Media suppression should be left behind
We are still witnessing journalists being attacked and targetted through farcical legal cases
The recently published OHCHR report certainly paints a dire picture of a government which had gotten disturbingly comfortable with the notion of waging war on its own people, becoming increasingly far-removed from one of the core pillars upon which Bangladesh was founded.One of the more insidious ways that the ousted Awami League government ensured that was by, according to the report,.
its overt suppression of the media during the protests -- not limited to draconian laws such as the DSA or blanket internet blackouts, the previous government is now being exposed for directly threatening journalists, editors, and other media personnel through direct intimidationAccording to the report, Bangladesh's intelligence agencies, including DGFI and NSI agents, directly threatened journalists in order to hinder them from reporting on the July uprising, as officials of the Ministry of Information and intelligence agencies intimidated editors and reporters alike by contacting them directly and even showing up to their workplaces and even their residences demanding changes be made to reportage and broadcasts.
These are absolutely dire accusations, but given just how much damage that the Bangladeshi media landscape had sustained under the autocratic misrule of the previous government, they are not out of the bounds of reality.The interim government has gone on record numerous times that it believes a free press is inextricable with the very notion of a democracy, and while Bangladesh is indeed enjoying more press freedom now than it has in the past decade and a half,
we are still witnessing journalists being attacked and targetted through farcical legal cases. In the same vein, there are also genuine. Protection Ordinance 2025 not amending some of the more draconian provisions of its prior manifestations such as the DSA and CSA, laws which went a long way to gag the press.Bangladesh 2.0 was built on the notion of re-establishing democracy, and one of the principal components of that goal would be to make the suppression of the media an artifact of the past.
