Photojournalists stage a demonstration demanding the safe return of Shafiqul Islam Kajol, in front of the National Museum in Dhaka, on March 18, 2020. PHOTO: COLLECTED

By Sushmita S. Preetha
Mar 23 2020 (IPS-Partners)

A barrage of fireworks light up the smoggy skies of Dhaka and I feel as if I’m in the opening scenes of a dystopian film.

There’s anxiety and despair all around about what’s to come—those who have been following the developments in other parts of the world know there’s no way to avoid the impending crisis in our healthcare system as it scrambles, without any preparation, to tackle what may soon become a tsunami of patients showcasing symptoms of the coronavirus. The streets are uncharacteristically empty, and the rickshaw puller, for whom self-quarantine would mean the loss of his daily wages on which his family of five depend, asks me if I know how much these pyrotechnics cost.

Our conversation is silenced by the loud explosions. Yes, I remind myself, celebrations must go on—priorities are priorities, after all—and I know better than to mention the unmentionable, even in a private conversation with a rickshaw puller, even on social media and particularly in opinion pieces published in The Daily Star. The nagging thought that I’m trapped in a dystopia returns as, with each firework that sounds like a gunshot, my mind finds itself ruminating over the fate of photojournalist Shafiqul Islam Kajol, who has been missing since March 10, 2020. The coronavirus crisis and the resultant chaos and mismanagement have understandably taken over the news, and while we worry about what will happen to our loved ones if the virus spreads beyond control, Shafiqul’s son has been living an unimaginable nightmare of his own, not knowing where his father is and whether he is still alive.

Kajol is the editor of a fortnightly magazine called Pakkhakal, with past experience in working as a photojournalist with Dainik Samakal and Banik Barta. He “disappeared” a day after a case was filed against him and 31 others, including the editor-in-chief of daily Manabzamin, under the Digital Security Act by lawmaker Shifuzzaman Shikhor, a former aide to the prime minister. They were accused of “deteriorating the law and order” by publishing a report with “false information” and circulating it on social media.

The report in question, published in Manabzamin, simply stated that Jubo Mohila League leader Shamima Nur Papia, during police interrogation, had shared the names of 30 MPs, bureaucrats and businessmen who used to frequent her prostitution and extortion racket. The report itself did not name any of these lawmakers and others, but it was later shared by some, including Shafiqul, on social media with a list of names.

Shafiqul was last seen at his office in Hatirpul at 6:51 pm on March 10. A CCTV footage from outside his office, verified and shared by the Amnesty International, on March 22, shows several unidentified men keeping a track on his motorbike for at least three hours before he was last seen. Between 5:59 pm and 6:05 pm, three men are seen approaching his motorbike separately and meddling with it. At 6:19 pm, Shafiqul walks out of his office with another person but does not take his bike with him. He comes back alone after a while and leaves the area on his bike at exactly 6:51 pm.

Mysteriously, following his disappearance, his Facebook posts from this year have also disappeared. In fact, the last post that can still be accessed on his page dates back to November 27, 2019. According to a report by Prothom Alo, many of the missing posts involved the arrest of Jubo Mohila League leader Shamima Nur Papia. The report further added that Shafiqul was known to be on good terms with many activists and leaders of Jubo Mohila League (Prothom Alo, March 17).

Shafiqul’s son, Monorom Polok, claims that he collected his father’s call list from Grameenphone, according to which, Shafiqul spoke to two Jubo Mohila League leaders shortly before he disappeared. One of these two women told Prothom Alo that she had spoken to Shafiqul at 6:30 pm about where he was and when he would return, and about setting up a time to meet to discuss his latest Facebook posts. The second woman on his call list denied speaking to Shafiqul but admitted that she had sent him a text and that she, too, had wanted to meet to talk about his social media posts.

For almost a week, Shafiqul’s family pleaded with the police to file an abduction case, but both the Chawkbazar and New Market police stations refused to take the case, each insisting it fell under the other’s jurisdiction. The case was finally lodged with the Chawkbazar police station on March 18 following a suo moto move from the High Court asking the police why it had not filed a case yet.

Why was there such a delay in filing a case? It would be easy enough to dismiss it as bureaucratic ineptitude of our law enforcement agencies, but was there something more sinister in the reluctance of law enforcers to file and pursue the case? When there is a CCTV footage that clearly identifies men who were following Shafiqul and tampering with his motorbike, why hasn’t the police been able to apprehend them yet—in the 12 days he has been missing (as of this article going to print)? Why is Shafiqul’s son having to collect call lists when it’s the police who should be following leads and questioning all those who may have crucial information on Shafiqul since they were the last to speak to him?

It’s ironic that our law enforcers can go to any lengths when they have to track down a dissident using their sophisticated surveillance mechanisms but cannot bring themselves to track a missing person, even when there is a CCTV footage identifying the suspects!

Where did Shafiqul go? What could have happened to him? No one claims to know anything, but if what happened to Bangla Tribune correspondent Ariful Islam is an indication of how journalists who ruffle the feathers of the political elite are treated, we have reasons to be deeply worried. On March 14, Ariful was dragged from his home in the middle of the night, beaten, stripped and threatened with “crossfire” by Senior Assistant Commissioner (RDC) Nazim Uddin and two magistrates as part of a mobile court raid (which was later declared “illegal” by Kurigram municipality mayor Abdul Jalil, following widespread criticism). It is now clear that Ariful was targeted for his investigative reports about the activities of Kurigram Deputy Commissioner (DC) Sultana Pervin. As he was being humiliated and tortured, Nazim told him, “So, you are a journalist! We will teach you what journalism is, you dared to write against our DC”—and “You will be put in a crossfire. Your time is up. Recite the kalima.”

Ariful’s description of that night is chilling, to say the least, and offers a window into those unknown, untold stories of men disappearing into the night only to appear—if they appear at all—as dead bodies in so-called shootouts or after “falling ill” while in custody, with some rare exceptions. Ariful is no doubt lucky that his story was picked up by the media right away and that he had the backing of a powerful media outlet, which protected him from further harassment and mistreatment.

But what about those who aren’t so fortunate, those like… Shafiqul?

That freedom of expression is no longer an inalienable right in Bangladesh is not breaking news. According to Article 19, a UK-based human rights organisation, in February 2020 alone, there were at least 50 incidents of violations of freedom of expression—four involved serious bodily injuries, nine assaults, one abduction, five destruction of equipment, two defamation cases and one involved gender-based violence. Despite widespread criticism of the Digital Security Act which essentially authorises state agencies to pick up whoever they want without so much as a warrant or approval of any authorities, under various vague and misleading sections of the law, more than 1,000 cases have been filed under the Act since October 2018—sometimes for as little as disapproval of government decisions on social media. The systematic way in which freedom of expression has been, and continues to be, throttled has created an environment of fear, uncertainty and self-censorship which has caused irreparable damage to the democratic fabric of this country. The disappearance of Shafiqul Islam is one more nail in the coffin of the free press.

And so you and I keep silent in a cowardly bid to protect ourselves from the virus that has seeped deep into our psyche and political systems. As for a dystopian future, haven’t we been living in one for a long time anyway?

Sushmita S Preetha is a journalist and researcher.

This story was originally published by The Daily Star, Bangladesh

The word “development” – eliciting as it does grandiloquent notions of progress – has become, at least in Bangladesh, something of a red herring. It is used as a catch-all phrase to justify just about anything — from eviction of slum-dwellers to make way for high-rise housing projects to forceful grabbing of ancestral lands to build eco-parks and tourism spots, from rampant deforestation of our woodlands to unapologetic pollution of our rivers, from undemocratic and top-down imposition of anti-people projects to suppression of dissent through violence both sponsored or otherwise. It matters little that such so-called development only exacerbates the extreme vulnerabilities of people already on the margins, destroys scarce natural resources and intensifies the ever-widening gap between the haves and the have-nots; that it does precisely the opposite of what “development”—real, pro-people development—ought to do. If one protests these actions as unjust, undemocratic or inequitable, one can be easily dismissed as being “anti-development”, and by extension, “unpatriotic”, making it ever more difficult to have any sort of constructive conversation about Bangladesh’s development priorities (or the lack thereof).

And, thus, in the name of “development”, we are now witnessing an unprecedented attack on one of our most valuable natural resources, the Sundarbans. (I say unprecedented not because other regimes have not tried to sell off our natural resources to multinational corporations at a fraction of the real cost to the country, but because no prior case has involved as ecologically sensitive an area as the Sundarbans.)If development was the real goal of the construction of the Rampal power plant, if people were the focus of this intervention, why would the government displace thousands of people from their homesteads without so much as following the proper rehabilitation procedures? Why would they jeopardise, in one broad stroke, an entire ecosystem of the world’s largest mangrove forest, and the source of livelihood of around 40 lakh people? Why would they discount the grave ecological danger of the construction of this coal power plant, when national and international environmental experts, including Unesco and Ramsar (“Protecting the Sundarbans is our national duty”, TDS, March 22, 2016), have made it abundantly clear that this would be nothing less than a suicidal move for Bangladesh? Why would they risk our national heritage without even conducting a fair, independent and scientific Environmental Impact Assessment (for a more comprehensive criticism of the current EIA, please refer to “Sundarbans under Threat,” TDS July 25, 2016)?

What gives a government the power to be so reckless when they are not the owners, but rather the guardians, on behalf of the people, of Bangladesh’s natural resources?

For those who consider “environment” to be a “soft” issue that has no place in the more “grave” and “grown-up” discussions on development, let’s talk economics. Let’s talk about the fact that three French banks and two Norwegian pension funds pulled out their investment last year from the Rampal power plant because the “failure to comply with minimum social and environmental standards and the corresponding financial risks made the project a clear ‘no-go’ for financial institutions.” Let’s talk about the economic reality that Bangladesh will be financially responsible for 85 percent of the project, even though Bangladesh and India are supposed to be 50:50 partners. Let’s talk about fact that, as per a comprehensive report by the US-based Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA), which conducts research and analyses on financial and economic issues related to energy and the environment, the plant will actually lead to higher electricity rates in Bangladesh. Published in June 2016, the report says: “The revenue requirements of the Rampal plant would require tariff levels that are 32 percent higher than the current average cost of electricity production in Bangladesh and will therefore increase electricity rates in Bangladesh. Without subsidies, the plant’s generation costs are 62 percent higher than the current average cost of electricity production in Bangladesh.” The true cost of the plant, it adds, is being hidden by three subsidies worth more than US $3 billion.

That the Indian government would want to pursue this case, at only a fraction of the cost and risk associated with Bangladesh, is obvious enough. IEEFA suspects “that the project is being promoted as a means to sell Indian coal to Bangladesh and as a way to skirt Indian policy against building a coal plant so near the Sundarbans, a protected forest and World Heritage Site.” But we are at a complete loss to understand what possible economic benefit there could be to Bangladesh pursuing a project that has been deemed financially unviable by major international financial and research institutes. We respectfully ask the government to explain to its people the cost-benefit analysis on the basis of which it is so eagerly risking the world’s largest mangrove forest, home of the Bengal Tigers, and a forest that saves us from natural disasters by providing a barrier to storms.

While we understand the need to generate power, and applaud the government for its crucial role inmitigating Bangladesh’s energy crisis, we cannot comprehend why the government is remaining oblivious to what has now become a slogan for the anti-Rampal movement: “There are many alternatives to generating electricity, but no alternative to the Sundarbans”. The National Committee to Protect Oil-Gas-Mineral Resources, Port and Power (NCBD), which consists of engineers, energy experts, activists and environmentalists, have proposed alternative strategies for generating electricity without jeopardising the environment and people’s lives and livelihoods. Rather than engage with such groups and explore sustainable solutions for a greener Bangladesh, the government has thus far not only chosen to ignore their repeated pleas to relocate the plant, but actually responded to oppositionto the Rampal project with barricades, batons, tear shells and arbitrary arrests.

Are we to deduce, from its reaction to the mass demonstration on July 28, 2016, that violence is the only language the state understands best, or at any rate, the only language it is willing to deploy to suppress its critics? The space for democratic expression has shrunk so much so that it seems naïve to decry the violation of our constitutional rights. The arbitrary arrests of unarmed protestors, and indiscriminate beating and use of tear gas, resulting in injuries to at least 50 demonstrators, is just another “day-in-the-life-of” example in a woefully long list of attempts to suppress people’s voices against harmful development projects through force, rather than productive dialogue.

It angers me, frustrates me, but mostly, scares me that the government feels that it has the power to do anything it wants – no matter the facts, no matter the consequences – and that it considers itself above and beyond all accountability to the people. As we remain distracted with our daily lives, horrific news of terror attacks and new fads on the internet, the government acts and plans in the shadows of neoliberalism, knowing fully well that the masses, at the end of the day, are too apathetic to take to the streets to demand a greener, more sustainable future, to claim from the government what is their right.

We must, for our sake, prove the ‘power’ wrong. We must shake off our cocoon of complicity, and ask ourselves why we cannot fight to protect our environment, the livelihood of lakhs of people and the Tigers of the Sundarbans with the same passion as we take to the streets to celebrate the Tigers’ win in a cricket match; why we remain unmoved to act, content to play the part of a fool chasing after a Pokemon as the cries of the dolphins and deer of the Sundarbans fall on our deaf ears (there are headphones to block off the reality, after all). We must act, and we must act NOW, if we are to have any chance of preserving the Bangladesh that we recognise and love. The only power we need, after all, is power to the people to decide its development priorities.

The writer is a rights activist and freelance journalist.

This story was originally published by The Daily Star, Bangladesh

Does our democracy bleed when 12 people are killed in just one phase of UP elections? Does it reek of half-rotten flesh of the masses, of mouldy dreams and broken promises? Does it feel ashamed, weary, angry, when, in its name, school children are shot dead, and youth tortured, in broad daylight, shamelessly, unapologetically, with impunity? When, in its name, more than a hundred are reportedly killed in the first four phases of UP elections, 40 of them AL activists, 12 supporters of rebel AL candidates, two BNP men, and the rest, ordinary citizens with no stake in the elections beyond that of, yes, a citizen? Does democracy cringe in humiliation when opposing candidates are prevented from filing nomination papers, ballot boxes are stuffed and voting centres taken over by force as we [continue to] sing the eulogies of a ‘free and fair’ election? Does it find itself drowning in a perplexing time warp, with the past, present and future collapsing onto each other, with history repeating itself, over and over, albeit in new(er) forms, the boundaries between heroes and enemies blurred more than ever?

ILLUSTRATION: HARIS LITHOS

The state, in the curious form it takes in the CHT, is present everywhere, yet it was ostensibly missing in action when it came to taking proactive and effective measures to tackle this near-famine in an area that it knows is prone to food crisis; what is worse, it remains, still, apathetic to the plight of the people of Thanchi, content to have sent token supplies of rice to the afflicted communities – all of which, in all likelihood, would not even reach the beneficiaries, thanks to our national tradition of corruption, irregularity and mismanagement. The food crisis and the state’s reaction to it highlights what is pretty obvious by now to those who are abreast of what goes on in the CHT – that when one talks about development, it is certainly not that of the poor, indigenous communities whose lives are more precarious than ever, with hardly any of the major pledges of the 1997 Peace Accord fulfilled. And when people resist what the government would like to wholesale, impose, or force-feed as “development”, democracy seems quite at ease to quell people’s resistances, violate pledges and dismiss the age-old demands of the adivasi communities; it sees no conflict at all with democratic principles that, in the CHT, it’s not ‘of or for the people’ but ‘of and for Bengali settlers.’

Does democracy, we wonder, suffer from an existential angst when movements, not just in the CHT but plainlands too, from Bashkhali to Rampal, from Savar to Habiganj, are suppressed, at times by armed goons with political clout, at times by law enforcement agencies themselves, and at others, by corporations with enough money and power to buy the first two? Maybe it does, or maybe it has found a way to gloss over the repeated warnings from experts and national and international environmental organisations about the irrevocable dangers of building power plants in ecologically sensitive areas, to ignore the cries of the tea workers who are being evicted by the Holy Trinity of goons-state-corporations from the land on which they have sweated for generations, to justify the murder of villagers fighting to save the environment and, along with it, their lives and livelihoods, and to perpetrate widespread violence on and arbitrarily arrest, threaten, harass, even kill, those who challenge what they deem as anti-people state projects. It’s not a new phenomenon, to be sure – democracy’s weakness towards protecting the interests of Capital—but its allegiance to Capital and Corruption has perhaps never been so unapologetic, so aggressive, so ruthless.

Does democracy mourn the disfigurement of the free media, the demise of intellectualism, the maiming of critical thought and freedom of expression? Does democracy lament the standardisation and neutralisation of dissent, be it through successive murders by Unknown Assailants, discourses that justify proliferation of hatred and violence and repressive laws that curtail already shrinking spaces for free thought?

Dear democracy, I no longer know what you feel, think or want; you’re no longer something I am familiar with, something I can trust. I don’t expect you to be perfect, but I do wonder: do you recognise yourself in the mirror? Do you even know what you stand for, anymore?

The writer is an activist and journalist.

This story was originally published by The Daily Star, Bangladesh

By Sushmita S. Preetha
Apr 20 2016 (The Daily Star, Bangladesh)

On the onset, it seems women are everywhere in the media. You switch on the TV, there is inevitably an attractive woman luring you into buying a product. On the radio, there is the ‘young new thing’ vivaciously flirting with her male co-host while shuffling through songs; and in print, the entertainment pages would simply not sell without a titillating image of a female celebrity and a scoop on her latest rendezvous. But take a closer look, beyond the objectified and stereotypical images of women, being manufactured and mass consumed ad nauseam, and where are the women, really? Take a look at the news media, for instance. Where are the women in the newsrooms, in the bylines on the front and back pages, in the column spaces of our opinion pages, in the talk shows, not simply as hosts, but as commentators on so-called hard issues such as politics and foreign affairs? Where are the women in our news (discounting the PM and her alter-ego), except as wailing victims of violence, natural disasters and such and as muses of our male photographers during cultural festivals?

A recent report by the Gender Media Monitoring Project 2015 – a project initiated since 1995 to analyse news media in 71 countries – presents some alarming, but not altogether shocking, statistics on representation of women in news media in Bangladesh. Analysing the content of 12 newspapers (8 national, 4 local), 8 TV channels, three radio channels, and two online platforms, the Project found that the presence of women in radio-TV-newspapers have actually decreased compared to the last decade. In sharp contradiction to our loud proclamations of women’s equality and progress, women are mentioned as little as one-fifth of the time in news. The number of bylines by women has remained stuck at 8 percent over the last five years. Women reporters in radio constitute only one-third of all reporters, while the condition of women reporters in TV is even worse. Since 2010, the number of TV women reporters has increased by only 1 percent, but overall, they still constitute less than one-fifth of reporters. The only instance where women overshadow men is at hosting shows; in two-thirds of the cases, the hosts are women.

These statistics are downright embarrassing for us who work in news media. At a day and age when women are making their mark in all sectors, no matter how challenging, why is it that journalism remains, still, a male-dominated profession? Why, even today, do the newsrooms remain hostile to female reporters, comfortable to designate “soft” bits to women, such as social welfare, women’s issues or at best health or education, while “hard” bits, such as politics, remain the prerogative of men? Women, in the logic of patriarchy, make sense in the supplements, but not in news and business which are “manly” serious affairs. Opinions, too, are apparently a “male” thing, with an overwhelming majority of commentators, whether in print or electronic media, being old, privileged and male.

Yes, it’s true that journalism in a country like Bangladesh can pose added security risks to women, when they go out to collect information at random places at random hours of the day, or meet and interview unknown sources; it’s also true that the ungodly working hours are not what many women with families can negotiate with ease, in a society where women, even if and when they work outside, are expected to take care of the household and children single-handedly. But rather than enable its women colleagues to face these challenges, for instance, by providing safe transport support and flexible work hours, media houses seem content with the status quo. Even if and when they make these adjustments, such as allowing women to leave early, there is the obvious implication that women just aren’t as adept at the job as their male counterparts (how many times have we heard, “This job is just too demanding for women!”), as if the only marker of efficiency is one’s ability to stay late in the office (even if staying in the office means smoking cigarettes and discussing the ongoing IPL match). On the other hand, the “protective” regime of the office can be equally stifling, such as when bosses think that women shouldn’t be given challenging tasks with the supposedly good intention of protecting them from harm.

While the NGO, banking and public sectors have made considerable progress in instituting gender-friendly policies, our media houses seem to be stuck in the days of horse shoe tables, copy boys and typewriters. It is unfortunate that most media houses, which should lead by example, do not have a gender policy or strict guidelines on how to institute gender equality within the organisation. Most of them don’t even have a sexual harassment policy, or a designated committee to oversee complaints, despite a HC ruling making it mandatory for print and electronic media houses to have a committee in their respective organisations as per Article 9 of the guideline.

Given that it is men in the management positions, it is hardly a surprise that there is severe resistance to the idea of gender sensitivity trainings, even though as members of the media community, we hold tremendous power over the masses to disseminate and reproduce gender stereotypes and harmful discourses about women and children through what we write (or don’t write). So forget that many reporters, subeditors and even editors don’t realise that there’s something severely problematic in using the word “dishonoured” when referring to rape or in revealing the name and details of the survivors; they fail to see that by circulating the seemingly harmless image of a “violated” and “victimised” woman hiding her face in fear while strong male hands grip her, they are reproducing the idea of women as helpless and weak; they do not comprehend that they reinscribe gender inequality when they only interview male sources or experts, or when they decide a story with a gender dimension is just not “news-y” enough to make a lead story. Within the organisations, these esteemed male colleagues do not seem to understand that it is inappropriate to make crude jokes about women, objectifying them, that unwarranted sexual attention is “sexual harassment” not flattery, that they take up way too much space during meetings when their voice rings the loudest and for the longest, silencing others who may not feel quite as comfortable to challenge the hierarchical power structure of a media house, and that it’s institutionalised sexism when you pay the male staff more than the female staff even when they do the same amount of work.

If the media is really to change the world for the better, and play a progressive role in transforming how women are perceived in society, then we must begin by changing our institutions from within. And this task of gender sensitisation should not fall on the women alone, but on the editor, management, board of directors and department heads, who must assess the ways in which their institutions sustain inequality and play a proactive role to recruit more women, promote qualified women to important positions, and ensure a respectable workplace for all. Pretending we’re all equal while retaining the same old patriarchal mindsets and structures simply won’t do if we want women to also make the news.

The writer is a journalist and activist.

This story was originally published by The Daily Star, Bangladesh