In Bangladesh today, violence no longer arrives as an unexpected shock. Under the current interim government led by Nobel Peace Laureate Muhammad Yunus, alongside several renowned human rights activists, violence now arrives with familiarity, sequence, and intent. An attack occurs. There is brief outrage. Silence follows. Then another group becomes the next target.
Supporters and leaders of the Bangladesh Awami League are assassinated, assaulted, or intimidated. Baul and Lalon practitioners are threatened, their spaces disrupted. Folk singers fall silent. Hindu homes and temples are attacked, and lives are lost. Cultural institutions are vandalised. Sufi shrines are desecrated. Each incident is treated as isolated, yet together they form a single, deeply disturbing narrative.
This is not random disorder.
This is organised violence.
Violence becomes organised not only when it is openly commanded, but when it is patterned, predictable, and politically meaningful. In Bangladesh today, the targets are not chosen by chance. They share a common thread: political opposition, religious minority identity, cultural pluralism, and spiritual traditions that resist rigid orthodoxy. When the same kinds of people and institutions are repeatedly attacked, the message is unmistakable. Certain identities are being pushed out of public life.
International law is unequivocal on this point. Bangladesh is a state party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which obligates the state not only to refrain from violating rights itself, but to actively protect individuals from violence by others. When authorities fail to prevent foreseeable attacks, when investigations are slow or selective, and when accountability remains elusive, responsibility does not evaporate. Under international legal standards, inaction in the face of predictable harm constitutes a breach of duty. Silence becomes a form of permission.
The targeting of Awami League supporters and its affiliated wings represents more than political rivalry. It is a form of political erasure and cleansing. Violence used to intimidate people out of organising, speaking, or even being visibly associated with a political identity strikes at the core of democratic participation. International law does not recognise “acceptable” and “unacceptable” political beliefs. The right to participate in public life belongs to all—especially to those who have lost power.
Equally alarming is the violence directed at Bauls, Lalon followers, folk artists, and cultural spaces. These traditions embody Bengal’s pluralistic soul. They speak of spiritual humanism, dissent, and coexistence. Their silencing is not incidental; it is ideological. When cultural expression is attacked because it challenges dominant narratives, violence becomes a tool to reshape society’s moral and spiritual boundaries. International human rights law recognises culture as a protected right, not a luxury, precisely because destroying culture is a way of destroying communities without firing a gun.
The repeated attacks on Hindu communities and religious institutions deepen this concern. Under international standards, states carry heightened obligations to protect minorities. When minority homes, temples, and festivals are targeted again and again, and when protection proves inadequate, the violence can no longer be dismissed as sporadic communal tension. It becomes organised communal violence—marked by predictability and reinforced by impunity. History offers painful lessons about where such patterns lead when they are ignored.
Sufi shrines, too, have come under attack. These sacred spaces have long represented an inclusive, compassionate Islam rooted in local culture and interfaith coexistence. Their desecration reflects a broader struggle over identity and belief, where violence is used to impose a narrower and exclusionary vision of faith. This, too, is organised violence: symbolic, ideological, and strategic.
Perhaps the most dangerous aspect of the current moment is the sequence itself. Violence unfolds, pauses, resumes, and expands. Each incident tests how much can be done without consequence. International conflict-prevention frameworks identify this escalatory pattern as an early warning sign. Societies rarely collapse overnight; they are conditioned—incident by incident—to accept fear as normal.
The idea that violence must be openly ordered by the state to be considered organised is a dangerous myth. International law recognises responsibility not only in action, but in omission. When attacks are foreseeable and prevention is absent, when perpetrators are not held to account, and when victims are left exposed, violence becomes structurally enabled. Neutrality in such circumstances is an illusion.
Bangladesh still has a choice. It can confront this pattern honestly, uphold its constitutional promise of pluralism, and meet its international obligations by protecting all citizens equally—regardless of political belief, religion, or cultural identity. Or it can allow violence to continue shaping the nation’s political and social landscape through fear.
Naming organised violence is not an act of destabilisation. It is an act of responsibility. When violence becomes a method, silence becomes complicity. History will judge which path Bangladesh chose.
Writer: Shahanur Islam is a human rights advocate based in France, a 2023 laureate of the Marianne Initiative for Human Rights Defenders, initiated by the President of France, and Founder President of JusticeMakers Bangladesh in France (JMBF). Email: shahanur.islam@jmbf.org; Website: www.jmbf.org
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