A home struggle crimes courtroom in Bangladesh has sentenced the rustic’s former high minister, Sheikh Hasina, to demise in absentia for crimes towards humanity. The courtroom discovered Hasina in charge of incitement, orders to kill and state of no activity to forestall atrocities right through the fatal state crackdown on a student-led rebellion in 2024.
Hasina denies the entire fees towards her, calling the courtroom’s choice “biased and politically motivated”. In a remark launched after the decision, she mentioned: “I am not afraid to face my accusers in a proper tribunal where the evidence can be weighed and tested fairly.”
Hasina has challenged Bangladesh’s caretaker govt to convey the costs sooner than the Global Felony Courtroom.
The Bangladeshi courtroom’s judgment is anchored in intensive proof from the UN and world human rights organisations. In a document printed in February 2025, the UN Administrative center of the Prime Commissioner for Human Rights estimated that as much as 1,400 folks had been killed right through the 3 weeks of unrest. An extra 11,700 folks had been detained, it mentioned.
The document discovered that “the vast majority of those killed and injured were shot by Bangladesh’s security forces”, and decided that safety companies “systematically engaged in rights violations that could amount to crimes against humanity”. UN knowledge means that as much as 180 youngsters had been killed within the safety crackdown.
Right through the unrest, Human Rights Watch (HRW) famous that the Bangladeshi govt had “deployed the army against student protesters, imposed shoot-on-sight curfew orders, and shut down mobile data and internet services.”
The UN document concluded that the violence towards protesters in Bangladesh “was carried out in a coordinated manner by security and intelligence services”. It documented circumstances the place “security forces engaged in summary executions by deliberately shooting unarmed protesters at point-blank range.”
HRW documented an identical patterns. In a January 2025 briefing, HRW mentioned that “over 1,000 people were killed and many thousands injured due to excessive and indiscriminate use of ammunition.” Those findings had been repeated through Amnesty Global, which recorded using are living ammunition on protesters and mistreatment of detainees.
The courtroom’s verdict accepts proof that a couple of branches of the protection equipment acted in live performance, and that senior officers didn’t intrude whilst human rights violations escalated. Judges mentioned that the ones in positions of authority had been anticipated to forestall such abuses, but the violence persevered regardless of their talent to prevent it.
For lots of households, the courtroom’s ruling marks the primary professional acknowledgement in their loss. Testimonies amassed through UN investigators describe folks spending days looking out hospitals and police stations for his or her youngsters, steadily being instructed that information had been lacking. The UN reported that medical institution team of workers had been careworn through safety forces to change or take away demise information.
Scholar protesters conflict with the police right through an indication in Dhaka, Bangladesh, in 2024.
Mamunur Rashid / Shutterstock
Meenakshi Ganguly, the deputy Asia director at HRW, mentioned on the time of the unrest: “Bangladesh has been troubled for a long time due to unfettered security force abuses against anyone who opposes the Sheikh Hasina government.”
Hasina received a fourth immediately time period as high minister in 2024, following an election that the principle opposition Bangladesh Nationalist birthday party alleged was once a sham. The birthday party boycotted the ballot after a lot of its key leaders had been pressured into exile or jailed previous to the vote.
Beneath Hasina, Bangladesh’s safety forces operated with wide discretion. This integrated the Fast Motion Battalion paramilitary power, which was once sanctioned through the USA Treasury in December 2021 over “serious human rights abuses”. Civil society teams documented drive on activists previous to the 2024 unrest, whilst newshounds confronted harassment.
Subsequent steps
The decision arrives at a pivotal second for the meantime govt which, led through Muhammad Yunus, has pledged to revive the rule of thumb of regulation in Bangladesh and rebuild public accept as true with. One tricky query for his management transferring ahead shall be whether or not it could possibly safe Hasina’s extradition.
The Hindustan Instances is reporting that the Bangladeshi govt has already written to India, the place Hasina has been dwelling in exile since being ousted from energy, soliciting for her to be passed over.
Hasina’s extradition is not any foregone conclusion. India can deny the Bangladeshi govt’s request whether it is deemed that the costs towards Hasina are of a political nature. And Delhi has spoke back cautiously to the extradition request, pronouncing it’s “committed to the best interests of the people of Bangladesh”.
But drive on India to extradite Hasina is more likely to develop. The gravity of the costs – grounded in UN findings that counsel the violence, and Hasina’s function in it, would possibly quantity to crimes towards humanity – provides a world measurement that might affect long run selections.
Protesters stormed the high minister’s place of work in Dhaka in 2024 following Hasina’s resignation.
Sk Hasan Ali / Shutterstock
Any other problem going through Bangladesh’s meantime govt is the possibility of renewed unrest. Reuters reported clashes between Hasina supporters and safety forces in portions of the capital, Dhaka, and the port town of Chattogram within the days sooner than the courtroom’s ruling. And Bangladeshi police dispersed protesters marching in opposition to birthday party workplaces in Dhaka after the judgment.
Hasina’s son, Sajeeb Wazed Pleasure, has additionally publicly warned that supporters of his mom’s Awami League would block nationwide elections scheduled for February 2026 if the federal government’s ban at the birthday party remained in position. The rustic’s political surroundings stays fragile as prison lawsuits towards the previous Hasina govt proceed.
The courtroom’s verdict establishes an professional document that deadly power was once utilized in techniques inconsistent with world regulation, the violations had been fashionable, and the state bears accountability.
What follows – whether or not it’s additional prosecutions, security-sector reform or a motion in opposition to extradition – stays unsure. However subsequent steps should be sure that justice continues.
