UN team planning Dhaka visit

The UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances is planning to visit Dhaka to engage with stakeholders on the ground and discuss existing challenges.

A newsletter of the Working Group on its most recent session held in Bangkok, Thailand, said yesterday that the Working Group started discussions on technical cooperation with Bangladesh and its Commission for Inquiry on Enforced Disappearance in 2024.

As part of the technical cooperation, the Working Group met with the members of the commission on a few occasions.

A statement by the New York-based Human Rights Watch in March 2022 said the Bangladesh government has a "habit" of ignoring the UN's concerns over its human rights record. It had said that the government had not responded to repeated requests by the UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances to visit Bangladesh.

The Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearances Chairperson Justice Moinul Islam Chowdhury, in March this year, said the commission has received 1,752 complaints regarding enforced disappearances and has investigated 1,000 of them.

According to the commission's records, there are 330 cases of enforced disappearances involving individuals who have not returned.