It is a privilege to speak in Geneva, among those who share a commitment to human rights, truth, and justice. It is in that spirit that I must speak about Bangladesh — a country whose people rose in 2024 wanting change, but whose present is now marked by violence, denial, and a dangerous attempt to vandalise history itself.
In March 2025, a collection of the world’s leading human rights organisations — Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, the Committee to Protect Journalists and Fortify Rights — issued a powerful joint letter to the interim government led by Professor Muhammad Yunus. They warned of continued mass arbitrary arrests, indiscriminate jailings, harassment of journalists, and rising threats to minorities and the vulnerable in Bangladesh. They called for the repeal of abusive laws and urged the interim government to protect freedom of expression and guarantee accountability for abuses. Their message was simple: a revolution without human rights protections would be no revolution at all.
Six months later, their warnings have proved tragically correct.
On 23 September 2025, in Khagrachhari district near Chittagong, a 12-year-old indigenous Marma girl was allegedly gang-raped and sexually assaulted. Her community responded with peaceful protests, demanding justice and safety. Instead of protection, they were met with bullets. Security forces opened fire on demonstrators, killing at least three people. More than sixty indigenous shops and fifteen homes were looted and burned to the ground. In one of the most vulnerable corners of the country, violence was piled on top of trauma, leaving a child’s suffering unacknowledged and an entire community stigmatised.
What followed was as disturbing as the violence itself. Instead of accountability, there was denial. The Home Affairs Adviser dismissed the unrest as a “foreign conspiracy.” The Bangladesh Army alleged a “larger plot” by indigenous groups, even claiming that militants and weapons had been imported from abroad. Political figures went so far as to call the rape allegation “fake.” Though these words were later retracted under public pressure, the damage was already done. This was not the language of justice; it was the rhetoric of impunity — victim-blaming masquerading as governance.
The tragedy of Khagrachhari is not an isolated incident. It is part of a broader pattern. The interim government under Muhammad Yunus, instead of building the foundations of justice, has allowed denial and deflection to become daily practice. It continues the dark tradition of arbitrary detentions and intimidation. It has allowed extremists to dictate the terms of public life. And it is attempting something even more dangerous: the rewriting of Bangladesh’s history.
We must remember that the interim government denied that Ahmadis, Sufis, Hindus, Buddhists, and Christians were under attack last year. The BBC sent Sahar Zand to investigate and found these communities had indeed been attacked, despite Yunus’s denials. The interim government then tried to discredit the BBC and human rights activists, claiming their work was flawed. This isn’t reform.
History matters. The struggle of 1971 was not only a war of independence — it was a war of ideas: for pluralism, for dignity, for secular freedom. The Awami League, despite its many flaws, defended minorities, safeguarded Hindus, Buddhists, Christians, and Ahmadis against sectarian flames, and anchored the country in the memory of 1971. It was under the Awami League that the world could be assured that the liberation struggle would not be forgotten, and that the rights of minorities would be shielded against extremist violence.
Today, however, that legacy is under attack. The Yunus government, in a dangerous alliance with Islamist factions — many of whom were involved in war crimes and the genocide of 1971 — has begun to erode those protections. It has allowed voices to rise that question or distort 1971. It has permitted a political climate where temples are less safe, where women are harassed in the name of religion, where mobs target women footballers, and where indigenous peoples are branded as conspirators rather than citizens. This is not progress. It is vandalism — an assault on memory and on the pluralist foundations of Bangladesh.
When governments deny the reality of rape, they do not protect society; they give licence to predators. When they blame “foreign conspiracies” for communal unrest, they do not restore peace; they encourage division. When they allow Islamists to redefine history, they do not build unity; they erase the sacrifices of 1971. This is the path of denial. And denial is a weapon. It undermines truth, mocks justice, and erodes trust in institutions.
The people of Bangladesh deserve better. They did not rise in 2024 to replace authoritarian repression with Islamist intimidation. They did not risk their lives to trade the promise of justice for the politics of denial and revenge. They certainly did not want mob violence and intimidation. But this is what the interim government has delivered.
That is why the international community must act and speak out.
First, there must be an independent judicial investigation into the Khagrachhari tragedy, with full accountability for perpetrators, including security personnel.
Second, the Yunus government must implement the recommendations outlined in the March 2025 letter from Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Fortify Rights, and the Committee to Protect Journalists — namely, ending mass arbitrary detentions, repealing repressive cyber and speech laws, and protecting journalists from harassment.
Third, we must speak clearly against efforts to rewrite history. The pluralist legacy of 1971 is not negotiable. To defend that legacy is to protect human rights themselves.
Fourth, we must support civil society actors — women’s groups, indigenous leaders, minority advocates, and journalists — who continue, at great personal risk, to hold the line against denial and extremism.
Eleanor Roosevelt once asked: “Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places, close to home.” In Bangladesh, these places include a school in Khagrachhari, a Hindu temple in Narail, a newsroom in Dhaka, and a garment factory in Gazipur. In each of these small places, rights are being threatened, and history itself is under attack.
The vandals are not those who defend minorities or safeguard the memory of 1971. The vandals are those who excuse rape, who fire on protesters, who brand victims as conspirators, and who distort the nation’s history to empower extremism.
Bangladesh deserves better. Its people deserve better. They deserve truth, not denial; justice, not impunity; history preserved, not vandalised.
Silence in the face of denial is complicity. The international community must speak. And Muhammad Yunus — once celebrated as a symbol of hope — must rediscover his humanity, because his legacy has already been badly tarnished.
This article is adapted from Chris Blackburn’s address at the United Nations in Geneva on 3 October 2025, delivered during the Gender Justice and Women’s Empowerment side event, where he spoke on the human rights situation in Bangladesh.
