URGENT ACTION REQUESTED: Remove the Death Penalty, Ensure Independent Investigations and Protect Good-Faith Complainants
While JMBF welcomes the adoption of a dedicated legislative framework criminalizing enforced disappearance, we are gravely concerned that the Bill retains the death penalty and contains other provisions that may undermine independent investigations, discourage victims and their families from reporting disappearances, and limit access to effective and comprehensive reparations.
Of particular concern, Section 6 reportedly permits the imposition of the death penalty where a disappeared person dies or is killed in custody, or remains unlocated for more than five years. JMBF strongly believes that accountability for enforced disappearance must be robust and effective, but should be achieved through independent investigations, fair trials, proportionate criminal penalties, and meaningful reparations rather than capital punishment.
We therefore urge concerned individuals, human rights defenders, lawyers, civil society organizations, and members of the international community to write to the Honourable President of Bangladesh, Mr. Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, requesting that he exercise his constitutional authority to return the Bill to Parliament for reconsideration and necessary amendments before it becomes law.
Your prompt support and solidarity would be greatly appreciated.
In solidarity,
EXACT LETTER SENT TO THE CONCERNED AUTHORITY
Date: 11 September 2026
Subject: Urgent Request to Return the Prevention and Remedy of Enforced Disappearance Bill, 2026 to Parliament for Reconsideration
Honourable President,
Greetings from JusticeMakers Bangladesh in France (JMBF), a France-based international human rights organization committed to the protection and promotion of human rights, access to justice, the rule of law, and fundamental freedoms in Bangladesh and beyond.
JMBF respectfully draws your urgent attention to the Prevention and Remedy of Enforced Disappearance Bill, 2026, passed by the Parliament of Bangladesh on 6 September 2026.
JMBF acknowledges that the enactment of a dedicated law recognizing enforced disappearance as a distinct criminal offence represents an important and long-awaited step towards addressing one of the gravest forms of human rights violation in Bangladesh. A strong legislative framework is essential for preventing enforced disappearances, investigating past and future allegations, identifying perpetrators, locating disappeared persons, and guaranteeing truth, justice, and reparations for victims and their families.
However, JMBF is deeply concerned that several provisions of the Bill, particularly the retention of the death penalty under Section 6, may be inconsistent with evolving international human rights standards and may ultimately weaken, rather than strengthen, the pursuit of credible justice and accountability.
According to the text of the Bill reviewed by JMBF, Section 6 provides that where a person subjected to enforced disappearance dies or is killed while in custody, or cannot be located for more than five years following the disappearance, those responsible may face the death penalty, imprisonment for life, or imprisonment for a term of not less than five years, together with a substantial fine.
JMBF unequivocally condemns enforced disappearance and recognizes its exceptionally grave and continuing nature. Perpetrators must be held accountable through effective investigation, prosecution, and punishment proportionate to the seriousness of the crime.
Nevertheless, we respectfully submit that the death penalty is neither necessary nor appropriate to ensure accountability for enforced disappearance. Life imprisonment and other severe custodial penalties are capable of reflecting the gravity of the offence without resorting to an irreversible punishment.
The irreversible character of capital punishment is particularly troubling in cases of enforced disappearance, especially in Bangladesh, where the judiciary may be affected by corruption and political influence, and where evidence may have been concealed, destroyed, falsified, or dispersed among different state institutions, making the establishment of individual criminal responsibility extraordinarily complex.
Bangladesh acceded to the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance in August 2024. The Convention requires enforced disappearance to be criminalized and subjected to penalties reflecting its extreme seriousness, but it does not require or endorse the death penalty.
Bangladesh is also a State Party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). International human rights standards increasingly require states that retain capital punishment to restrict its application while moving towards its complete abolition.
JMBF is further concerned about Section 14 of the Bill, which reportedly permits investigations into allegations of enforced disappearance to be conducted by the police or other disciplinary forces.
This presents a serious potential conflict of interest when members of law enforcement, security, intelligence, or other state agencies are themselves implicated in an alleged disappearance.
An investigation cannot command public confidence when an institution potentially connected to an alleged violation is responsible for investigating its own personnel or another institution within the same security structure.
The law should therefore establish an independent, impartial, professionally competent, and adequately resourced investigative mechanism that operates outside the chain of command of any agency potentially implicated in an alleged disappearance.
Such an investigative body should have unrestricted legal authority to access all official and unofficial places of detention and obtain relevant records, documents, communications, registers, digital evidence, and other information from police, military, intelligence, and security agencies.
JMBF is also seriously concerned about Section 21, which reportedly provides for imprisonment of up to five years with hard labour for making a false or harassing complaint.
Authorities may legitimately take measures against deliberately fabricated allegations. However, an inability to substantiate an allegation of enforced disappearance must never, by itself, be treated as proof that the complaint was knowingly false.
Enforced disappearances are, by their very nature, concealed crimes. Records may be withheld or destroyed, detention locations may be kept secret, and officials may deny custody of or knowledge concerning the victim's whereabouts.
Victims' relatives and witnesses must therefore be able to report suspected disappearances promptly and in good faith without fear of prosecution, intimidation, harassment, or retaliation.
Section 21 should consequently be amended to provide explicit safeguards for victims, family members, witnesses, human rights defenders, lawyers, journalists, and others who submit information or complaints in good faith.
JMBF welcomes the provisions in the Bill concerning compensation, rehabilitation, legal assistance, and the establishment of a victims' fund.
However, access to reparations should not depend exclusively on the identification, prosecution, or conviction of an individual perpetrator.
Victims and their families may require immediate medical, psychosocial, legal, and financial assistance long before criminal proceedings are completed. Families of persons whose fate or whereabouts remain unknown may also suffer prolonged economic hardship, trauma, and social insecurity.
The legislation should therefore guarantee victims and their families access to timely interim assistance and comprehensive reparations, including restitution where possible, compensation, rehabilitation, satisfaction, legal assistance, and guarantees of non-recurrence.
Honourable President,
The Constitution of Bangladesh provides the President with an important constitutional opportunity to return a Bill to Parliament for reconsideration and to request reconsideration of particular provisions.
In view of the irreversible nature of the death penalty and the serious concerns surrounding the independence of investigations, the protection of complainants, and the adequacy of reparations, we respectfully believe that this constitutional opportunity should be exercised in the present case.
Returning the Bill for reconsideration would not weaken Bangladesh's commitment to combating enforced disappearance. On the contrary, it would provide Parliament with an opportunity to enact a stronger, more credible, and internationally compliant law capable of delivering sustainable justice to victims and their families.
Therefore, JusticeMakers Bangladesh in France respectfully urges you to:
Return the Prevention and Remedy of Enforced Disappearance Bill, 2026 to Parliament for reconsideration before granting presidential assent, and request the necessary amendments to ensure compliance with Bangladesh's international human rights obligations.
Request the removal of the death penalty from Section 6 and replace it with severe but non-capital penalties proportionate to the gravity of enforced disappearance, including life imprisonment where appropriate.
Request the amendment of Section 14 to establish an independent, impartial, and competent investigative mechanism outside the institutional and operational control of any police, military, intelligence, security, or disciplinary force potentially implicated in an alleged enforced disappearance.
Ensure that investigators have full legal authority to enter and inspect all places of detention and obtain records, documents, information, and cooperation from all relevant state, security, military, and intelligence institutions.
Request the amendment of Section 21 to expressly protect victims, relatives, witnesses, lawyers, human rights defenders, journalists, and other persons who report suspected enforced disappearances in good faith, even where an allegation cannot ultimately be substantiated.
Ensure that no person is criminally punished merely because authorities are unable to establish an enforced disappearance following a good-faith complaint.
Strengthen the provisions concerning victims' rights by guaranteeing comprehensive, prompt, and accessible reparations, including compensation, rehabilitation, medical and psychosocial support, legal assistance, and other appropriate remedies, regardless of whether an individual perpetrator has yet been identified or convicted.
Establish an effective mechanism for providing immediate interim assistance to families while the fate or whereabouts of disappeared persons remain unknown.
Ensure that the final legislation fully complies with the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and other applicable international human rights standards.
Ensure meaningful consultation with victims and survivors of enforced disappearance, families of disappeared persons, human rights organizations, lawyers, independent experts, and other relevant civil society actors before the Bill is reconsidered and finally enacted.
JMBF therefore respectfully requests your urgent and direct intervention and urges you to return the Bill to Parliament for reconsideration so that these critical shortcomings can be addressed before it becomes law.
JMBF would also appreciate receiving information regarding any measures taken in response to this appeal for the records and ongoing human rights monitoring activities of JusticeMakers Bangladesh in France (JMBF).
Please accept, Honourable President, the assurances of our highest consideration.
Yours sincerely,
