{"id":4287,"date":"2022-11-15T13:20:57","date_gmt":"2022-11-15T13:20:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saperspectives.net\/?p=4287"},"modified":"2022-11-15T15:31:57","modified_gmt":"2022-11-15T15:31:57","slug":"__trashed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saperspectives.net\/old\/__trashed\/","title":{"rendered":"Bangladesh Ranks Below War-torn Afghanistan in Press Freedom"},"content":{"rendered":"[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]\r\n

Washington, DC<\/strong>\u00a0\u2013 Decades ago, Bangladesh was crowned the \u201cEmerging Tiger of Asia.\u201d It was supposed to go very far. Unfortunately, now the country is facing the worst period in its 50 years of independence. It is not on the brink of collapse. It has collapsed in all parameters.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

The painful stories of people\u2019s daily life are the draconian\u00a0Digital Security Act<\/a>, the approach of total destruction of the opposition voices, massive human rights violations, arrests, disappearances, and brutal tortures of journalists. They gag the media and force them to use self-censorship. They use all law enforcement agencies to fulfill their evil designs and continue torturing opposition, civil society, and rights workers with violence, tools like false cases, trials, disappearance, and killings. All depict a completely dark picture of the present situation.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

In the recently released\u00a0International Press Freedom Index<\/a>, Bangladesh stands six steps below war-torn Afghanistan\u2013and last in South Asia\u2013as the country\u2019s position is 162 out of 180 countries. Bangladesh\u2019s media are maintaining self-censorship to avoid the rage of this ruling Awami league-led government. The ruling regime and its top leadership are involved in fabricated propaganda to keep their power by any means. News agency AFP recently filed a\u00a0fact-check story<\/a>\u00a0about serious fabricated propaganda by the regime and its controlled media.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

Since 2015, the speeches of the main opposition-Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) leader Tarique Rahman have been\u00a0banned in the country<\/a>\u00a0by the regime. A Bangladesh court banned local media from reporting speeches by the opposition leader after authorities sought to muzzle dissent amid a wave of deadly anti-government protests.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

The\u00a0US Department of State, in its executive summary of the annual human rights report<\/a>, 2021, mentioned that \u201cBangladesh\u2019s constitution provides for a parliamentary form of government that consolidates most power in the Office of the Prime Minister. In a December 2018 parliamentary election, Sheikh Hasina and her Awami League party won a third consecutive five-year term that kept her in office as prime minister. This election was reportedly not considered free and fair by observers due to irregularities, including ballot-box stuffing and intimidation of opposition polling agents and voters.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

The last two elections, in 2014 and 2018, were criticized at home and abroad because mass vote-rigging occurred. The ruling party\u00a0rigged the vote<\/a>\u00a0on the election eve. They cast ballot papers at night before the election, and these allegations become the news headlines in local and international media. After the\u00a0vote at night<\/a>, this government became more dictatorial than ever. And it continues repression of opposition parties with a hidden design to vanish them all. As part of it, this government is following a Russia-like state policy to gain overall control.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

The New York Times categorized the elections as a\u00a0farcical vote<\/a>. In an editorial it wrote, \u201cHasina is back for another term at the head of what has effectively become a one-party state, ready to further tighten control.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

Terming the 2018 elections as \u201clopsided polls<\/a>,\u201d the Washington Post compared the situation with North Korea: \u201cThat kind of margin of victory \u2014 96 percent \u2014 was a result one might expect in a place like North Korea, not a democratic nation such as Bangladesh.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina continues her political vengeance on the main opposition leader and former Prime Minister Begum Khaleda Zia. She did not even allow critically ill Khaleda Zia to take advanced treatment abroad amid public outcry. The recently released\u00a0US Human Rights report 2021 categorized her imprisonment as a political ploy<\/a>\u00a0to remove the opposition leader from the electoral process. It says, \u201cIn March 2020, Zia\u2019s sentence was initially suspended for six months on humanitarian grounds, but she remained confined at home. In both instances, the government restricted Zia from traveling abroad to seek treatment for her ill health, stating she would receive medical treatment in Dhaka. In August, the minister for law, justice, and parliamentary affairs said that Zia could request to travel abroad if she waived home confinement, went to jail, and made her request from there. In 2018 Zia was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment on corruption and embezzlement charges, which were first filed in 2008. International and domestic legal experts commented on the lack of evidence to support the conviction. They suggested a political ploy to remove the opposition leader from the electoral process.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

The irony is that\u00a0nearly two dozen corruption and extortion cases<\/a>\u00a0against Hasina and her son were withdrawn after\u00a0she took office<\/a>. It includes alleged graft in the purchase of MiG-29s for the air force and Frigate for the navy, in the construction of Bangabandhu Planetarium, and extorted money from businessman Azam J Chowdhury.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

Bangladesh\u2019s Supreme Court\u00a0Chief Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha was forced to resign<\/a>\u00a0and leave the country after refusing requests by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and other senior government officials to change a key ruling.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

A series of trials were launched against micro-credit pioneer and\u00a0Nobel Laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus<\/a>\u00a0after Sheikh Hasina took to the office. He is still facing charges. Prime Minister Hasina wants to punish him along with former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, saying he should be\u00a0thrown into the river from Padma Bridge<\/a>\u00a0as she claimed professor Yunus blocked the Padma bridge funds from the World Bank.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

On December 10, 2021,\u00a0the US Treasury Department imposed sanctions on Bangladesh\u2019s elite paramilitary force<\/a>, the RAB, and its top six officials, including the country\u2019s current police chief Benzir Ahmed due to serious human rights violations. This has created a stir in Bangladesh. Essentially RAB and these top officials are the sincere vanguards of the ruling Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who are fulfilling her will to make her power absolute.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

On Russian aggression in Ukraine,\u00a0Bangladesh\u2019s Authoritarian Prime Minister supported Russian dictator Putin<\/a>\u00a0as Sheikh Hasina told the parliament on March 30, \u201cRussia stood by us in our bad time. and we are surely beside the country.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

Two weeks later, when I asked about Bangladesh\u2019s position on Russia, the White House press secretary Jen Psaki replied, \u201cI would just say that what we\u2019re doing is encouraging every country to think hard about what side they\u2019re going to be on in history.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

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COURTESY BY : GLOBAL STRAT VIEW<\/strong><\/p>\r\n[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row]","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text] Washington, DC\u00a0\u2013 Decades ago, Bangladesh was crowned the \u201cEmerging Tiger of Asia.\u201d It was supposed to go very far. Unfortunately, now the country is facing the worst period in its 50 years of independence. It is not on the brink of collapse. It has collapsed in all parameters. The painful stories of people\u2019s daily…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4315,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[232],"tags":[],"thb-sponsors":[],"class_list":["post-4287","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-press-freedom-perspectives"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saperspectives.net\/old\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4287","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saperspectives.net\/old\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saperspectives.net\/old\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saperspectives.net\/old\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saperspectives.net\/old\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4287"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.saperspectives.net\/old\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4287\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4299,"href":"https:\/\/www.saperspectives.net\/old\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4287\/revisions\/4299"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saperspectives.net\/old\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4315"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saperspectives.net\/old\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saperspectives.net\/old\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saperspectives.net\/old\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4287"},{"taxonomy":"thb-sponsors","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saperspectives.net\/old\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/thb-sponsors?post=4287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}