An assault on the press enabled by inaction

According to the interim government’s chief adviser, Muhammad Yunus, “a few fringe elements” were enough to push Bangladesh towards the precipice. He “strongly and unequivocally condemns all acts of violence.” We thank him for preventing the country from being plunged into the abyss by the sheer force of these bold words. Spare a thought for his press secretary, though. Shafiqul Alam wants to “bury [himself] in shame” because he and his boss have to begrudgingly refer to their friendly neighbourhood pressure groups as mobs capable of — suspend your disbelief — violence.

The printing press and offices of The Daily Star – inhabited by dozens of employees working late – and Prothom Alo, and Chhayanaut were destroyed by a string of meticulously planned and co-ordinated violent attacks from the night of December 18th until the early hours of December 19th. The attackers obstructed rescue efforts on the scene. When New Age editor Nurul Kabir tried to intervene outside The Daily Star’s office, he was verbally and physically assaulted. For one hour, Yunus’ office, whose overactive press wing ordinarily floods the digital airwaves with a non-stop stream of paeans to him, remained uncharacteristically silent. By Alam’s own admission, during this time, a rudderless interim government belatedly tried to “mobilise help” via “phone calls to the right people”.

Such an impassioned plea does not pass muster when Islamists have publicly been discussing their plans for days, going so far as to identify the moment Sharif Osman bin Hadi dies as the signal for them to launch their offensive. On the day itself, known far right mouthpieces operating from the foreign safe havens of the US and France, assisted by their counterparts inside the country, instigated and directed the violence, while perpetrators gave blow-by-blow accounts in real time.

Even these are not extraordinary occurrences. During the Yunus government’s tenure, these same bad faith actors have spewed vitriol with impunity, inciting violent mobs against the historically significant House No. 32 in Dhanmondi, residences, shrines, mausoleums and graves. In fact, the two largest circulating newspapers in English and Bengali respectively, have been targeted by these forces before. As was the perimeter of Jamuna, Yunus’ official residence, where they were led in prayer by Al Qaeda ideologue Jasimuddin Rahmani, for the Awami League to be banned.

To be fair to the interim government, the chief adviser’s press wing worked overtime to compose milquetoast statements following every act of violence. Greater transparency about the identity of “the right people” who have Yunus’ ear, would go some way towards learning who else is responsible for the rote ineptitude, incompetence, and ineffectiveness of this government. Unless Yunus’ much-vaunted reform agenda was designed to midwife far right extremism on a wounded nation when it is most vulnerable — in which case the interim government has been a resounding success.

Home affairs adviser, Md. Jahangir Alam Chowdhury, and the country’s first national security adviser, Khalilur Rahman, have been stealing a living at the taxpayers’ expense to oversee, if not mastermind security matters. In the last week alone, they failed at every step of the attack on prospective election candidate Hadi — a brutality instigated and orchestrated by members of the Awami League in India, carried out in Bangladesh, only for the attackers to flee to India. For their encore, the prized pair allowed the pre-meditated use of that assassination as a pretext by Islamists – instigated and orchestrated from abroad – to violently attack freedoms in Bangladesh, for the perpetrators to merely be “strongly and unequivocally condemned”.

The state knew what would happen, when and where it would happen, and who would make it happen. Yet, it did nothing to stop it. The consequences of emboldening criminality have been felt within 24 hours: the Udichi office was set ablaze in the evening on December 19th. If the feckless Yunus government is to have a shred of authority and integrity, it needs to overcome its practiced inaction and dismiss Chowdhury and Rahman immediately. Its hollow words are only perpetuating the longstanding plagues of poor governance and lack of accountability in government. Abdicating responsibility yet again by speaking without acting will raise serious questions about this interim government’s ability to oversee a crucial general election. “Condemn” sounds like “condone” on its lips.●