Geneva [Switzerland], October 3 : Suhas Chakma, Director of the Rights and Risks Analysis Group (RRAG), addressed the 60th session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva and raised the issue of racial violence against indigenous peoples of the Chittagong Hill Tracts, as per a release.
Chakma stated that on September 28, three indigenous people were killed by the Bangladesh Army at Guimara village but the relatives of the victims are scared to file FIR because of the threats.
The release stated that last year, on September 19-20, the illegal settlers and the Bangladesh Army killed four indigenous persons, injured 75 others and burnt hundreds of houses of indigenous people in the Chittagong Hill Tracts but the government has not made public the inquiry report to provide impunity.
Chakma further stated, "Not a single indigenous person or minority was included in the Constitutional Reforms Commission. The report of the Constitutional Reforms Commission also made no reference to indigenous peoples or minorities, thereby denying their existence in law."
On January 12, the National Curriculum Board of Bangladesh removed the graffiti, which contained the word "Adivasi" or indigenous/tribal, from the back cover of its high school grammar textbook.
When indigenous students went to protest in Dhaka on January 15, they were attacked by the Islamic fundamentalists, the release added.
Chakma urged that the Human Rights Council ought to take effective measures to address such racial discrimination in Bangladesh, according to the release.
His remarks aligned with the concerns raised just days earlier at the same 60th session of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC), where UN-EU Human Rights Officer Charlotte Zehrer from Global Human Rights Defence (GHRD), in her oral intervention on September 26, had also drawn international attention to the precarious conditions faced by ethnic and religious minorities in Bangladesh, calling for urgent action from the UNHRC.
She highlighted what she described as a "deeply concerning" pattern of violence and discrimination.
Zehrer reported more than 2,400 incidents of attacks against minorities in the past year, noting that indigenous people in the Chittagong Hill Tracts, along with Hindu and Christian communities across Bangladesh, have been the primary targets.