Tulip Siddiq silent as UN report finds aunt's regime killed children
Tulip Siddiq has remained silent after a UN report found her aunt's regime killed and tortured children during protests in Bangladesh in 2024.
Sheikh Hasina fled Bangladesh in August 2024 after anti-government protesters stormed the prime minister's palace and the parliament, following weeks of demonstrations.
Ms Siddiq was forced to resign as City minister in January following weeks of controversy over her ties to the Awami League led by her aunt Sheikh Hasina, the former prime minister of Bangladesh.
A UN report published on Wednesday found Sheikh Hasina's regime subjected children to 'targeted killings' during the protests which took place from July 1 until mid-August.
It discovered that police and security forces also subjected children to 'deliberate maiming, arbitrary arrest, detention in inhumane conditions, torture and other forms of ill-treatment' over that time.
From mid-July, the former government of Bangladesh and the Awami League mobilised 'a continuously expanding circle of armed actors' who 'violently suppressed peaceful student protests with unnecessary and disproportionate force'.
Between 12 and 13 per cent of those killed during the protests were children, while women and girls were also attacked by security forces and Awami League supporters, the report found.
It found that as many as 1,400 people could have been killed during the protests, with most 'by military rifles and shotguns loaded with lethal metal pellets commonly used by Bangladesh's security forces'.
More than 11,700 people were arrested and detained overall, according to information provided to the UN.
Ms Siddiq has declined to comment on the report.
A spokesman said that it had nothing to do with her or the Labour Party, and emphasised that she is a British citizen.
Ms Siddiq, who is being investigated by Bangladesh's anti-corruption commission, has used several London properties linked to the Awami League.
As well as renting out a King's Cross apartment, she also lived in a flat that was gifted to her sister by a lawyer linked to the Awami League.
She was also renting a £2.1 million house in East Finchley, north London, owned by an executive member of the UK wing of the Bangladeshi party.
The Labour MP, a friend of the Prime Minister, was forced to resign from the front bench after Sir Keir Starmer's ethics adviser found that she had inadvertently misled the public over the scandal.
Ms Siddiq, whose brief as Treasury minister had included combating corruption, had referred herself after weeks of questions over her use of properties in London linked to her aunt's political party.
Bangladesh's anti-corruption commission is investigating Ms Siddiq, Hasina and other members of their family for alleged embezzlement of £3.9 billion connected to a Russian-funded nuclear power plant.
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