Bangladesh’s necessary opposition social gathering calls media ‘biased’ after drawing flak for assault on scribes

Days after the assault incident at an Iftar social gathering, BNP’s secretary widespread Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir accused the media of “toeing the government line”.

Journalists had been assaulted by activists of BNP’s affiliated our our bodies at an Iftar social gathering in Dhaka not too way back.

By Sahidul Hasan Khokon: The Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) has drawn sharp criticism after its youth entrance activists not too way back assaulted journalists on the social gathering’s private Iftar social gathering in Dhaka. Days after the incident, the social gathering’s secretary widespread Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir accused the media of “toeing the government line”.

“The government is controlling media outlets and influencing them,” Fakhrul was quoted as saying by television channels.

Last week, a minimal of three journalists had been injured as activists of BNP’s affiliated our our bodies assaulted private television channel journalists, drawing widespread condemnation from senior scribes on social media. Fakhrul known as the attackers “AL (Awami League) intruders at the event”.

On a separate converse current, one different BNP prime chief, Nilufar Chowdhury Moni, launched a scathing assault on journalists. She dubbed the journalists “biased”.

“Not a single journalist is objective and independent,” talked about Nilufar, with out offering any apology for the assault on journalists by her private social gathering cadres.

This shows the social gathering’s sheer disregard for freedom of the press, researchers talked about. Observers talked about the portrayal of journalists in poor mild and allegations made in the direction of them was a conventional case of the social gathering’s double regular given its prolonged file of defending assaults on journalists.

The BNP has suspended three activists, which observers contemplate is solely an attempt at an “image makeover”. In the earlier, comparable bulletins rang gap as such suspended activists had been reportedly allotted larger rank and file inside the social gathering months later, they recognized.

Fakhrul and Moni’s allegations in the direction of the media come correct after the media retailers carried a report on how BNP’s showing chief Tarique Rahman, now fundamental a fugitive life in London, colluded with dreaded Pakistan-based terror group chief and now proscribed Northeast insurgent chief Paresh Barua to convey 10 truckloads of arms to Bangladesh in 2004.

On April 1, citing investigations by Bangladesh authorities and Indian security officers, loads of mainstream media retailers reported that every the phobia leaders had been roaming scot free inside the nation, having gotten patronage from prime intelligence officers.

Fakhrul’s latest allegation that the press is “controlled by AL” follows a menace he had issued to journalists asking them to refrain from reporting on Tarique’s reported “flagrant corruption”.

An alarming pattern is perhaps current in BNP-Jamaat’s technique in path of the press, as a result of the social gathering stalwarts went gaga over press freedom sooner than western diplomats, conveniently ignoring the social gathering’s dismal file of issuing such verbal threats to journalists frequently, and assaulting people who had been vocal of state-sponsored rise of militancy reportedly on the behest of Tarique over the previous regime of BNP-Jamaat combine, observers underlined.

“You should not write anything against our leader. Rather you should only toe the line with the narrative we build surrounding our leadership…,” that’s how Fakhrul lashed out on the media in January at a press conference, attacking the nation’s fundamental television channel for carrying in depth evaluation on the alleged money laundering by Tarique.

Reacting sharply to Fakhrul’s assertion, Ajoy Das Gupta, a senior journalist, talked about, “The BNP’s hue and cry about press freedom is like shedding crocodile’s tearsâ€æ A free press should be encouraged to expose faultlines that party stalwarts like Fakhrul and his boss Tarique desperately try to hide from public domain and also hold the government accountable by giving voice to voiceless.”

“Beating up journalists and calling the media outlets ‘AL stooges’ expose the desperate BNP’s effort to mount pressure on the press and asking the media to toe the line with the diktat Fakhrul issued just two months back — no adverse reportage on the party top boss,” he added.

In newest events, a minimal of three conditions have been reported the place members of the BNP- Jamaat combine snatched and damaged cameras of mediamen and thrashed journalists.

The last tenure of the BNP-Jamaat combine observed ruthless killings of “secular and progressive” journalists, carried out by their cadres, all through the nation.

BBC stringer Manik Saha was brutally killed in broad daylight in Khulna, as had been a lot of completely different scribes by militants, who reportedly cherished the backing of the then BNP-Jamaat led alliance.

The murder of journalists befell alongside a advertising and marketing marketing campaign in the direction of Awami League leaders that culminated in a grenade assault on August 21, 2004 on an AL rally addressed by Sheikh Hasina.

Moreover, direct backing of Tarique was reported broadly by way of the BNP-Jamaat regime when militancy reared its ugly head. Leading analyst Bertil Lintner described Bangladesh as “a cocoon of terror” inside the Far Eastern Economic Review, printed on April 4, 2002. Elisa Griswold predicted an Afghan-style Islamist revolution inside the article ‘The Next Islamist Revolution?’ printed in The New York Times on January 23, 2005.

Edited By:

Tirtho Banerjee

Published On:

Apr 4, 2023