UN urges Bangladesh to protect secular activists

Dhaka : United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, has urged the Bangladesh Government to take urgent, concerted measures to ensure the protection of all those being threatened by extremists ‘operating in the country’.

Hussein said they are alarmed by the violent killing of yet another blogger Nazimuddin Samad in Bangladesh.

Meanwhile, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani renewed their call to the Bangladesh Government as a first step forward to halt all executions and institute a moratorium on the use of the death penalty.

As per reports, Bangladesh has more than 1,200 prisoners on death row and in March this year alone at least 13 people were sentenced to death in separate murder cases in four districts in the country. (ANI)