Rozina Islam
Rozina Islam is a woman human rights defender and a senior journalist with the Bengali Newspaper Prothom Alo. She has extensively reported on human rights issues in Bangladesh and most recently published a series of investigative reports on the government’s weak management of the COVID-19 pandemic, including on corruption and mismanagement of the health sector. She has also received several international and national awards for her investigative reports revealing governmental corruption.
Human rights defenders in Bangladesh face judicial harassment, arbitrary arrest, fabricated charges, abduction, physical attacks, torture and extrajudicial killings. Local extremist groups pledging allegiance to Al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent often claimed responsibility for the attacks, which have targeted HRDs who write about women’s rights, indigenous peoples’ rights, freedom of religion, and other human rights issues. Despite these risks, there was no impetus on the part of the government to address the protection needs of HRDs. The authorities have so far failed to properly investigate a majority of the murders and impunity remains a serious concern.
