UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet will visit Bangladesh next week at a time when the country has extended help to the international community to repatriate Rohingyas to Myanmar. There were large scale allegations of minority Hindus and Buddhists being attacked and their places of worship destroyed. Even MP and former minister of Sheikh Hasina government Hasanul Huq Inu acknowledged during an interview with THE WEEK that the secular tag of Bangladesh was at stake due to “series of attacks on Hindu minorities living in Bangladesh”.
Bangladesh is also one of the most affected countries due to political instability in Myanmar, where killings are taking place due to an ongoing “civil war” between pro-democracy groups and Junta government.
This is the first visit by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to Bangladesh in recent times.
Ministry of foreign affairs in Bangladesh said in a statement that the visit was important in the national context, especially considering the economic development amid the pandemic and “other evolving crises, the maintenance of peace and security of the people, and constraints like the Rohingya crisis”.
The ministry said that Bangladesh strongly hoped that the chief of UN human rights mechanism would witness by herself how the country is doing miracles to keep on track their development journey; integrating human rights into it.
“Despite the ongoing pandemic, no one in the country has died of starvation. Bangladesh, a country of 165 million, could afford to provide almost a million homes to the homeless. Over 10 million families are receiving basic food and essential supplies under its social security protection programme. Indeed, Bangladesh is promoting basic human rights like right to food, right to accommodation, right to development for the people,” said the statement.
Though BJP criticised the attacks on the places of worship for Hindus and Buddhists in Bangaldesh, the country has officially denied the situation as bad as it was being portrayed.
“It is a fact that no one is getting killed either in shopping malls, schools or worship places in Bangladesh,” the foreign spokesperson said.
The ministry said that the top executive of the UN human rights body will also have the opportunity to interact with the forcibly displaced Rohingyas during her trip to Cox’s Bazar, which would equip her with concrete information to press for the repatriation of the Rohingyas to the ancestral homeland, the Rakhine State of Myanmar.
The Bangladesh government refuted the allegation that the high-profile visit was due to the reports of attacks on the minority population.
“Our government firmly believes that politicization of human rights agenda never helps in promoting and protecting human rights of the people; and therefore, sincere dialogue and cooperation is the pathway. Thus, Bangladesh strongly rejects some visible politically motivated efforts of some corners to mislead the people by showcasing the upcoming visit of the UN High Commissioner as an occasion to put undue pressure on the Government,” the foreign ministry said.
