Joint Submission to the Human Rights Council at the 44th Session of the Universal Periodic Review. BANGLADESH Introduction 1. Council of Minorities (COM), Rohingya Human Rights Initiative (R4R), Free Rohingya Coalition (FRC), Namati, Nationality for All (NFA), the Global Campaign for Equal Nationality Rights (GCENR) and the Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion (ISI) make this joint submission to the Universal Periodic Review (UPR), on the right to a nationality and human rights challenges pertaining to statelessness in Bangladesh. 2. This submission draws on the research, advocacy and engagement of the co-submitting organisations to focus on the following issues in Bangladesh: I. II. III. IV. Access to Nationality and Other Rights for the Urdu-Speaking Community; Rohingya Refugees in Bangladesh; Access to Birth Registration and Challenges of Digitalisation; Gender Discrimination in Nationality Law. 3. Council of Minorities (CoM) is a human rights organisation working towards helping different minority groups in Bangladesh to realise their human rights. CoM is dedicated to bring positive changes in the society to ensure social, cultural, political, constitutional and economic rights of minorities groups through partnership, networking, and advocacy with the Government. CoM promotes and fosters awareness on minority rights against stigma, discrimination and xenophobia by performing arts, drama, documentaries and enhances the capacity of minorities through trainings, seminars, workshops, summits and minority fellowships.1 4. Rohingya Human Rights Initiative (R4R) is a non-governmental and non-profit organisation formed by Rohingya activists in New Delhi, India. The main mission of R4R is to document, highlight, prevent and address the human rights violations against the Rohingya community. R4R carries out its activities in India and monitors the conditions of Rohingyas in India, Myanmar and Bangladesh.2 5. Free Rohingya Coalition (FRC) is a global network of Rohingya, Burmese and International activists and scholars working to end Myanmar’s genocide sharing common concerns about the need for Rohingya survivors to play an active role in 1 2 For more information about CoM, see: https://www.com-bd.org/. For more information about R4R, see: https://www.rohringya.org/. 1