Bangladesh transitioned from being one of the poorest countries at its inception in 1971 to a lower-middle-income country in 2015. It is on track to graduate from the United Nations Least Developed Countries (LDC) list and become a middle-income country by 2026. Despite global uncertainties, Bangladesh has demonstrated strong growth and development, supported by robust readymade garments (RMG) exports, resilient remittance flows, and stable macroeconomic conditions over the past two decades. However, the recent price hike of daily commodities has raised public concerns.

Despite the country's many positive achievements in the 52 years since independence, human rights issues persist. Violations continue in areas such as the rule of law, democracy, voting rights freedom of expression, the right to assembly, social security, and women’s rights, despite constitutional obligations and international treaties. The 2023 annual human rights report highlights ongoing issues, including obstruction of peaceful assembly, false cases, political arrests, extrajudicial killings, torture in police custody, and unlawful behavior by law enforcement, abductions and disappearances, violence against women, and public lynching. The overall human rights situation remains as dire as in 2022, with some deterioration observed. According to collected data from prominent national dailies and HRSS investigation unit, this year, there is a concerning (1051) number of political clashes killed at least 96 and 9379 injured. Most of which were against BNP, internal clashes in AL, rally of BNP, peaceful Assembly and other rights to assembly. LEAs arrested total 14886 people among which 8277 are from BNP- Jamaat. Moreover, at least 679 cases are filed against 14412 activists with names and 58960 anonymously in the charge sheet. At least 629 peaceful assemblies were forced stop by the LEAs and government fueled political agents. 3391 were injured and 6051 were arrested regarding assembly clashes. 274 incidents of violence killed 9 and injured 1512 people at election violence. Only in December, there are 205 incidents of violence, killed 5 and injured 975 totally.

34 incidents of extra judicial killings, 36 persons among which 7 were so called crossfire, 7 by torture, and 14 were killed by the bullets. Under the custody of the LEAs, 8 were killed and surprisingly 86 prisoners were died in jail. Among them 35 were convicted and other 51 were trail prisoner. Only in December, 15 deaths recorded in jail among which 8 of them were BNP-Jamaat activists /leaders.

50 persons were abducted by the identity of Law Enforcing Agencies where none of them were presented before court within 24 hours and didn’t inform the families. Here, 36 of them were shown arrest, 12 released but 2 had still no clue about them know where. Although there is a clear direction of the court about presenting the arrestees within 24 before the court and let the families know within 12 hours.

194 Attack on journalists killed, injured, harassed and oppressed about 366.  2 killed, 186 injured, 26 faced threats at work, 86 were harassed, 11 arrested and 55 of them were faced cases by the government. Under Digital Security Act, 2018 and Cyber Security Act, 2023, at least 58 cases were filed against 188 and 60 were arrested. 27 attack on minority caused 43 injuries, destruction of 17 temples, 31 idols and 25 houses of the community. An attack on Ahmediya Community at Panchagar killed 1 and injured 60 at March which followed by vandalizing 101 houses and 30 business Institutes with arson and heavy plunder.

114 Mob lynching incidents killed 73 and injured 91 which is a concerning number. Torture on laborers killed 42 including 3 with bullets by the police and injured 350 on 200 incidents. Workplace accidents caused death of 148 more laborers. 25 House maid tortures killed 11 including children maid and 14 were injured. Moreover, BSF on border killed 30 Bangladeshi citizens, injured 31 and arrested 13 on 58 incidents. 9 bodies of the deceased were found around the border area. 

In 2023, a total of 2366 women and girls were tortured. 993 faced rape and 558 were under 18 (children) which is concerning 56% of the total amount. 192 (19%) of the women and children were gang raped, killed after rape 43, among which 28 were children and 9 women committed suicide after that. 706 Women and children faced sexual violence and among them 394 were children. Demanding dowry, torture killed 73 brides, physically violated 63 and 7 committed suicide. Family feud killed 299, injured 98 and 118 women committed suicide. 9 women have been victims of acid violence out of which 2 have died. On the other hand, 2181 children were violated and tortured. Among them 529 were killed and other 1652 children were injured by physically and mentally.

HRSS is deeply concerned about the degradation of human rights condition in the country. It urges all human rights organizations as well as common citizens to raise their voice to protect and promote human rights in Bangladesh.