Former Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has formally challenged a United Nations report on the deadly July-August 2024 protests, claiming that its estimate of protest-related deaths was grossly exaggerated and helped legitimise her government’s overthrow.
In a letter sent to Volker Türk on Thursday, Hasina’s legal counsel, Steven Powles KC, urged the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) to issue a public correction and retraction of findings contained in its February 2025 fact-finding report on Bangladesh.
The OHCHR report had estimated that “as many as 1,400 people” may have been killed during the protests and unrest that culminated in the collapse of Hasina’s government. However, the letter argues that official records published subsequently by Bangladesh’s Interim Government place the death toll at approximately 834, nearly half the UN estimate. It further contends that figures compiled by the student-led Anti-Discrimination Movement suggest the number may be closer to 650.
“The actual figure is about half of what is contained in the UN Report,” Powles wrote, adding that the discrepancy raises serious questions about the credibility and methodology of the UN fact-finding exercise.
The letter alleges that the OHCHR inquiry relied on politicised sources and was conducted under the auspices of Bangladesh’s Interim Government led by Muhammad Yunus, which Hasina’s legal team claims had a vested interest in portraying the former premier’s administration in the worst possible light.
Hasina’s lawyers also questioned the independence of the investigation, noting that the inquiry was conducted at the invitation of the Interim Government and focused exclusively on alleged abuses between July 1 and August 15, 2024. According to the letter, this limited timeframe prevented investigators from examining alleged human rights violations committed after the Interim Government assumed power.
The communication further argues that the higher casualty estimate was used to support accusations that Hasina ordered the mass killing of peaceful protesters and became central to the political campaign that ultimately removed her from office. “The much higher figure was used to exaggerate the nature and extent of the violence,” the letter states.
While acknowledging that the deaths during the protests represented a “profound tragedy”, Hasina’s legal team maintained that the UN’s casualty estimate was inaccurate and had contributed to the spread of what it described as a “false and inflammatory narrative”. The letter calls on the OHCHR to publicly amend the report to preserve the integrity of UN human rights investigations.
The OHCHR has not yet publicly responded to the request. The OHCHR’s fact-finding report, published in February 2025, examined alleged human rights violations committed during the mass protests that engulfed Bangladesh in mid-2024 and ultimately led to the fall of the Awami League government. The report concluded that security forces were responsible for a majority of the protest-related deaths and raised concerns about excessive use of force.
Hasina, who has remained outside Bangladesh since her removal from power, has consistently rejected allegations that her government orchestrated a systematic crackdown on peaceful demonstrators.
