Human Right Support Society (HRSS), a Bangladesh-based human rights organization, was founded in 2014 in Dhaka, Bangladesh. It is dedicated to ensuring all sorts of human rights for people through building awareness as well as monitoring and publishing human rights situation, providing legal aid to the poor and victims, helping destitute people and conducting advocacy with the government and other concerned authorities from home and abroad. HRSS also encourages the inclusion of common people in various human rights activities. As part of its mission, HRSS regularly publishes monthly, quarterly, half-yearly and yearly human rights observation bulletin based on twelve prominent national newspapers of the country. As part of this initiative, HRSS has published half-yearly Human Rights Situation Analysis bulletin from January to June 2016 based on data collected from the dailies and fact-finding reports from its regional representatives throughout the country. It is observed that the violation of human rights continues almost with the same flow as before. From this report, it is evident that extra-judicial killing, domestic violence, abduction, arbitrary arrest, election violence and vote rigging have increased tremendously. Moreover, the number of rape, gang-rape, and child-rape has also increased unexpectedly.
According to the sources of HRSS, at least 92 persons were killed extra-judicially from January to June 2016. Out of them, 57 people were killed in the name of ‘crossfire/gunfights’, 04 were tortured to Death, 15 were shot to death and 16 died in the custody. The deaths occurred during raids, arrests as well as during the operations conducted by the law-enforcement agencies (LEAs). As usual, the government regretfully describes these deaths as “crossfire/gunfights/encounter killings” and so on.
The occurrences of enforced disappearances were also continued during the first six months of 2016. Unfortunately, most of the cases of enforced disappearances are accused against the security forces such as RAB, DB, and Police. According to HRSS monitoring, a total 12 persons have been disappeared by the law enforcement agency in different incidents with alleged ties to security personnel during the reporting time.
Moreover, the HRSS report finds that from January to June 2016, a total 362 females were raped. Among them, 248 victims were adult whereas alarmingly 114 were children under 16. It’s a rising concern in the incidence of raping crime that among victims at least 51 of them have been gang-raped. Among the victims, at least 23 were brutally killed after being raped.
From January to June 2016, about 127 women were killed in the family feud and 38 females injured. Out of them, 207 were an incident of Family Feud. Approximately 106 incidents of dowry-related violence were reported. About 74 were killed and 32 women physically abused over dowry demands. A total of 134 girls and women were reportedly victims of sexual harassment. Among them, 104 were assaulted and 30 stalked. Around 20 females became

victims of acid violence, and among them of 24 were injured and 01 died between January and June 2016.
It has also been reported that a total of 227 people were abducted in different areas of the country, among them approximately 135 were male, 41 female, 51 children, and 39 were killed after the abduction. Moreover, unexpectedly enough, at least 47 people were killed in political violence whereas around 56 people were killed through lynching.
HRSC also tracked the election-related violence from the media. A total of 2605 people were seriously injured. Around 86 were killed in UP election-related violence. The bulletin is also said that a total of 232 people were bullet hit during the election. In most of the cases, it is observed that the key reason behind the growing election violence is the rising intolerance among the defeated candidates, clashes between supporters of the rival candidates, illegal capturing of the vote centers, and forceful termination of voting during the election hours and so on.
On the incidents of attacks on minority, as documented by HRSS in the first six months of 2016, at least 09 men were killed, around 04 houses and 13 temples attacked, and 36 minority members injured in a total of approximately 38 incidents.
It is alarming that in 108 violent incidents against children, 44 lost their life and 131 were critically injured in the first six months of 2016, as reported by HRSS. On the violent attacks on unarmed civilians, a total of 365 incidents happened where 350 were killed and 363 seriously injured, and roughly 68 persons were hit bullet.
On the other hand, due to the silence of the Government combined with its loose foreign policy with India, unexpected occurrences increased in the border area of the country. Bangladeshi citizens became the victims of suspected killings, torture, and other forms of inhumane treatments. It has been reported that as many as 13 Bangladeshi citizens were killed, 15 injured, and nearly 28 arrested by the Indian Border Security Force (BSF). Such human rights violation has not even been reported to the respective high commission in some cases. As a result, such events have been increasing day by day.
HRSS expects that this bulletin will help mass people, civil society organizations as well as an international community by providing them with a concrete and evidential exposure to current dreadful and degrading human rights situation in Bangladesh. HRSS is deeply concerned about the degradation of human rights condition in the country. It urges both public and private human rights organizations as well as common citizens to raise their voice to protect and promote human rights in Bangladesh.

Half Yearly Human Rights Situation Analysis Report on Bangladesh_ (Full report in English, PDF)