UN Human Rights Chief to visit Bangladesh from August 14-17

Geneva [Switzerland], August 12 (ANI): UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet will conduct an official visit to Bangladesh Sunday, 14 August, upon the invitation of the Government, the UN Office of the high commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) said on Friday.
The OHCHR said in a statement that this is the first official visit by a UN Human Rights Chief to the country.
During her visit to Dhaka, the High Commissioner is scheduled to meet with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wazed and other Ministers.
She will also meet with the National Human Rights Commission, representatives of civil society organisations and other stakeholders. In addition, Bachelet will deliver a speech at the Bangladesh Institute of International and Strategic Studies.
The High Commissioner will also travel to Cox’s Bazar where she will be able to visit camps housing Rohingya refugees from Myanmar and meet with refugees, officials and non-governmental organisations.
Bachelet will hold a news conference in Dhaka at the end of her mission, on Wednesday 17 August at 17h30 local time. Access to the news conference will be strictly limited to accredited media.
This comes a few days after the Human Rights Watch (HRW) said Bachelet should publicly call for an immediate end to serious abuses including extrajudicial killings, torture, and enforced disappearances during her upcoming visit to Bangladesh, nine human rights organizations said today.
During the trip, she will meet with government officials and civil society organizations and visit the Rohingya refugee camps.
“If the high commissioner fails to clearly condemn these abuses and seek reform, the ruling Awami League could use her silence to legitimize its abuses and undermine activists,” HRW said.
Hundreds of Bangladeshis have been forcibly disappeared, tortured, and killed since the government led by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina first took office in 2009.
Although security forces in Bangladesh have long committed grave human rights abuses under successive governments, including torture and extrajudicial executions, enforced disappearances in particular have become a hallmark of Sheikh Hasina’s rule of more than a decade. (ANI)