Rights bodies warn on Bangladesh’s ‘Monsoon Uprising’ morphing into Yunus’s campaign of repression: Report

Dhaka, Aug 31 (IANS) The interim Bangladesh government led by Chief Adviser Muhammad Yunus is facing heat for alleged repression, with several human rights organisations voicing their concerns, a report said on Sunday.

Apart from alienating civil society at home and eroding his legitimacy abroad, Yunus’s campaign of repression has resulted in the washout of last year’s ‘Monsoon Uprising’ and exposed him dangerously.

Almost one year after the ouster of Sheikh Hasina, the global rights community has issued its warning. Journalists and academics are sounding the alarm. Even sympathetic international voices now question whether Yunus’s Bangladesh is any less authoritarian than Hasina’s, wrote political and security analyst Chris Blackburn in an article for digital portal ‘Narrativa 360’.

“The so-called ‘Monsoon Uprising’ — initially framed as a moment for renewal in the streets — has turned into a washout. Instead of energising the public or laying the foundations for democratic reform, Yunus has turned riot police on student protestors, journalists, and political organisers,” he wrote.

“The Monsoon Uprising — instead of inaugurating a new season of accountability — has collapsed into another story of repression, police violence, and hollow rhetoric,” wrote Blackburn.

In the last fortnight alone, we have witnessed attacks on demonstrators, the brutal treatment of students, and even the assault on Nurul Haque Nur, a figure whose own politics divide opinion but whose right to speak and protest should be beyond question, said the report.

Once hailed by foreign observers as a corrective to Sheikh Hasina’s authoritarian drift, Yunus has embraced the very tactics of repression he claimed to abhor, said Blackburn.

Yunus’s heavy-handed campaign has not gone unnoticed. In March, a coalition of global human rights organisations — including Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, the Committee to Protect Journalists, and Fortify Rights — wrote directly to him, he said.

“Their joint letter condemned attacks on the press, citing the harassment, intimidation, and arbitrary detention of journalists as unacceptable in any political transition. Rather than take heed, Yunus has doubled down, broadening his targets to opposition activists and critical academics,” said the report.

The tragedy of Yunus’s interim government is how quickly its image has curdled. Where there was once talk of healing the country after the fall of Hasina, there is now only deepening mistrust, it said.

–IANS

rch/dpb