UN warned Bangladesh army to not get involved

During the July-August uprising last year, the United Nations had warned the nation's armed forces to not get involved, UN Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk has said. 

He made the remarks while speaking at BBC HARDtalk recently. 

BBC journalist Stephen Sackur spoke to Volker Türk at HARDtalk, which was broadcast on Wednesday. 

While speaking at the programme, Sackur claimed that "in essence, from nations both small to large, are not taking this international multilateral human rights machinery seriously."

Türk replied, "I can give you examples where it is taken seriously, I will give you the example of Bangladesh last year."

Referring to the July-August mass uprising in Bangladesh, he said, "The big hope for them (students) was actually our voice, was my voice, was also what we were able to do. And we put the spotlight on the situation. And we actually gave the warning to the army that if they get involved, it means that they may not be able to be a true contributing country (the UN peacekeeping forces) anymore. 

Türk said, "As a result, we saw changes. When Mohammad Yunus took over as the Chief Adviser of the Interim Government, he asked me immediately- 'can you send us a fact-finding mission to put the spotlight on the situation, to investigate it?' which is exactly what we did."