Writers muzzled by Bangladesh's censorship

Muslims visit a stall at Amor Ekushey Book Fair in Dhaka on Feb. 19. The Supreme Court has banned two books and ordered their removal from the fair on grounds of hurting religious feelings. (Photo: Stephan Uttom/UCA News

Bangladesh's top court has banned two books by an atheist blogger for allegedly hurting religious sentiments in the Muslim-majority country that has seen a deadly rise of radicalism and brutal murders of bloggers and free thinkers in recent times.

The Supreme Court banned two books — Dia Arefin and Grandmother's Dictum — written by Darais Arag, an atheist blogger, on Feb. 26 and ordered them to be removed from Amor Ekushey Boilmela, the country's largest annual book fair.

The court also ordered Bangla Academy, the organizer of the book fair, to cancel the stall of Sristhighar, the publisher of the books.

The order was in response to a petition filed by lawyer Azharullah Bhuiyan. "The contents of both the books hurt religious beliefs and an individual's choice of clothing. The contents could incite communal riots in the country," Bhuiyan told journalists.

Officials of Bangla Academy, the state-run autonomous body for promotion of Bangla language, literature and culture, said the books had already been removed after they found "objectionable materials." They added that Sristhighar was not allocated a stall and they stopped the illegal selling of the books from other stalls.

The court decision has not gone down well with supporters of free speech.

Bullying Bangladesh govt clamping down on free speech

Bangladeshi activists shout slogans as they march in the street protesting the deaths of secular publishers and bloggers, in Dhaka, in this file photo. (Photo by Munir uz Zaman/AFP)

The Arab crisis surrounding Qatar and the demands by the Saudi Arabia-led campaign to shut down its influential Al-Jazeera news agency shines a light on the growing threats against freedom of speech in the region.

David Kaye, the United Nations special rapporteur on freedom of opinion and expression, described the demand as a "blow to media pluralism" in a recent statement.

As media freedom continues to plummet in the wake of populist, authoritarian leaders in Europe and America, such as Donald Trump, Digital Content Next, an influential media alliance that includes the BBC, The Guardian, The New York Times and Washington Post, has unequivocally leaped to the defense of Al-Jazeera.

Meanwhile, in Bangladesh, a war is raging, both covertly and publicly, against free speech despite the constitution ensuring its people freedom of expression.

Attacks on media and freethinking

Increasingly arbitrary restrictions have been placed on media and written works in Bangladesh by each regime since it gained independence from Pakistan in 1971. The current austere regulations imposed by the ruling Awami League, the party that led the struggles for independence and has been in power since 2008, has surpassed those of its predecessors.

The government, led by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina came to power after a controversial election on Jan. 5, 2014 boycotted by the major opposition parties. The absence of an effective political opposition has allowed the increasingly authoritarian rulers to adopt a policy of muzzling dissent.

The state apparatus has forced several newspapers and online sites to shut down or curtail their operations, pulled the plug on two television stations, while half a dozen prominent journalists are being hounded with criminal charges.

According to Ain-O-Salish Kendra, a Dhaka-based rights organization, 117 journalists experienced abuse and harassment in 2016, including nine at the hands of government forces and 20 who faced police charges.

The Committee to Protect Journalists, meanwhile, says 21 journalists have been killed since 1992, including 16 with impunity. Horrific murders of seven secular bloggers by Islamic militants since 2013 add to the tally of egregious acts.

The combined onslaught of restrictions and attacks on freedom of speech mean Bangladesh has scored very poorly in a 2017 report by Freedom House, a U.S.-based democracy and media freedom monitor, with the status "not free" attributed to the South Asian state.

Aside from infrequent and ineffective public protests by rights groups such as Amnesty International and the Committee to Protect Journalists and Reporters Without Borders, journalists and freethinkers in Bangladesh have no good friends to defend or protect them.

Muzzling dissent and intimidation

Last year, Mahfuz Anam, editor of leading Bangladeshi English newspaper the Daily Star, came under fire from the government after he conceded in a TV interview he had published unsubstantiated reports of corruption fed by the military intelligence agency during an army-backed state of emergency, 2007-2008.

Prime Minister Hasina called for Anam's resignation, while her son called for his prosecution for treason. This encouraged Awami League activists to file 62 criminal defamation and 17 sedition cases against Anam in 53 courts across the country. The lawsuits altogether totaled over US$8 billion.

Anam was forced to move across the country to secure bail orders before the High Court ruled against the court cases.

Matiur Rahman, editor of Prothom Alo (First Light), Bangladesh's highest-selling Bengali daily, and journalists associated with the paper are currently facing court charges for criminal defamation and "hurting religious sentiments."

Many believe the ire against the country's top two newspapers is payback for criticizing the government for failing to hold free and fair elections in 2014. The two papers have experienced significant financial setbacks thanks to the government wrath.

In August 2015, the military intelligence agency reportedly ordered some 20 large companies not to advertise in the Daily Star or Prothom Alo. The ban was allegedly triggered by their respective reports on the killings of five men in the restive Chittagong Hill Tracts. They labeled the slain as "indigenous peoples" rather than "terrorists," as the army officials would have preferred.

Overnight, the papers lost 30 percent of their advertising income, putting their very existence at stake. The government and military have denied allegations of the ban order, but it continues today.

The government's actions have clearly sent a chill down the spines of the media establishment. None of their peers have dared to report on the unwritten and unlawful ban. A senior correspondent at the Daily Star recently claimed in a private meeting that the paper's reporters are "unofficially banned" from attending events with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.

Abuse of restrictive, ambiguous laws

Bangladesh has a British colonial-era 1898 code of criminal procedure in which articles 295-298 rule that anyone who offends the religious sentiment of its citizens be punished.

This law doesn't provide any clear-cut definition of religious sentiment, nor how religious sentiment can be hurt. Clearly however, it is widely abused by the state and non-state actors, including Islamic radicals, against journalists and so-called atheist bloggers to intimidate them and to force them from writing on radicalism and any cohesion between politics and religion.

Section 57 of the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Act 2013 has made it the most draconian law against freedom of speech in Bangladesh's modern history. The law makes it illegal to publish any material over the internet that would "deteriorate law and order," prejudice the image of the state or an individual or defame religion. It gives police the powers to make an arrest without a warrant, with a maximum sentencing of 14 years' jail time and a fine of 1 million taka (US$12,288).

This law has been used to harass journalists, bloggers, writers and publishers in recent years. In 2015, a disabled journalist was arrested for reporting on Hindu property-grabbing by a Muslim government minister, while four bloggers were arrested for "hurting religious sentiment."

Amid the criticism at home and abroad, the government recently decided to drop Section 57 of the ICT law. Now, activists and critics have been alarmed with the forthcoming Digital Security Act, where this repressive law is poised to make comeback in a reworded format.

Last year, the Foreign Donations (Voluntary Activities) Regulation Act 2016 was passed equivocally. It allows the NGO Bureau — a state body under the Prime Minister's Office — to suspend registration or to close an organization down if it makes any "derogatory" remarks about the constitution or "constitutional bodies," which includes the parliament, the election commission, the comptroller and auditor general, the attorney general's office, the public service commission and the judiciary.

Critics say the law is aimed at silencing outspoken non-government agencies that press government to check on corruption, to ensure good governance and human rights.

While Islamic militants targeted secular bloggers and writers for their criticisms of religious malpractices, especially of Islam, the government didn't stand beside them. Instead, the prime minister and police chief publicly admonished the writers for crossing a line.

Amidst a dark atmosphere and death threats, more than a dozen bloggers and freethinkers have fled the country and settled in Europe and America. Those who couldn't leave have employed self-censorship in their writings and continue to maintain a low profile.

A blow to democracy and development

Bangladesh had endured 15 years of military rule before 1990. Yet, the country made significant strides in socio-economic development over recent decades, including almost self-sufficient food production, poverty reduction, lowering maternal and infant mortality, and almost 100 percent primary school enrollment.

A big credit for these advancements goes to a vibrant media, the tireless activities of development groups and critical appraisal by civil society groups. Despite the dirty-rotten, blood-feuding politics between the two major political parties, the fledgling democracy has thrived thanks to public support for free speech and media freedom.

Thus, the growing threat to free speech, from both the state and non-state actors, undermines Bangladesh's democratization and development progress. Bangladesh needs to wake up and the international community must act on restoring free speech before it's too late.

END

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Bangladesh's existential threat

Until a few years ago, people in Bangladesh used to exhale a sigh of relief whenever there were tragic events of violent extremism in Pakistan or Afghanistan.

They took pride in defining themselves against a country they considered full of religious bigots responsible for carrying out bloody attacks on minorities and brave citizens who oppose extremism.

They felt satisfied that their forefathers had parted ways with Pakistan to make way for an independent Bangladesh through the 1971 war.

In recent times, this sense of relief, pride and satisfaction has been fading fast with a gradual rise of religious intolerance and extremism in the country.

Since 2013, Bangladesh has seen seven secular bloggers, writers and publishers brutally murdered, allegedly by Islamist militants, including four bloggers and one publisher this year alone. Only one blogger narrowly escaped death. Their writings and publications were critical of religion and the political use of religion, especially Islam.

By the time Bangladesh was reeling from the killings of an Italian aid worker and a Japanese man in September and October, alleged jihadists bombed a Shiite festival in Dhaka, killing two and injuring dozens on Oct. 24.

In the latest episode, two groups of attackers entered two publishing houses in Dhaka and hacked two publishers and two writers with machetes and cleavers on Oct. 31. Faisal Arefin Dipan, owner of Jagriti Prokashony, died of his wounds inside the locked office, while Ahmedur Rashid Tutul, owner of Suddhaswar, and his two writer friends were critically wounded.

Dipan and Tutul had earlier printed books by U.S.-based Bangladeshi blogger and science writer Avijit Roy, hacked to death on the streets of Dhaka in February, allegedly by militants.

In March 2014, a popular Bangladesh online bookstore had stopped selling Roy's books after a local Islamist extremist issued death threats to its owner.

Ansarullah Bangla Team, a banned local militant outfit, presumably linked to al-Qaida on the Indian subcontinent, claimed responsibility for attacks on bloggers and publishers. The Islamic State jihadist group has taken credit for the killings of the two foreigners and for bombing the Shia festival.

In September, Ansarullah Bangla Team published a hit list of 20 Bangladeshi bloggers based in the United States and Europe. Some of these bloggers have dual citizenship; some of them fled the country during the past two years after death threats.

Fearing extremist attacks, several prominent writers and bloggers have already withdrawn from critical writings; many have taken measures to ensure security in their public life.

 A grave threat

The persecution of freethinkers in Bangladesh is not without precedence.

In 1994, radical Islamists issued death threats to Taslima Nasrin, a prominent female writer, for her writings on feminism and criticism of religion. She has been living in exile ever since. 

In 2004, Humayun Azad, a renowned linguist and author, escaped a brutal assassination attempt in Dhaka, after he wrote a political satire that criticizes the political use of Islam. Azad later died in his sleep during a trip to Germany, largely due to trauma over the attack.

In 2013, Hefazat-e-Islam, a radical Islamic group, published a list of 84 secular bloggers and marched in Dhaka demanding the execution of atheist bloggers and the installation of a blasphemy law. The group is allegedly linked to country's largest radical Islamic party Jamaat-e-Islami, whose entire leadership is being prosecuted for war crimes during Bangladesh's liberation war.

Jamaat opposed Bangladesh's independence. It stands accused of helping the Pakistan army in the torture and massacre of pro-independence people, including some 200 Bengali intellectuals during the war.

Many believe that Jamaat has sponsored Hefazat-e-Islam to hunt the bloggers, who were at the forefront of organizing a massive rally called the "Shahbag movement" for the trial and execution of all war criminals.

Whether the attackers of freethinkers have their base in international jihadist groups like al-Qaida or the Islamic State, or in local Islamic political parties, they pose a grave threat to Bangladesh's existence.

Recently, there has been a growing dispute between Western intelligence services and Bangladesh's government over who is responsible for the recent spate of attacks. Foreign intelligence services claim they have passed credible information to the government on the activities of the Islamic State jihadist group. But the government has repeatedly refused the claim and stressed that the attacks came from within — from extremists allied with opposition political parties.

Frustratingly, the government has failed to prove opposition links to extremist violence and refused to consider alternative explanations linking international terror groups.

Most apathetically, the home minister called the recent attacks "isolated incidents" that could happen anywhere in the world. Earlier, the police chief admonished bloggers for their writings and warned them not to "cross the line."

Emboldening extremism

Ironically, the deceased freethinkers have been largely supportive of the so-called secular ruling Awami League government that led the country during the independence struggles.

The government has failed to conduct a proper probe, and to deliver justice for bloggers, which ultimately emboldens the extremists. Moreover, it has refrained from taking the side of bloggers publicly, and didn't do enough to protect them.

Freethinkers are the architects of a nation; they are revered and loved for their contributions. Sadly, a nation that was born with the guiding light of freethinkers, through the independence war in 1971, is collectively failing to protect them from the onslaught of persecution. Everyone including the government, civil society and common people must take blame for this failure.

Apart from an end to socioeconomic oppression, Bangladesh's independence was a victory for a moderate form of Islam practiced by the majority of Muslims in this part of the world.

The country's founding fathers inserted secularism and freedom of thought as key principles of the constitution, in order to make Bangladesh a true democracy with respect for a multitude of religions, ethnicities and differences of opinion. Due to the bitter experience with Pakistan, the country's founders banned religion-based politics, constitutionally.

The march toward a secular, democratic society was halted with the assassination of the country's founding leader, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, in a 1975 military coup and the subsequent military rule of the next 15 years, which led to a revival of Islamic parties and religion-based politics.

Democracy was restored in the early 1990s, but the influence of Islamists continued, which ultimately gave birth to several homegrown militant outfits since 2000 that were responsible for attacking anything they deemed un-Islamic.

The government has struggled to contain these jihadists, who aim to make Bangladesh an Islamic state.

As the attacks on freethinkers continue, a climate of fear and insecurity has gripped people. They now question whether they are still the proud citizens of a country that has a long history of tolerance and religious harmony. They wonder if the country is still committed to its founding principles of secularism and freedom of thought.

Despite being a Muslim-majority country, a strong sense of nationalism based on culture, rational thinking, religious and ethnic diversity has been a core value of Bangladesh.

The extremists are out on the streets to wipe out rationalist freethinkers in order to pave the way for an Islamic state. If the government fails to stop this rising tide of intolerance and extremism, a similar fate could await Bangladesh as what is being seen in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Middle East countries.

No doubt, Bangladesh is at an identity crisis. As freethinkers bemoan the loss of their space in society and the pen's diminished power amid the preying of machete-wielding extremists, a disaster is looming for Bangladesh.

If Bangladesh fails to protect freethinkers from intolerance and extremists, the nation will be devoured from within by radicals, and ultimately fall apart.

END

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A battle for the soul of Bangladesh

Religion and nationalism are locked in a bloody battle for primacy in Bangladesh

Bangladesh is going through turbulent times.

It can partly be blamed on the ongoing political struggle between the main political rivals, the ruling Awami League and the opposition alliance led by the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP). As national elections loom, this impasse has sparked a series of bloody street clashes.

But as well as the usual party political friction, there is also a war of ideology sweeping through the nation between radical Islamists and secularists. It’s a question of primacy: which should come first, religion or nation?

Last weekend, radicals from the Hifazat-e-Islam group marched en masse through Dhaka to parade their staunchly Islamic 13-point agenda.

It includes the death penalty for bloggers who defame Islam and the Prophet Mohammed. They also want an anti-blasphemy law, a mandatory Islamic education system, exclusion of members of the Ahmadi sect from the Muslim faith, abolition of a pro-women development policy and the restoration of a pledge to Allah in the constitution.

It’s a manifesto that would make the country a fully fledged Islamic state, perhaps even a Taliban state.

On Monday, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said 'no' to their demand for a blasphemy law. This, unsurprisingly, led to another round of violent clashes and wildcat strikes.

The sworn opponents of the Islamic radicals comprise activists, progressives and secular groups. This loosely connected coalition, which has attracted attention from the international press and garnered massive public support, is no less trenchant in its views or pugnacious in its demands.

It called loudly for the death penalty for those found guilty in the recent war crimes tribunals, most of whom are leaders of Jamaat-e-Islami, the country’s largest Islamic political party, It also wants confiscation of Jamaat-owned institutions and a ban on Jamaat and religion-based politics.

Its advocates will tell you the nation has suffered repression and victimization in the name of religion for far too long, from the orthodox Hindu Sena era a millennium ago to the effective rule of pro-Islamist West Pakistan in the mid-20^th century.

They will also tell you that Jamaat and its forebears historically supported attacks on Bengali culture and nationalism in the name of Islam; that they sided with the Pakistan army during the 1971 war of independence; and that they have consistently persecuted religious minorities and even moderate Muslims.

Yet although these radical Islamists only represent around 5 percent of the population, their medieval ideologies continue to torment Bangladesh.

And even though the majority of people dislike the country’s dysfunctional political culture, it seems we just can’t get rid of it.

Which brings us back to the endless wrangles between the major political parties – the Awami League, the BNP and the others. For the sake of winning a vote, they will claim to be both nationalist and/or religious – whichever they think people want to hear at the time – although of course they are neither. They are just opportunist politicians who trade on nationalism and religion for personal gain.

Tragically, the history of Bangladesh is littered with monumental blunders; the British partition of India and Pakistan on religious grounds was possibly the biggest of them all. It’s a pity those reactionary forces that still hold us to ransom don’t seem to have learned a thing from those blunders.

The Third Eye is the pseudonym of a commentator based in Dhaka

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