Rights advocates warn new laws could weaken safeguards against enforced disappearances

Former members of the Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearances, rights defenders, lawyers and political figures have criticised the government’s proposed human rights laws, warning that they could weaken accountability.

They said the drafts risk forcing victims to rely on the same institutions accused of abuses, while leaving much of the existing security structure intact.

The remarks came at a programme organised by Voice for Reform and Nagarik Coalition at Karwan Bazar in Dhaka on Wednesday on the draft National Human Rights Commission bill, the draft Enforced Disappearance Prevention and Redress bill and proposed legislation to restructure the Rapid Action Battalion.

The programme was moderated by Fahim Mashroor, founder of Nagarik Coalition.

Dr Nabila Idris, an academic, human rights activist and member of the Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearances, in her presentation pointed to what she described as a fundamental contradiction in the proposed system — families who historically struggled to persuade police even to register complaints would again have to rely on police investigations to establish that an enforced disappearance had occurred.

“The first problem is this: if we look at the complaints submitted to the Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearances, out of more than 1,500 complaints, we found contemporaneous evidence in only around 250 cases. Why? Because the police would not even register a GD,” Nabila said.

“If someone had disappeared and their family went to the police to file a case, the police simply would not accept it.”

The commission, which submitted its final report in January, ultimately received 1,913 complaints and classified 1,569 of them as enforced disappearances after verification. Idris served on the five-member body alongside human rights defender Nur Khan Liton.

Nabila argued that little had changed structurally to justify placing such investigative responsibility back in the hands of police.

“Nothing about that context has changed. There has been no fundamental or structural transformation of our forces that would resolve this problem,” she said. “So there are several problems with requiring complaints to be filed with the police and then having the police investigate them.”

She said the consequences could extend beyond a family simply failing to obtain recognition. Benefits promised under the proposed law—including compensation and provisions affecting the distribution of a disappeared person’s property—would depend on the outcome of the investigation.

“If the police investigation does not recognise that someone was subjected to enforced disappearance, the family will not receive those benefits,” she said.

More troublingly, Nabila warned, a complainant could face criminal liability if police concluded that no disappearance had occurred and the allegation was subsequently deemed false.

“If the police say, ‘There was no enforced disappearance,’ then the family who made the complaint could themselves face a case,” she said, warning that a complainant could face “up to five years of rigorous imprisonment.”

Nabila also questioned the proposed structure of the National Human Rights Commission, arguing that the composition of its selection committee would make meaningful institutional independence difficult.

“Of the nine members of its selection committee, eight are connected to the government or the ruling party, and two of them are actually ministers,” she said. “This is simply not the structure of an independent NHRC.”

She said the central purpose of a national human rights institution was precisely to scrutinise powerful state actors who might otherwise remain beyond accountability.

“The NHRC’s job is to scrutinise those responsible for human rights violations who are normally considered untouchable—typically the government and those associated with it,” Idris said. “That scrutiny becomes impossible when the government has such extensive influence over the process through which the commission itself is constituted.”

Nabila reserved some of her strongest criticism for the proposed restructuring of RAB as the “Special Response Battalion.”

“Frankly, I am reluctant even to call it a RAB bill. And I am even more reluctant to use its new name, the ‘Special Response Battalion.’ The best description would be the ‘Aqiqah Bill’, because nothing has really happened here except that RAB has been given a new name,” she said.

She argued that renaming the force was not an innocuous exercise, particularly because RAB has been subject to US sanctions.

“I do not think this renaming is a normal thing. I think it is quite deliberate,” Idris said, arguing that sanctions had contributed to a decline in abuses by RAB and warning that changing the institution’s identity without changing its structure could create new accountability problems.

The more important issue, she said, was that structural reforms recommended by the disappearance commission had not been incorporated.

“The structural reforms that were necessary—and which we, from the Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearances, had formally recommended in writing—have not been introduced,” she said. “In fact, the powers of this new force have been expanded while opportunities for accountability have been reduced.”

She cited the proposed grievance-redress mechanism as an example. Under the proposal she described, complaints against the force would be considered by a five-member committee chaired by the force’s own additional director general. Two other members would be senior bureaucrats, including one from the Home Ministry, while another would be a government-nominated human rights activist and the fifth a journalist.

“When four out of five members are effectively under government control, how can that possibly constitute an independent investigation?” Nabila asked.

Mir Ahmad Bin Quasem, the Dhaka-14 lawmaker widely known as Barrister Arman, who was himself a victim of enforced disappearance and was released in August 2024 after about eight years, said the legislation demonstrated the continuing strength of what he called Bangladesh’s “deep state.”

Arman recalled an earlier debate in Parliament in which, he said, he had appealed to lawmakers by pointing out that almost every member had experienced persecution during the previous 17 years.

“There is hardly a member of Parliament who did not suffer persecution over the past 17 years. How can this Parliament—a gathering of those who were themselves oppressed—repeal such a law?” he said.

He said the intervention created an emotional atmosphere in Parliament.

“I personally saw many MPs from the ruling party wiping tears from their eyes,” Arman said, adding that the law minister subsequently promised a stronger and more effective law and publicly indicated that Arman would be included in the review process.

“What actually happened, you have all seen,” he said.

Arman said he drew two conclusions from the legislation subsequently approved by the Cabinet.

“First, this law provides tangible evidence of just how powerful the deep state remains,” he said. “It is visible proof that although a different political party has come to power, the deep state that helped fascism become fascism—and deployed all of its strength to keep that fascist system in place—remains extremely powerful.”

“The individuals controlling state power may have changed, but in practical terms very little has changed,” he added. “Those who made decisions during Hasina’s time are still making decisions today.”

Arman said elements of the civil bureaucracy, law-enforcement agencies and military bureaucracy had retained institutional influence and were using it to resist meaningful reform.

“The fact that this legislation received Cabinet approval is evidence of that,” he said.

His second conclusion was more pointed.

“This government has lost even the most basic sense of shame,” Arman said.

“If it retained even a minimum sense of shame—if it had any sense of dignity after the promise it made in Parliament to introduce a stronger law—it would never have dared to place this garbage law before the public.”

“My conclusion is this: this government has lost its sense of shame.”

Supreme Court lawyer Mohammad Tajul Islam, the former chief prosecutor of the International Crimes Tribunal, warned that legislation insulating security institutions from meaningful investigation could perpetuate the fear created by enforced disappearances. Tajul served as ICT chief prosecutor from September 2024 until February this year.

“Our problem as a nation is that we have an extremely short memory. You might call it a goldfish memory,” Tajul said. “You have still not recovered from the horrors of enforced disappearances.”

“If a law like this remains in place, a sense of fear will continue to haunt ordinary people. How can the nation escape that fear?”

He said the government should seek legitimacy through good governance rather than protect state agencies from accountability.

“Why not win people’s confidence through good governance? Why not build the forces around the principles of good governance?” he asked. “It is not the responsibility of the state to construct a shield protecting these forces from accountability for horrific crimes.”

“So who matters more? Are you becoming dependent on the security forces, or are you dependent on the people?”

Tajul invoked the fate of the previous Awami League government as a warning.

“You saw what happened to the Awami League when it became dependent on the security forces,” he said. “Like colonial rulers, it tried to turn the people of this country into subjects—into slaves. We broke those chains through a revolution and emerged from that system.”

He particularly questioned allowing RAB-linked officials to participate in investigations concerning allegations against the force.

“RAB’s ADG (Operations) is again being made a member of the committee,” Tajul said. “In virtually all our enforced-disappearance cases, the ADG (Operations) is among the accused because it was not possible for RAB to commit such offences without the permission of the ADG (Operations).”

Tajul urged the government not to send the legislation through Parliament in its present form.

“Please do not pass this law in Parliament. Send it back for reconsideration. Redraft it so that it can genuinely prevent these crimes,” he said.

He also issued an appeal directly to lawmakers: “Do not vote for this proposed law. It should not be passed.”

“If you participate in passing it, history will record your names as those who enacted a black law that effectively legitimised enforced disappearance.”

Nur Khan Liton, a veteran human rights defender, former Ain o Salish Kendra secretary general and member of the Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearances, questioned why the government had moved away from what he considered the substantially stronger 2025 ordinance.

“In the case of the Human Rights Commission, we had a reasonably good law in 2025—a fairly acceptable ordinance,” Khan said. “Had that ordinance simply been passed by Parliament, it would have become law.”

“To this day, I do not understand why, in turning that ordinance into legislation, it had to encounter so many obstacles and undergo so much cutting and trimming.”

But Khan cautioned that legislation alone could not guarantee an effective commission. Even powers available under the 2009 framework, he said, had often gone unused by previous commissions.

“Changing the law alone is not enough,” he said. “No matter how many powers you give a commission through legislation, without honest, committed, competent and courageous people, that commission will effectively be unable to play any meaningful role.”

Mojibur Rahman Bhuiyan Monju, chairman of the Amar Bangladesh Party, said many of the accountability questions had already been examined in detail during the earlier reform and consensus processes. Monju is the current chairman of AB Party.

He questioned why the government was now retreating from positions developed through those processes, particularly when victims themselves had sought independent investigations.

“We understood even then what they wanted from us,” Monju said. “Their argument was essentially that when you are running the state, you cannot leave so many mechanisms of accountability in place.”

“If there is this much accountability, this much scrutiny and so many separate investigations, then, they argue, ‘we will not be able to use the police.’ That is the argument they repeatedly make.”

Syed Hasib Uddin Hossain, general secretary of Rashtra Sanskar Andolan, framed the debate as part of a broader struggle over whether the post-uprising state would voluntarily surrender some of its inherited powers.

“The Commission on Enforced Disappearances, the Consensus Commission and the referendum happened at a time when the state was still in the aftermath of an uprising and was relatively weak,” Hossain said.

“Now we have an elected democratic state, and it is enjoying the power that comes with that. There is no reason to doubt that it will try to expand that power in the future. That is the nature of the state.”

“But what are we actually trying to say? After 2024, we want the state to relinquish some of its power. Just a little. There is a very strong desire among us for that.”

He called on the BNP government to demonstrate that it was willing to restrain state power and ensure that bodies implicated in allegations were not responsible for investigating themselves.

“Show us that the commissions can be constituted independently,” he said. “Ensure that investigations are not conducted by the very bodies that are themselves implicated.”

Hossain said the political expectations created by the 2024 uprising meant the government could not operate according to older assumptions about how slowly public demands for reform would develop.

“Bangladesh after 2024 cannot be treated as though it were still the Bangladesh of 1990,” he said. “An uprising has taken place. People now have expectations.”

“If the state does not move in this direction—if it does not reduce its power and strength—it will ultimately be unable to sustain itself.”

Hossain also warned against viewing the issue solely through partisan politics.

“We often make the mistake of looking only at the BNP or at politicians,” he said. “But from our experience, I can say that the administration and the bureaucracy play a major role in shaping these laws and in generating these ideas.”

“The administration wants to retain its power,” he added. “There is no need for such an excessive appetite for power. We want the BNP to begin moving towards reducing that power.”

Physician and former National Citizen Party joint convener Tasnuva Jabeen, who resigned from the NCP in December, said the differences between the 2025 ordinance and the proposed 2026 legislation revealed how extensively the new framework sought to protect members of the security and intelligence apparatus.

“What is interesting is the extent to which this draft legislation goes in protecting the law-enforcement agencies, security forces and intelligence agencies,” Jabeen said.

She pointed particularly to the defence frequently invoked by personnel accused of abuses—that they had acted on orders from superior officers.

“The 2025 ordinance did not allow someone to escape responsibility by invoking that excuse. But in 2026, that protection has been brought back,” she said. “Someone may say, ‘I did this on the orders of my superior authority,’ and potentially escape responsibility for the crime.”

She also criticised provisions requiring permission to inspect secret detention facilities associated with enforced disappearances.

“And then there are the Aynaghars—the cells, detention centres and other facilities where people were imprisoned for years and subjected to brutal torture. Permission will be required even to inspect these places.”

“When you read these provisions, you can see, layer by layer, how the legislation has been designed to protect these forces,” she said. “Our question is: why?”

Jabeen called for concerted opposition before the legislation reaches Parliament, warning that the government’s commanding parliamentary majority made passage highly likely.

“Once it reaches Parliament, it will pass,” she said. “Despite everything Bangladesh has gone through, we have still not freed ourselves from the curse of a two-thirds majority.”

“This law—which people are rightly describing as a black law—could similarly be passed on the strength of that two-thirds majority.”

Anik Roy, a central council member of the Network for People’s Action, former NCP joint convener and former general secretary of the Bangladesh Chhatra Union, said the government appeared to be pursuing a deliberate middle course: making the laws somewhat stronger than those that existed under Sheikh Hasina while leaving them substantially weaker than the reforms promised after the uprising.

“Unless I am mistaken, the BNP’s tactic is very simple: whatever law existed during Hasina’s rule will be made slightly stronger, but it will still be substantially weaker than what we were supposed to get,” Roy said.

“It is within this grey area that they will bring these ordinances—which are now being repealed—to Parliament.”

He cited the proposed NHRC framework as an example.

“Previously, reports of the Human Rights Commission carried little weight. Now those reports can be submitted before a court. And the government can say: ‘Look, we have increased its powers.’”

But Roy said marginal improvements meant little if the commission itself lacked genuine institutional autonomy.

“If you establish a Human Rights Commission and it simply becomes another government department, then there is no reason to establish a Human Rights Commission at all,” he said.

“There is no reason to waste public money on another office, meetings, salaries, guards, cars, fuel for those cars, rations and all the rest if this is simply going to become another government department.”

“We do not want another government office.”

Roy said an effective commission should have the independence, resources and courage to initiate investigations on its own, whether the allegation concerned political violence, abuses in the Chittagong Hill Tracts, Indigenous communities or other marginalised groups.

“We want a Human Rights Commission that, when necessary, will stand against the government,” Roy said. “We have no need for another obedient government department.”

Internationally renowned photojournalist and rights activist Shahidul Alam ended on a somewhat different note, saying security personnel themselves should be allowed to function as professionals rather than being turned into instruments of political power. Alam is the founder of Drik and Pathshala and has long campaigned on freedom of expression and human rights.

“I genuinely believe that our security forces can be good security forces. Give them that opportunity. Let them do their jobs. Let them do what they are supposed to do as professionals. Give us some peace,” Alam said.

“These security forces are funded by our taxes. They do not exist to protect you; they exist to protect the people.”

“You are, of course, one of those people—but you must remain in the same ranks as everyone else.”

Alam warned the government against using state forces for partisan purposes.

“What we will not allow is for you to use these forces however you please, whenever it serves your interests, and then deploy them against the people themselves,” he said.

“We have already demonstrated once what is possible. If necessary, we will demonstrate it again.”

But Alam said the speakers had come not merely to oppose the government but to push it towards the reforms expected after the political upheaval of 2024.

“We believe that you will be a different kind of government. That is our hope. That is the dream we still hold,” he said.

“If you do that, we will support you. We have not come here simply to oppose you. We have come to remind you to do the right thing and to point you towards the right path.”

“We hope you will have the wisdom to follow that path and provide Bangladesh with the leadership necessary to take us towards the country we want—the Bangladesh we have dreamed of.”

“And please,” Alam said, “give the security forces some peace as well.”

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