GENEVA: The UN human rights office said Friday that it will deploy a fact-finding team to Bangladesh to investigate alleged rights abuses and violations through use of excessive force by security forces to quell protests led by students against the former government this summer.
The office of the UN. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said he had received an invitation from the country’s interim leader Muhammad Yunus, to send the team to Bangladesh. The visit is set to take place in coming weeks.
Yunus, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, took over this month as head of the government after former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina stepped down and fled the country to India amid a mass uprising.
The United Nations has reported nearly 650 people died since July 15 when the student protests turned violent, and the figures also covered the deaths of many in new violence after Hasina left the country on August 5.