Rohingya refugees living in Bangladesh are being beaten, tortured, and arbitrarily detained by local authorities, according to more than a dozen victim statements recently shared with human rights NGO Fortify Rights.
In several cases, victims described being bashed with metal rods and extorted out of several thousand US dollars in exchange for their release.
“Bangladesh police are using Rohingya refugees like human ATMs by inflicting severe physical and mental pain to demand corrupt payments,” said Matthew Smith, CEO of Fortify Rights, in a statement sent to Myanmar Now. “The authorities in [the capital] Dhaka must immediately rein in the police and work to end corruption and impunity within the police force.”
Fortify Rights’ investigation looked specifically at members of the Armed Police Battalion (APBn): a specialized combat unit of the Bangladesh police force which, since taking over security in Cox’s Bazar refugee camps in July 2020, has faced repeated allegations of human rights abuses against Rohingyas.
In May 2022, Human Rights Watch (HRW) revealed that APBn officers had beaten Rohingya refugees at checkpoints, arbitrarily detained them for celebrating Eid, and strictly restrained their freedom to move, work, and study within the camps. In January 2023, HRW reported that APBn officers were persecuting refugees already facing violence from criminal gangs and armed groups. In some cases, HRW noted, refugees alleged collusion between APBn and those same criminal groups.
“Abuses by police in the Cox’s Bazar camps have left Rohingya refugees suffering at the hands of the very forces who are supposed to protect them,” said Shayna Bauchner, Asia researcher at Human Rights Watch, at the time.
Fortify Rights interviewed 14 Rohingya refugees and several humanitarian aid workers between March and June 2023, and uncovered what it described in its August report as “an institutionalized culture of corruption and abuse within the APBn.”
One victim recounted how APBn officers stormed his house in the middle of the night and arbitrarily arrested him, detaining him in grueling conditions in police barracks for four days.
“I was beaten in three locations,” the man, age 30, told Fortify Rights. “First in my house, second at the checkpoint, and third in their barracks. They beat me on my body and head. There was a cut on my head. They also beat me on the bottom of my feet. I couldn’t walk for a week.”
The police allegedly demanded that his family pay 360,000 Bangladeshi taka (approximately US$3,300) for his release. After negotiations, they eventually settled for 220,000 taka ($2,000).
Another victim told of how he was robbed and extorted out of a total $10,850 in money and possessions after being wrongfully accused of selling “yaba” – an illicit drug containing methamphetamine and caffeine. A third victim said that in 2022, APBn officers beat her and four of her family members before extorting her out of 6,000 taka ($55) in exchange for not detaining her and her son.
“They beat [another family member in my house] 20 times and my other [relative] around 15 times. They also choked [him] in front of me,” the woman told Fortify Rights. “I was begging the police to stop, but they pushed me away and beat my leg. I was bleeding a lot.”
Such actions from the APBn could constitute violations of international law, which prohibits torture in every context, as well as a number of conventions and statutes to which Bangladesh is party – including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT), and the legally binding UN Convention against Corruption.
Fortify Rights is now calling upon the Bangladeshi government’s independent corruption prevention and investigative body, the Anti-Corruption Commission, to launch an independent investigation of extortion and corruption by APBn officials.
“Abuse, instability, and corruption in the refugee camps are good for no one,” said Fortify Rights CEO Matthew Smith. “Dhaka must set an example and hold corrupt police accountable through an independent, impartial investigation, and accountability for those responsible.”
Myanmar Now approached the Bangladeshi government, Bangladesh police, and the APBn for comment, but did not receive a response prior to publication.
Speaking to Dhaka-based daily newspaper New Age, APBn deputy inspector general Molla Nazrul Islam said in response to the allegations that those who commit crimes or abuse rights have no place in the Police Battalion.
“We must investigate, if we receive any formal complaint in this regard,” he said, adding that the APBn tries to maintain law and order in the refugee camps, and uses internal oversight to scrutinise any allegations.
Bangladesh currently hosts close to one million Rohingya refugees, most of whom were forcibly deported from Myanmar in 2016 and 2017 as the result of a genocidal campaign of massacres, mass rape, and mass arson by the Myanmar military. More than 95 percent of them live in Cox’s Bazar, which hosts the world’s largest refugee camp.
