve to begin his step in the game. 

Lawlessness, State Terror, and Mob Carnage

Justice no longer exists as a concept, only as a performative façade masking systemic brutality and institutional collapse. Under the current interim regime, extrajudicial violence has not merely been tolerated; it has been routinized. In the first quarter of 2025 alone, at least 8 extrajudicial killings and 19 deaths in custody were documented.

Between August 2024 and March 2025, human rights monitors recorded 20 such killings, involving torture, beatings, and summary executions. Mob lynchings have surged with terrifying ferocity: between mid-2024 and mid-2025, at least 637 people were lynched—representing a twelvefold increase from the 51 deaths recorded in 2023.

This wave of vigilante violence has been met with state indifference—if not tacit encouragement. Simultaneously, religious minorities have been subjected to a coordinated campaign of persecution: between August 2024 and June 2025, 2,442 hate crimes—including arson, sexual assaults, desecration of temples and churches, and targeted killings—were recorded, underscoring a culture of impunity that has metastasized into open terror.

These are not isolated incidents but symptoms of a regime where law is weaponized, justice is ornamental, and human life is expendable.

Since Muhammad Yunus assumed office, there has been a disturbing rise in alleged political persecution through the legal system: arrests, false lawsuits, and invented murder charges serving as tools of harassment rather than justice. Beyond the courts, thousands have been detained under Operation Devil Hunt, with over 11,300 arrests reported by late February 2025, many allegedly including people with only tenuous or no links to criminal acts. 

Yunus never had, never tried for public mandate. Employed by the protesters of July uprising is far from being a democratic mandate. Yunus never had the courage to face a public referendum to justify his throne. He preferred to enjoy the authority, ban political parties without referendum and promote divisive rhetoric among the masses. 

Women, Children, and the Machinery of Cruelty

The sexual violence statistics are a national disgrace. In the first half of 2025, 481 rape cases were reported—nearing the total for all of 2024 (The Daily Star). Child rape cases, in just one seven-month span, rose by 75 % (The Daily Star).

Protests led by women or students are met with torture, rape threats, solitary confinement (Human Rights Watch). Ibtedayi teachers demanding job recognition were beaten, tear-gassed, and dispersed in January 2025 (JMBF).

Prisons continue to serve as killing grounds. Deaths in custody are frequent; euphemisms like “heart attacks” or “natural causes” mask systematic violence.

Corpses in Rivers: the Floating Dead

A macabre trend haunts Bangladesh’s waterways. River police data show that in 2025, an average of 43 bodies each month have been pulled from rivers, up from 36 per month in 2024. From January to July 2025 alone, 301 bodies were recovered; 92 remain unidentified. Narayanganj recorded 34 recoveries, Dhaka 32 (Daily Star).

In one case, a woman and a child were found floating in the Buriganga River, both strangled before being dumped, according to autopsy (Financial Post BD). In late August, a headless body was recovered from the Shitalakkhya River in Narayanganj; the victim was later identified as a 27-year-old man (Financial Post BD).

In Keraniganj, the bodies of a man and woman were discovered tied with a 50-kg rice sack, and another victim in a burqa drifted nearby (Financial Post BD).

In Netrokona District (March 2025), the bodies of three fish poachers were found in the Dhanu River after clashes involving community groups (bdnews24). In Chandpur, two older men were retrieved from the Dakatia River—one with visible stab wounds and a severed leg vein (Dhaka Tribune)¹⁷.

In Khulna, over 50 bodies were pulled from various rivers between August 2024 and September 2025; 20 remain unidentified (Khulna naval police). In Chandpur’s Meghna River, seven bodies from an Al Bakhira cargo vessel murder were handed over to families—and a probe committee was formed (BD Pratidin).

Notably, the body of journalist Bibhuranjan Sarkar—after threats and intimidation—was recovered from the Meghna River in Munshiganj in August 2025 (IFJ / BMSF).

These are not accidents or drownings; they are executions turned invisible, pollution turned weapon, rivers made into graveyards without funeral. 

Passport, Visas, and Global Shame

Bangladesh’s passport value has eroded, visa rejections are multiplying, and global watchdogs—HRW, Odhikar, UN human rights bodies—have flagged Dhaka for systemic violations.

The moral capital of the country is bankrupt. Investors and donors hesitate to engage with a government intertwined with terror, silence, and complicity.

Disasters as Symptoms, Not Anomalies

The October 13, 2025 garment-chemical factory fire in Dhaka, which killed 16 workers, was not a random accident — it was a preventable massacre. Locked rooftop escape doors and unchecked toxic gas turned the building into a sealed crematorium.

Days later, the Yunus government has failed to launch any credible investigation, identify the factory owners, or bring those responsible to justice.

No arrests have been made, no compensation schemes publicly disclosed, and no structural safety audits initiated. Instead, the administration has issued vague statements and deflected responsibility, shielding business interests at the expense of workers’ lives. This silence is not mere negligence — it is complicity. 

This is not a standalone incident, rather a pattern. The handling of the Gazi Tire Factory fire tragedy reflects a troubling pattern of negligence and institutional disregard for accountability.

Despite the devastating loss of life and clear safety failures, Yunus—under whose interim government the incident unfolded—failed to ensure a thorough, transparent investigation or meaningful compensation for victims’ families.

This inaction not only denied justice to the workers but also signaled an alarming indifference to labor rights and workplace safety. In the past 13 months, similar negligence has been observed in incidents such as the Hazaribagh factory fire (2024) and the Chittagong shipbreaking yard accidents (2024-2025), where victims were met with inadequate investigations and stalled compensation efforts.

By neglecting to pursue corporate responsibility and systemic reform, Yunus reinforced the vulnerability of industrial workers in Bangladesh, deepening mistrust between the state and its most exploited laborers. His failure to act decisively in the aftermath stands as a stark contradiction to his international image as a champion of social justice.

Over the past 13 months of the Yunus regime, Bangladesh’s labour sector has been trapped in a cycle of grand promises, fragile protections, and cynical neglect. The government’s repeated declarations of “historic reforms” amounted to little more than political theatre, as factory floors across the country continued to mirror a grim reality of wage theft, unsafe workplaces, and repressed voices.

While MoLE boasted of upcoming amendments to labour laws, millions of workers — especially in the sprawling informal sector — remained invisible to the legal system. Inspection bodies were underfunded and toothless, allowing factory owners to operate with impunity as thousands were laid off illegally, denied benefits, and silenced when they protested.

Unionization was stifled, particularly in Export Processing Zones, where rights existed only on paper, and “social audits” became nothing more than PR rituals for global brands. Worker unrest exploded repeatedly, from delayed Eid allowances to unpaid salaries and unsafe conditions, yet the government responded with empty press briefings and tokenistic committees.

The much-touted October 2025 labour law reform deadline became a symbol of inertia, tangled in corporate resistance and bureaucratic gamesmanship. The past year has laid bare a bitter truth: under Yunus’s leadership, labour rights were not defended — they were traded off, delayed, and dismissed, leaving workers to fight alone against a system designed to exploit them.

From Savior Icon to Enabler of Decay

Mohammad Yunus once embodied a hopeful alternative—microcredit, grassroots empowerment, moral leadership. Yet under his interim leadership, Bangladesh is unravelling in every direction: economic collapse, mob justice, sexual violence, extrajudicial killings, rivers flooded with corpses, and institutional impotence. From Teachers to slums, the elites to poets all have suffered under the Yunus’ reign of Terror. 

Yunus may not have physically ordered every atrocity, but he now presides over a regime that normalized them. His Nobel halo cannot conceal the inferno beneath. Rebuilding a nation demands more than symbolic leadership—it demands justice, accountability, and courage. Today, Bangladesh has none. Yunus had the opportunity to unite the nation and develop a social contract among the political parties. Instead what Yunus has contributed had cemented a pipeline for cycle of violence to multiply in the future. 

Disclaimer: Views expressed by writers in this section are their own and do not reflect Milli Chronicle’s point-of-view.