The interim government of Bangladesh, led by Nobel Peace laureate Prof. Muhammad Yunus, has approved an ordinance granting indemnity (legal immunity) to participants in the July 2024 mass uprising for crimes like murder, arson, and looting.
This decision, made during a meeting of the Advisory Council on January 15, aims to protect those involved in actions described as “political resistance” against what the government terms a “fascist” regime.
Leading constitutional scholars argue that the Indemnity Ordinance violates Article 27 (equality before law) of the Bangladesh Constitution and contradicts the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, especially Articles 6–11.
The July Mass Uprising Protection and Liability Determination Ordinance 2026 provides immunity for organised activities carried out between July and August 2024 to overthrow the previous government and restore democratic governance. Law Adviser Asif Nazrul announced at a press conference later that day at the Foreign Service Academy that the ordinance will be gazetted within the next five to seven days.
– Existing criminal cases against July uprising participants will be withdrawn.
– No new cases can be filed for actions falling under “political resistance.”
– Immunity does not extend to killings or crimes committed for personal gain, greed, revenge, or narrow self-interest during that period.
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Nazrul emphasised that the law protects collective, coordinated efforts to end “fascist rule,” but not individual criminal acts unrelated to the uprising’s political objectives. Determining whether a specific incident qualifies as “political resistance” or personal crime will fall to the National Human Rights Commission (to be reconstituted by January 31, 2026). Victims’ families can approach the commission for investigation, with its findings treated as equivalent to police reports and submitted to courts.
Such safeguards are also enshrined in the July Charter.
In September 2024, the regime issued the “National Stability Ordinance” with retrospective effect on July 15, 2024, which indemnified all forces participating in “stabilisation efforts” after some students were arrested in a police murder case.
By then, many student coordinators, leaders and activists of BNP, Jamaat-Shibir, Hizb ut-Tahrir, and Hefazat-e-Islam publicly boasted of police murders, arson attacks, and looting.
Since August 2024, hundreds of “ghost cases” and politically motivated filings have been documented. Of 192 July-August violence-related cases probed by PBI, inquiries into 78 (including nine murders) were completed: 56% were found “false and baseless” with no prima facie evidence, while in the remaining 44%, up to 90% of the accused had no connection to the alleged crimes—often named solely due to Awami League affiliation.
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Nationwide, 1,785 such criminal cases implicate hundreds of thousands—predominantly Awami League leaders, activists, and supporters—yet charge sheets were submitted in only 106. Human rights lawyer Advocate Manzil Murshid estimated 60-70% of cases are unfounded, driven by extortion and vendettas.
According to the Awami League database, some 4,00,000 party leaders and activists have been arrested since August 2024, many of whom have been undergoing horrendous situations in prisons while being denied bail repeatedly.
The party says that over 230 of their men were killed between July 16, 2024, and August 4, 2024, and over 600 till now, often in coordinated assassinations, mysterious disappearances, or mob trials disguised as “community justice.” Moreover, around 90 leaders and activists have been killed extrajudicially, in police custody and in prisons.
Even though the interim government recognises the deaths of 44 police members, the actual number of deaths is much higher due to the higher number of missing personnel and the extent of violent attacks on 460 police stations.
Strong Condemnation of the Indemnity Provision
This ordinance represents a dangerous step toward institutionalising impunity for serious crimes, echoing some of the darkest precedents in Bangladesh’s history. Indemnity laws have repeatedly been used to shield perpetrators of grave human rights violations, undermining justice, accountability, and the rule of law.
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– Shielding the Killers of Bangabandhu (1975): Following the brutal assassination of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman (Bangabandhu), the Father of the Nation, and most of his family on August 15, 1975, the military regime under Khondaker Mostaq Ahmed issued the **Indemnity Ordinance** in September 1975. This was later constitutionalised under Ziaur Rahman to block any prosecution of the coup plotters and killers. That infamous law protected the assassins for years, allowing some to even serve in diplomatic posts. It was only repealed decades later under subsequent governments, enabling trials and convictions. Granting broad indemnity now risks repeating this pattern of whitewashing political violence.
– Spared the Military in Operation Clean Heart (2002–2003): During the BNP-led government’s “Operation Clean Heart,” a joint military-police campaign against alleged criminals, dozens (reports from human rights groups like Amnesty International and others cite widespread extrajudicial killings, torture, and custodial deaths—often officially labelled as “heart attacks”). An Indemnity Bill was proposed to protect security forces from prosecution for these acts, effectively granting impunity for extrajudicial executions and abuses. This set a chilling precedent for state-sanctioned violence going unpunished.
By introducing similar indemnity mechanisms today, the current administration risks normalising the evasion of justice for acts of violence committed during politically charged periods, say political observers.
While the government claims the measure honours those who fought for democracy and excludes personal crimes, the vague distinction between “political resistance” and criminal acts—left to a yet-to-be-formed commission—opens the door to selective application and abuse. True democratic restoration requires accountability for all violations, not selective shields that could embolden future impunity.
This decision undermines victims’ rights to justice and sets a troubling precedent that history has shown leads to cycles of violence rather than reconciliation.
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