Violent threats against Bangladesh protesters went unchecked on Facebook

Before they descended on protesting students, some Awami League supporters in Bangladesh took to Facebook, urging “burst firing” at the demonstrators, crushing them like insects, hacking them to death, and even burying them alive.

Netra News identified at least a dozen public posts and comments where apparent Awami League supporters explicitly called for violence against protesting students. We also interviewed users who said they reported these posts, a step that should have triggered human review, but some of the content still remained online.

Facebook took days, if they detected them at all, to identify these clear incitements to violence, likely because the posters used highly localised language and character symbols between letters to evade automated detection.

After Netra News published this story, some of the previously accessible posts we shared with Meta now appear to have been taken down.

Rakib Sarker, a seemingly Awami League supporter, shared a video of a party rally against protesters with the caption, “Catch the Razakars and crush them [like insects] underfoot,” using a colloquial term to refer to “traitors.”

In another instance, Sarker commented on a pro-Awami League blogger’s post, stating, “Believe me, I still feel like getting into their procession, closing my eyes, and using burst fire to lay them all to rest forever.”

Sultan Mohammed Zakaria, a PhD scholar at the University of Wisconsin and former Amnesty researcher in Bangladesh, linked these Facebook posts with earlier public incitement made by senior government officials.

“For example, on July 15, the secretary general of the ruling party issued a stern warning to protesters, allegedly instructing the party’s de facto para-militia group, the Chhatra League, to take action against them,” he said, referring to comments made by Obaidul Quader, a senior party leader.

“Similar threats have also appeared on various social media accounts associated with the ruling party and its leadership in recent days.”

The Chhatra League, the student wing of the Awami League, has a history of employing violent tactics against their political opponents and has been implicated in widespread violence against student protesters during the latest round of protests. Netra News confirmed the deaths of at least 26 people on July 18th alone, and 48 people in total, after security forces and Chhatra League activists attacked protesters.

“Catch the descendants of the Pathans and slaughter them,” a pro-Awami League user on Facebook

In response to the spread of evocative footage and photos of the protests, authorities disabled access to Facebook and other websites in Bangladesh. As users resorted to VPNs to continue accessing these sites, the government moved to shut down internet access entirely, disrupting both cellular and landline phone services.

Netra News understands that Facebook has been in contact with Zunaid Ahmed Palak, a state minister for information technology, who demanded the removal of posts featuring footage and photos of police brutality to reverse the government’s shutdown order, according to a source with direct knowledge of the communication.

‘Bury them in graves’

Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina had earlier compared the protesting students to Razakars, local collaborators with the Pakistani military during the country’s independence war in 1971, due to their demands to repeal preferential treatment for descendants of controversially registered “freedom fighters.”

Her comments have sparked widespread anger and are believed to have escalated tensions, and her supporters appear to have taken cues from her speeches.

“Catch the descendants of the Pathans and slaughter them,” a user called AR Anam wrote in a still-accessible post, using a euphemism for the Pakistani military to refer to protesters.

Kamruzzaman Roni, a self-described activist of the Chhatra League, posted, “Catch the traitor collaborators and bury them in graves on the streets today.”

While some posts, such as Roni’s previously accessed and archived by Netra News, are now inaccessible, it is unclear whether that’s because Facebook removed them or because the users made their accounts private.

Chowdhury Anm Nokib Ashraf, another user affiliated with the ruling party, wrote multiple posts calling for open violence, including “burst fire” at protesters.

He even requested to allow himself to “wield weapons” to “clear” the protesters.

Some posts used “brush fire” colloquially to mean “burst fire,” Zakaria noted.

“It refers to ‘burst fire,’ which involves firing multiple bullets from an automatic weapon in a continuous discharge,” he explained. “In Bangladesh, ‘brush fire’ is often used to describe such rapid firing, though it means something different in English.”

Ashraf's posts garnered thousands of reactions and are estimated to have reached many more before his account became inaccessible.

Netra News understands the posts were not removed through standard reporting or detection mechanisms but only after individuals with direct contact with Facebook teams alerted them.

Some users used highly contextual language to evade Facebook’s detection. For instance, one user called for “egg therapy” — a euphemism for rectal feeding, a widely used torture method employed by police — on protesters.

This comment, made by a user called Shahariar Hasan, was still accessible.

[The post was updated at 6:11 PM Sweden time to note that Facebook appears to have taken down some previously accessible posts after our story was published.]●