A group of MPs has withdrawn a controversial report into Bangladesh after complaints that it was biased in favour of the ousted government of Sheikh Hasina.
The all-party parliamentary group (APPG) on the Commonwealth issued a report on Bangladesh last November that criticised the current regime in Dhaka but was accused of significant inaccuracies.
Officials say, however, that it is no longer being distributed and is “under review” after a Labour MP complained about it in the House of Commons.
“The report in question remains an internal document under review and has been shared with the [Foreign Office] as part of the group’s broader deliberative process,” a spokesperson said. “It is not intended for wider dissemination, and the APPG will not be taking the matter further or making any follow-ups.”
Hasina’s niece Tulip Siddiq resigned as City minister over her previously undisclosed links to her aunt’s party, triggering accusations that the Awami League was interfering in British politics.
The report, entitled The Ongoing Situation in Bangladesh, was released to the press in November, three months after Hasina was deposed by a student-led rebellion against her authoritarian rule. That rebellion was met by a brutal but ultimately unsuccessful crackdown from security forces, resulting in an estimated 1,000 deaths.
The report makes a series of criticisms about Hasina’s successor, the Nobel peace prize winner Muhammad Yunus. Andrew Rosindell, the Conservative chair of the APPG, wrote in an accompanying press release: “Bangladesh should have a great future where opportunities are open and available to everyone rather than just supporters of whatever regime is in power … Without an immediate change of tack, the goodwill the new government enjoys internationally will be in danger of evaporating.”
The group’s report accused Yunus’s administration of “using the law as a political weapon” and empowering “hardline Islamists”.
“We have received evidence that murder charges are being slapped on former ministers, Awami League leaders, MPs, former judges, scholars, lawyers and journalists in such numbers to raise questions around their credibility,” the report read, relying mainly on evidence from the Rights & Risk Analysis Group, a New Delhi-based thinktank.
Experts, however, criticised it for citing a relatively low estimate of deaths, and claiming that most had occurred after Hasina had fled the country rather than as a result of violence by her police and armed forces.
The report said: “The majority of these [deaths occurred] after 5 August when millions came into the street protesting against police tactics against demonstrators and looking for reprisals against supporters of the last government.”
The finding contradicts an earlier one from the UN human rights commissioner, who released a report in August saying: “The majority of deaths and injuries have been attributed to the security forces and the student wing affiliated with the Awami League.”
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The report also claimed the new government in Dhaka had charged 194,000 people with crimes, whereas experts say that number is more likely to refer to the number of people named in police reports about possible crimes.
Rupa Huq, a Labour MP who has recently spent time in Bangladesh, criticised the report in the Commons this week, calling it a “hatchet job on the interim government of Bangladesh”. Huq claimed Yunus had personally raised the report with her, asking: “What is your government doing, issuing these falsities in the name of parliament?”
Naomi Hossain, a professor at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, said: “The report features basic errors that the most superficial knowledge of Bangladesh would prevent … It is either egregiously biased or just extremely bad analysis. As a tool for accountability it fails completely.”
A spokesperson for the APPG said: “The group has decided to shift its focus exclusively toward the Commonwealth of Nations as an institution and, as such, will no longer be producing country-specific reports.”
