Odhikar
organization

Odhikar (Bengali: অধিকার) is a Bangladesh-based human rights organization, that was founded in October 1994. It is a member of the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH). It has been publishing an annual activity report since 2003. Odhikar's work has been cited by Human Rights Watch in their 2011 World Report on Bangladesh. The goal for establishing Odhikar was to develop human rights alertness and observing violations in Bangladesh.
Important works
Publication of border death count
Odhikar published annual list of deaths along the Bangladesh–India border, raising anger from the pro-India government.
2013 Shapla Square protests
On 10 June 2013, Odhikar published a fact finding report on the 2013 Operation at Motijheel Shapla Chattar claiming 61 deaths, but refused to provide any names of the victims report, citing security concerns for the families of the victims. On 19 August 2024, they published the name of the deceased on their verified Facebook page.
2018 revocation of observer status
On 11 November 2018, the pro-government newspaper Janakantha published an article written by Bibhash Baroi, which Odhikar called slanderous. International Federation for Human Rights condemned the article saying:The Observatory condemns in the strongest terms the politically-motivated attacks and accusations against Odhikar, which manifestly aim at discrediting its reputation and hindering its peaceful and legitimate human rights activities.
The public source identifies “Odhikar” as organization. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Odhikar and organization.
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The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 18, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q16964958. The first chronological checks are 1994, 2003, 2011 and 2013.
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This entry incorporates text from “Odhikar” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.