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Three laws passed by Bangladesh parliament this month have weakened human rights safeguards and reversed reforms introduced by the interim government, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on Tuesday.
The laws concern the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), enforced disappearances and the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), which has been renamed the Special Response Battalion (SRB).
HRW said the new legislation reduces the NHRC’s independence and investigative powers, changes the mechanism for investigating enforced disappearance allegations and effectively renames RAB without introducing adequate safeguards for the new force.
“To prevent a return to the terrible abuses of the past, Bangladesh needs real security sector reform and an independent human rights body with the authority to investigate allegations of abuse,” Elaine Pearson, Asia director at HRW, said in a statement.
Under the ousted Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s government from 2009–2024, law enforcement agencies committed widespread abuses, including extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, arbitrary arrests and excessive force against protesters. Although killings and disappearances have declined, Tarique Rahman-led government is holding hundreds of perceived political opponents in arbitrary detention, the statement said.
The interim government, which governed from August 2024 to February 2026, had introduced ordinances strengthening the NHRC and addressing enforced disappearances. One gave the commission powers to investigate allegations against security agencies and created a new process for appointing commissioners, along with greater independence in funding and staffing.It also established a National Preventive Mechanism to inspect and monitor places of detention.
The BNP-led government allowed the ordinance to lapse after taking office in February, the rights organisation said.
Parliament passed the new NHRC law on September 6 following an opposition walkout. Under the law, the commission cannot directly investigate alleged rights violations by security forces and must first seek a report from the agency concerned.
HRW said the commission may conduct its own inquiry if the agency fails to respond or provides an unsatisfactory report. The law also restores greater government control over the appointment of commissioners and reduces the commission’s budgetary and administrative independence, it added.
The Enforced Disappearance Prevention and Redress Act, also passed on September 6, removes the NHRC’s powers to investigate allegations of enforced disappearance and inspect detention facilities, including suspected secret detention sites.
The new law instead requires the government to appoint a security agency other than the one implicated to investigate such allegations, HRW said.
It also changes the standard for command responsibility. While the previous provision could hold commanders responsible when they knew or should have known about violations and failed to prevent them, the new law requires evidence that a commander directly ordered an enforced disappearance.
On September 10, parliament passed the Special Response Battalion Act, replacing RAB with the SRB. The new force began operating on September 16.
HRW said the law transfers RAB’s personnel, powers, property and records to the SRB, while retaining its logo with only the letters “RAB” changed to “SRB”.
RAB has faced allegations of extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances and torture and was sanctioned by the United States in 2021 over alleged serious human rights abuses.
HRW urged the government to introduce human rights vetting, independent oversight and safeguards on arrest and detention in the rules for the SRB, which have yet to be drafted.
It also called on the United States to maintain sanctions on the renamed force until adequate accountability measures are in place.