ICRF Presents Independent Legal Rebuttal of OHCHR Report on Bangladesh at Press Club of India

New Delhi | January 17, 2026: The International Crimes Research Foundation (ICRF), in collaboration with Law Valley Solicitor and S Shakir (FRSA), organised a press conference at the Press Club of India on Saturday to present an independent legal rebuttal of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) report on the July–August 2024 unrest in Bangladesh.

The event was attended by senior leaders of the Awami League, including several former ministers and party representatives, who strongly criticised the findings and methodology of the UN human rights report.

Opening the press conference, Nijhoom Majumder, Barrister & Solicitor and Head of the Legal Team of ICRF, stated that the rebuttal was prepared following an extensive legal and factual review of the OHCHR report and the methods used by the UN fact-finding mission.

He said the ICRF review identified serious structural and methodological flaws in the UN report, including selective use of evidence, lack of transparent verification, internal inconsistencies, exclusion of key testimonies, and an arbitrarily limited temporal scope. According to him, these deficiencies fundamentally undermine the credibility of the OHCHR’s conclusions and risk misleading the international community.

Majumder further stated that the UN mission failed to interview key state actors and senior security officials, relied heavily on secondary and partisan sources, and ignored substantial evidence of violence against law enforcement personnel, political activists, journalists, and minority communities. The rebuttal, he said, calls for accountability rooted in legal rigour, inclusivity, and fairness rather than selective attribution of blame.

UN Human Rights Body Shielded Oppressors and Failed Victims in Bangladesh, Says Former Foreign Minister Hasan MahmudFollowing the presentation, former Bangladesh Education Minister Mohibul Hassan Chowdhury Nowfel addressed the media and shared details of his engagement with the OHCHR fact-finding team.

“We are here to present a report prepared by an independent organisation in response to a one-sided UN report that was hastily prepared without hearing our side—no witness statements, no testimony from the accused,” he said.

Nowfel stated that Awami League leaders were not formally notified during the preparation of the UN report. Despite repeated efforts to engage with the Geneva-based team, he said meaningful interaction occurred only at a late stage. Although he participated in a five-hour virtual meeting explaining Bangladesh’s legal framework governing police conduct and use-of-force protocols, none of this was reflected in the final report.

“It appeared that the narrative had already been decided. Our interview was taken merely to justify pre-determined conclusions,” he added.

He further alleged that the OHCHR relied heavily on media outlets aligned with the interim Yunus administration while disregarding testimony from senior police officials and detained political leaders. He also rejected allegations of lethal force being used from helicopters, describing them as technically untenable—an issue he noted was indirectly acknowledged in the UN report itself. Despite this, he said, such allegations were later used domestically to convict former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in what he described as a one-sided trial.

Speaking thereafter, former Awami League representative Rabi Alam urged journalists to independently examine the situation in Bangladesh.

“We are here to inform you about the atrocities that took place in July–August. Innocent civilians were killed, snipers were involved, and police personnel were murdered. It was a meticulously designed operation,” he said.

He alleged that responsibility for the violence was unfairly placed on former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and the Awami League government, while ordinary citizens continued to suffer. “Innocent people are still being killed—hanged and burned. There is no rule of law, no justice, no human rights, not even minority rights,” he claimed.

Addressing the gathering, former Bangladesh Foreign Minister Dr. Hasan Mahmud thanked ICRF for preparing what he described as a comprehensive rebuttal to a “biased, one-sided, and fabricated” OHCHR report.

Referring to the July–August 2024 unrest, Dr. Mahmud stated that while student deaths occurred and remain under investigation, hundreds of police officers were also killed—an aspect largely ignored in the UN report. He noted that even the interim government’s first Home Adviser had questioned the origin of bullets recovered from victims’ bodies, stating they did not match weapons used by police, border forces, or the military, and was subsequently removed from office.

He questioned the credibility of internationally cited casualty figures, pointing out repeated fluctuations—from 400 to 800, then 1,200, and later 2,000—while the OHCHR report cited 1,400 deaths. He said the government gazette listed approximately 800 deaths, including those caused by accidents, drownings, family disputes, and unrelated criminal incidents, adding that media reports indicated more than 100 listed individuals later returned alive.

Dr. Mahmud alleged that the OHCHR ignored these inconsistencies, excluded testimonies from Awami League leaders—including his own—and failed to address the interim government’s decision to grant indemnity for atrocities committed between July 15 and August 15, 2024, including killings of police personnel, party workers, vandalism, and attacks on religious minorities.

Describing the post-August situation, he claimed that over 400,000 Awami League leaders and supporters were arrested, with more than 100,000 still in detention, alleging deaths in custody and widespread political persecution. He also cited incidents of mob lynching and said selective responses from the UN Human Rights Commission exposed deep institutional bias.

Dr. Mahmud announced that a formal objection would be submitted to the UN Secretary-General and relevant UN bodies against the OHCHR report and its authors, accusing the Commission of endorsing a narrative that shields oppressors rather than protecting victims.

Explaining the choice of New Delhi as the venue, he recalled India’s role in Bangladesh’s Liberation War and said the event symbolised enduring gratitude and shared democratic values.

The organisers clarified that the rebuttal does not deny that violence occurred during the unrest. Rather, it seeks to address omissions, expose methodological failures, and challenge selective accountability in the OHCHR report. They called for a comprehensive, impartial, and genuinely independent international review.

“Justice must be complete, impartial, and grounded in truth—not political expediency,” the organisers said.