A year on from the July/August 2024 protests, Bangladesh authorities should take the appropriate steps to immediately release anyone currently detained in a murder or attempted murder case relating to killings or injuries in July/August, unless the police have at least one of these pieces of evidence:
(a) a picture or video of that person present at the location of the shooting; or
(b) mobile phone records that locate that person present at the scene of the shooting; or
(c) emails, or text messages that show that person is in some way connected to that shooting; or
(d) audio recordings or phone records that link that person to the shooting; or
(e) social media that links that person to the shooting;
(f) credible evidence that the person was present at a meeting or involved in a conversation where decisions involving the planning, inciting or facilitating the shooting took place; or
(g) Other credible evidence that the person was involved in the hierarchy of decision making in relation to the shooting.
Unless the police actually have evidence of at least one of these things, then the person should in the immediate short term be given bail, and subsequently, be discharged from the case.
And the police should not – in order to prevent the those currently detained from being released – arrest any of these accused in any new cases, unless there is substantive evidence to link them to it. They should not be arrested simply because they are named in a First Information Report.
(By “Bangladesh authorities” I mean a combination of the government, the Attorney General’s Office, the police, state prosecutors, the Chief Justice and the courts.)
This is a process that can be undertaken in the course of the next few weeks, and completed in a month.
There is no question that those criminally responsible for the hundreds of killings that took place in July/August 2024 should be held accountable. But whilst that process of accountability is ongoing, there is no legal justification to continue to imprison for months on end those against whom there is no evidence to link them to the crimes alleged against them.
