Journalists were increasingly persecuted for reporting corruption and criticizing the government’s COVID-19 policies. The draconian Digital Security Act (DSA) 2018 was widely enforced to curtail freedom of expression. Police and other law enforcement agencies continued to carry out extrajudicial...

On 29 March, Bangladeshi journalist Shamsuzzaman Shams was picked up from his residence by a group in civil clothes that identified as the Criminal Investigations Department for an online article he wrote for newspaper Prothom Alo on 26 March, Bangladesh’s Independence Day, covering the rising cost...

Dipti Rani Das, a teenager from the Hindu minority community in Bangladesh, was arrested by the police for a Facebook post on 28 October 2020 and taken to a correction facility where she was held for sixteen months. Booked under the country’s draconian Digital Security Act on vague charges of...

Dipti Rani Das, a 17-year-old girl from the Hindu minority community in Bangladesh, was arrested by the police for a Facebook post and has been held at a correction facility for more than a year, since 28 October 2020. Booked under the country’s draconian Digital Security Act on vague charges of...

Shahnewaz Chowdhury, a Bangladeshi engineer and activist, could face up to 10 years in prison for sharing his personal opinion on Facebook. Expressing his belief that a coal-fired power plant in his hometown was environmentally destructive and criticising incidents that allegedly led to the killing...

Cartoonist Ahmed Kabir Kishore and writer Mushtaq Ahmed were detained in May 2020 for posting on Facebook satirical cartoons and comments critical of the Bangladeshi government’s response to COVID-19 pandemic. Denied bail six times, Mushtaq Ahmed died in prison on 25 February 2021. Released on...

The Bangladeshi authorities relocated more than 1,600 Rohingya refugees to Bhashan Char, a remote silt island at the Bay of Bengal, on 4 December 2020. Despite the fact that it has not yet been declared safe for human habitation by the United Nations, about 100,000 Rohingya refugees could be taken...

Bangladeshi authorities detained 32 more returning migrant workers after they were deported from Syria, taking the total number of such arbitrary arrests to at least 370 since 4 July 2020. The 32 workers were arrested in Syria while trying to reach Italy and other European countries. Their arrest...

A.K.M. Wahiduzzaman, an assistant professor at Bangladesh’s National University, was arbitrarily dismissed from service on 2 September 2020 on grounds of posting on Facebook “offensive” and “indecent” remarks about Prime Minister Shiekh Hasina and her family. The professor has been in self-exile...

Professor Md. Morshed Hasan Khan faces trumped-up sedition charges and has had his professorial position at Dhaka University terminated for publishing an opinion editorial in a national newspaper. Professor Morshed has received multiple death threats from unidentified people, and is being denied...

The arbitrary arrest and detention of 81 Bangladeshi migrant workers in September after they arrived in Bangladesh from Vietnam having been trafficked brings to a total of more than 300 Bangladeshi workers arrested and detained upon their return from various countries since May 2020. Detained for...

Fifty-three days after he was subject to a suspected enforced disappearance, Bangladeshi photographer and newspaper editor Shafiqul Islam Kajol has been produced by the authorities and sent to indefinite pre-trial detention. He could face up to 7 years in prison if convicted on charges he is...

Businessman and activist Emdadul Haque Milon faces seven years in prison if convicted under the draconian Digital Security Act. It is believed that the case against him has been filed by a local leader of the ruling political party Awami League, who has used his political influence for personal...