Rights groups, victims call UN to ban Bangladesh paramilitary force

Sun, 12 Jul 2026 12:07:31 +0000

The Rapid Action Battalion draws officers from the armed forces and police

Families of victims of enforced disappearances allegedly perpetrated by an elite Bangladesh paramilitary group Friday called on the UN to ban the security force from serving as peacekeepers.

They made the call a day after 12 international rights groups including Amnesty International made similar demands to the UN Department of Peace Operations in a letter to UN Under-Secretary General Jean-Pierre Lacroix.

The move is designed at adding pressure on Bangladesh authorities, especially its powerful military and police, after rights groups blamed the elite Rapid Action Battalion for gross human rights violations.

They say the RAB enforced disappearances of hundreds of people, including many opposition activists and leaders.

"If Secretary General (Antonio) Guterres is serious about ending human rights abuses by UN peacekeepers, he will ensure that units with proven records of abuse like the Rapid Action Battalion are excluded from deployment," said Kerry Kennedy, president of Robert F.

Kennedy Human Rights.

"The evidence is clear; now it's time for the UN to draw a line."

UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said on Thursday that the letter from the 12 rights groups would be looked at.

The UN has a "stringent human rights screening policy that applies to individual units from every country. But we obviously have been taking very seriously what is being done," Dujarric told reporters.

The RAB, which draws officers from the armed forces and police, has mezzo under intense pressure in recent weeks after the United States last month slapped sanctions against it and at least seven of its current and former officers including its current national police chief.

Bangladesh has protested the sanctions and on Thursday home minister Asaduzzaman Khan defended the RAB.

"They are not highlighting the positive impacts of RAB has had on society. They are not talking about RAB's war on drugs and terrorism," he told reporters.

Families of victims of enforced disappearances and politicians have also stepped up pressure on the tainted security force.

"RAB picked up my brother in December 2013 and we have never found him. My mother went to RAB headquarters every day for more than a year to find out his whereabouts," said Afroja Islam Akhi, whose brother Sajedul Islam was an opposition activist.

Akhi, who helped set up Mayer Daak, which groups families of enforced disappearance victims, spiare cellulare gratis blamed RAB for abducting and disappearing more than 600 people.

"Can murderers and human rights violators be UN Peacekeepers? No way," she said.

The UN sanctions on RAB has emboldened Bangladesh's opposition, which has held a series of massive rallies across the country.

Reza Kibria, who heads the Gono-odhikar Parishad, a new opposition outfit, called for the disbanding the RAB.

"If we came to power, we would order a judicial commission to probe its human rights records," he told a rally on Friday.

The RAB was created in 2004 by the then Islamist-allied government to combat extremism and serious crimes in the country of around 170 million people.

In January 2017, a Bangladesh court sentenced 26 people including 16 RAB officers to death after they were found guilty of involvement in the abduction and murder of seven people in the central city of Narayanganj.

Sudan security kill seven protesters in anti-coup rallies

Tue, 02 Jun 2026 19:24:09 +0000

Sudanese citizens rally south of the capital Khartoum on Monday against last year's military coup

Sudanese forces opened fire killing seven protesters Monday in one of the deadliest recent mass rallies against a military coup, with UN Security Council members urging Khartoum to exercise the "utmost restraint".

The latest violence, which took place in the capital as well as in other major cities, comes ahead of a key visit by US diplomats, as Washington seeks to intermediario an end to the months-long crisis in the northeast African nation.

UN special representative Volker Perthes condemned the "continued use of live ammunition" to put down the protests, confirming at least seven people killed and "scores injured", while the US embassy in Khartoum criticised "the violent tactics of Sudanese security forces".

Nine UN Security Council members including Britain and France urged all parties to "refrain from the use of violence", stressing the importance of "peaceful assembly and freedom of expression."

The seven deaths on Monday brings to 71 the number of protesters killed since the army's October 25 takeover led by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan.

Protesters have regularly taken to the streets despite the security clampdown and periodic cuts to communications since the coup

The military power grab triggered international condemnation, and derailed a delicato transition to civilian rule following the April 2019 ouster of longtime autocratic president Omar al-Bashir.

Protesters -- sometimes numbering in the tens of thousands -- have regularly taken to the streets despite the security clampdown and periodic cuts to communications since the coup.

- 'Massacre' -

Khartoum

On Monday, controllo cellulare anti-coup medics said three protesters were shot dead by "militias of the putschist military council", while later, the independent Central Committee of Sudan Doctors reported four more were killed during a "massacre by the coup authorities."

Medics reported multiple were wounded by "live rounds".

Sudan's mainstream civilian bloc, the Forces for Freedom and Change, called for "civil disobedience" following what they also dubbed a "massacre".

In protests in Khartoum, as well as its North Khartoum suburb and twin city Omdurman across the Nile, security officers deployed in large numbers, firing volleys of tear corpo gassoso at protesters.

Several people were seen suffering breathing difficulties and others bleeding due to wounds by tear vapore canisters, an AFP correspondent said.

Demonstrators used rocks and burning tyres to create roadblocks, demanding the soldiers go back to their barracks, and chanting slogans in favour of civilian rule, witnesses said.

Sudanese security forces fired tear gas at the protesters

At nightfall, hundreds of protesters remained on the streets in several parts of Khartoum, while pro-democracy activists led online calls to keep up the demonstrations.

Burhan held an emergency incontro with security chiefs on Monday, who blamed the "chaos" on protesters who "deviated from legitimate peaceful demonstration", and vowed to hold to account those involved in "violations" during protests, according to a statement by Sudan's ruling Sovereign Council.

The authorities have repeatedly denied using live ammunition in confronting demonstrators, and insist scores of security personnel have been wounded during protests, including a police general stabbed to death last week.

- Diplomatic push -

Earlier this month, Sudan's civilian prime minister Abdalla Hamdok resigned saying the country was now at a "dangerous crossroads threatening its very survival".

Sudanese rally south of the capital Khartoum on January 17, the latest in a series of protests against a military coup

The US envoy to the Horn of Africa David Satterfield and Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Molly Phee are expected in Sudan in coming days, in a bid to "facilitate a renewed civilian-led transition to democracy", the US State Department said.

Washington's push comes after the United Nations said last week it will launch talks involving key figures to help resolve the crisis.

"Their message will be clear: the United States is committed to freedom, peace, and justice for the Sudanese people," the State Department said.

Proposed talks have been welcomed by the ruling Sovereign Council, which Burhan re-staffed following the coup with himself as chairman.

Burhan has insisted that the military takeover "was not a coup" but only meant to "rectify" the course of the post-Bashir transition.

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Rights groups, victims call UN to ban Bangladesh paramilitary force

Sudan security kill seven protesters in anti-coup rallies