THE media’s 50-year journey in Bangladesh is similar to our tumultuous politics. Its characteristics, purpose and behaviour over the five decades have transformed according to changes in the custodians in power. Accordingly, its development can be broadly defined in different segments of time that includes two brief periods of media freedom.
However, the second episode was the brightest that took place following the restoration of democracy in the 1990s. The first period of freedom was very brief, lasting for less than two years after independence. But as the civic liberty and democracy started gradually shrinking and reduced to a one-party rule, our press had suffered the worst. But again, in between two different military regimes — there were contrasting scenarios. The military regime that ruled between 1975 and 1982 reversed the blanket nationalisation of newspapers that was brought in by BAKSAL, the lone political party created through dissolution of the Awami League and few other leftist parties for transforming the country into a ‘socialist’ state. The second military takeover, led by General Ershad in 1982, once again started stricter tightening of the media and saw frequent official gagging and advisories.
After the restoration of electoral democracy in 1990, we have witnessed a similar pattern. First, there was a gradual liberalisation and then a new kind of control, which many observers describe as the worst state of media freedom experienced in the country. Throughout the last decade Bangladesh’s ranking in the international media freedom index has been continuously falling and it now stands at 152 out of 180 nations. The media in Bangladesh has never been in this precarious state.
Challenges the media face are manifold. First, there is the most dreaded Digital Security Act, one of the harshest repressive laws the country has ever experienced. According to figures compiled by Bangladesh’s top Bangla newspaper Prothom Alo, since the enactment of the Digital Security Act in December 2018, an average of three people per day have had criminal cases filed against them under this law. Human rights groups say since the beginning of the Covid pandemic at least 80 journalists have been sued under the DSA, two have been killed, 70 have injured and at least five were subjected to enforced disappearances for varied periods. In addition, the authorities had resorted to a century-old law, the Official Secrets Act, against a prominent investigative reporter Rozina Islam.
Secondly, many newsroom managers now say that what they fear most is ‘unofficial’ press advice which is given from the other end of a phone. This can be more potent than the previous written directives as they do not exist on paper (and so are not challengeable in a court of law), but, if defied, can result in harassment, interference in doing business and even risk to personal safety.
Thirdly, the threat of physical harm has risen dramatically. Freedom House, one of the international research organisations monitoring global developments in the areas of media, human rights and civic liberty, in its latest annual report said, ‘Throughout 2020, journalists were beaten by uniformed security forces, forced to disappear, or sued for defamation. Journalists have been arrested or attacked in connection with reporting issues relating to the 1971 war and election irregularities during both the 2018 parliamentary polls and 2019 local polls. A climate of impunity for attacks on media workers remains the norm.’
Fourthly, the prevailing state of fear in the country makes self-censorship the norm in the media. A leading global media rights group, Reporters Sans Frontier in its 2021 annual report has said, ‘self-censorship has reached unprecedented levels because editors are justifiably reluctant to risk imprisonment or their media outlet’s closure’. Explaining the reasons behind self-censorship it notes, ‘there has been an alarming increase in police and civilian violence against reporters.’ It further notes that ‘the government now has a tailor-made judicial weapon for silencing troublesome journalists — the 2018 digital security law, under which “negative propaganda” is punishable by up to 14 years in prison.’
The fifth challenge arises from the mushrooming of media outlets encouraged and in many cases patronised by the government and the ruling party. As a result, media plurality has taken a very different meaning in Bangladesh as it is being portrayed only in total numbers of media outlets, not in the sense of divergent voices. Ministers and ruling party leaders regularly cite the unusually high numbers of newspapers and TV channels now operating in the country as proof of media freedom. In the early years of independent Bangladesh media meant only newspapers, as the electronic media or broadcasting was fully under state control, but there has now been a mushrooming of both traditional media outlets and new digital media platforms. At present, there are 1,200 daily newspapers that have declarations in Dhaka and over 3,000 across the country (though it is not clear how many of these are actually published) and over three dozen TV channels. Sadly, such mushroom growth has nearly drowned out truly independent media and provided multiple propaganda tools to the party in power. As a result, audiences are increasingly turning away from traditional media and relying on rumour mills of social media. On the one hand, it is impacting so devastatingly in relations to revenue and sustainability of trusted and independent voices, and on the other ‘praising (of the government) media’ becoming even more reliant on state patronisation. Job insecurity of journalists is now at an all-time high.
Successive governments in Bangladesh have used various incentives and punishments in order to extract loyalty and subservience from the media. These include its powers over granting permissions for publication and broadcasting licences; imposing restrictive import duties on printing materials including newsprint and broadcast equipment; allocation of government advertisements; delaying payments of such advertisements; restricting access to public establishments and official functions; issuance of official and unofficial advisories; applying laws to threaten and harass and even, on occasion, resorting to violence. Some of these tools were inherited from the pre-independence days under Pakistani military rulers. But, within a few years after independence, the then commerce ministry, imposed quotas on locally produced newsprint citing high demand overseas for exports. In the later years, when newspapers became reliant on imported newsprint, this quota system has been used as a powerful tool to reward political allies to profit from selling any excess allocation for profit. Government advertisements have always been a tool to reward loyalty. But, since 2013, the government has been advising private sector businesses, albeit unofficially, not to place their advertisements in those independent newspapers, well known for unmasking corruption in the government and reporting human rights violations by the law enforcement agencies.
Besides the government, the media is also facing serious challenges from the owners as corporate houses are relentlessly pursuing their interests through exerting financial powers to influence news and opinion. A large number of business houses have launched their own newspapers or media outlets to advance their commercial interest and hurt their rivals, and this makes objective journalism harder for those who work for these media platforms. Some businesses also use the promise of advertisements as a tool to suppress stories that might affect their trade adversely.
In the aftermath of the war of independence, the first few years of governance were truly chaotic and the policies towards the media were also incoherent and inconsistent. The media, which had a long history of supporting the political struggle for freedom against dictatorial regimes and exploitation by the West Pakistani ruling class, also celebrated their freedom. Many of those newspapers and magazines that had been forced to shut down during the Pakistani military crackdown started resurfacing. Those papers which continued publishing during the liberation war either were abandoned by their owners who fled to Pakistan or went into hiding, or their editors were removed and replaced. There were exceptions too. The Observer (not the current one under a new management), owned by a former Pakistani minister, Hamidul Haque Chowdhury, was taken over by the government, but the editor Abdus Salam kept his job. However, Salam lost his job in early 1972 after writing an editorial titled, ‘The supreme test’, in which he called for the formation of a national government.
The new found freedom did not last long and the press came under frequent attacks from both the government and the activists of the ruling party. Licenses of quite a few newspapers critical of the government including Haq Katha published by Maulana Bhasani were cancelled. Another prominent daily, Ganakatntha, known for its strong criticism of the government and association with newly-founded opposition party, Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal, became a regular target of harassment and attacks and its editor, poet Al Mahmud, was arrested. Publication of the Holiday was suspended twice — first in 1973 for two months under the Press and Publication Act and again on May 23, 1975 when its editor Enayetullah Khan was jailed under the Special Powers Act. The Holiday editor was also subjected to unusually harsh and nasty criticisms both in parliament and outside by powerful politicians. Khan had angered the ruling party earlier by questioning the political use and abuse of the terminology of ‘collaborator’, in a leader article titled ‘65 million collaborators’ published in the Holiday on February 6, 1972. It was written in support of popular singers like Abdul Latif, Abdul Alim, and Ferdausi Rahman who were prevented from taking part in programmes in Bangladesh Betar and Bangladesh Television as, in common with hundreds of thousands of other civil servants, they remained in the country during the liberation war and continued performing under duress in the radio and television during the liberation war.
In 1973, the Awami League government brought in the Press and Publications Act, empowering the government to grant licenses for newspapers and for registration of all publications including books. Then, on February 2, 1974, it enacted the Special Powers Act granting powers to the government to order preventive detentions for indefinite periods. Under the act, the authorities could prohibit publication of any prejudicial report for the sake of maintaining law and order. But, the worst was yet to come as the country was moving towards one-party rule.
On January 5, 1975, the fourth amendment to the constitution was enacted abolishing the multiparty parliamentary system and a new party under the name of Bangladesh Krishak Sramik Awami League (Baksal) was formed on February 24, 1975. The party was open to the members of the civil and military services. Editors and journalists, with few exceptions, joined Baksal. On June 16, 1975, the government enacted the Newspapers Declaration (Amendment) Ordinance under which publication of 29 daily and 138 weekly newspapers and periodicals were prohibited. Only two English and two Bangla newspapers were allowed to continue under direct government control. Of the four, The Bangladesh Observer and the Dainik Bangla were already under government control. The other two newspapers were The Bangladesh Times, owned by Sheikh Fazlul Huq Moni, and the Bangla Daily Ittefaq, owned by heirs to the late Tofazzal Hossain (Manik Mia), whose family ties with Sheikh Mujibur Rahman were well known.
Hundreds of journalists lost their jobs following the closure of newspapers. Most of them were offered jobs in government offices, some in public relations, others in various departments including Customs and Excise. A good number of journalists, however, refused to accept government jobs or were left unemployed due to delays in finding them suitable posts. An international press freedom group, the International Press Institute, however, said in its 1975 annual report, ‘The suspension on June 16 of all newspapers except for the government dailies marked the end of the last vestiges of press freedom in the country. Thus, in three short years, the press passed from the virtual freedom of 1972 to total government suppression.’
Politics took a tragic turn on August 15, 1975, when a group of rogue army officers staged a bloody coup killing president Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and his entire family except two of his daughters — Sheikh Hasina and her younger sister Sheikh Rehana — who were then staying in Brussels. Coup plotters installed a new government headed by Khandaker Mushtaq Ahmed, a close associate of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. The new cabinet consisted entirely of Awami League leaders. But, within a short period two more coup and counter coups took place through which General Ziaur Rahman emerged as the de facto ruler, assuming the office of the president in April 1977.
Post-coup governments embarked on a series of policies, which were diametrically opposed to those of the previous regime. In reversing Baksal’s governing system, the Mushtaq government also repealed the Newspapers Declaration (Amendment) Ordinance (1975). As a result, banned newspapers got an opportunity to resume their publications. For many journalists it meant the end of uncertainties and not having to quit their profession. General Ziaur Rahman later founded a new government-funded newspaper from the northern region of the country called Dainik Barta; set up an institution for the training of journalists, the Press Institute of Bangladesh; formed the Press Council as an arbitration body to deal with complaints against the press; and, granted lease of a piece of government land for the National Press Club. When he founded his own political party, he also launched a daily newspaper, Dainik Desh, for promoting his party’s policies and activities.
Despite these positive actions in favour of journalism, the government’s interventions into editorial freedom did not end while the new managers of the papers used to receive ‘press advice’ from the government’s Press and Information Department almost on a regular basis. Journalists’ demands for scrapping preventative rules of the Special Powers Act including closure of publications and indefinite detentions of journalists remained unheeded. A weekly named, The Reporter, was closed for publishing a list of alleged Russian agents in the country. Journalist Durga Das Bhattacharya was detained under the Special Powers Act and imprisoned. After the assassination of General Ziaur Rahman, his successor president Sattar’s civilian regime too continued the practice of issuing so-called ‘press advice’. Examples cited by journalist Mahfuz Ullah in his book documenting the state of press freedom include an incident on April 26, 1982 when the government’s advisory issued to the newspapers said arrests during curfews should not be reported. The government thought publications of such news would be viewed as a political challenge to the government.
Then, in 1982, came a bloodless coup mounted by Lieutenant General Hussain Muhammad Ershad. Ironically, General Ershad had told journalists immediately after assuming power that he wanted journalists to write freely with objectivity which they could not under the previous BNP government. But, it was his government which issued most of the written directives to the press, sometimes concerning matters which did not have any link to the affairs of the state. As chronicled by late journalist Mahfuz Ullah in his book, Press Advice, that shows how media advisories became embedded in state policy as a way of controlling the media. One such instruction was an instruction in November 1985 to publish a poem said to be written by him on the occasion of his visit to Malaysia.
During Ershad’s rule, due to frequent gagging of opposition news, journalists devised a new technique to inform readers about the opposition’s action programmes to avoid harsh consequences. As the government ordered newspapers not to report hartals (general strikes), journalists used to write opposition calls for observance of ‘a countrywide programme’ and readers immediately recognised it for what it actually meant. Ershad devised a strategic approach to keep the media under pressure by organising monthly meetings with editors where he referred disparagingly to critical coverage of his government. Several newspapers, including popular weeklies Jai Jai Din, Bichitra, Ekota also faced closure during Ershad’s rule. In February 1987, the pro-Awami League newspaper Banglar Bani was also banned for a few months. Proscribing foreign newspapers and magazines too was a common practice.
At one stage when indications were evident that his fall was imminent following an unprecedented alliance in late 1990 of two political foes — Sheikh Hasina and Khaleda Zia — Ershad sought to impose stricter pre-censorship on the media so that newspapers were ordered to get pre-publication approval from government officials. Journalist unions and editors council refused to accept this new policy and went on a strike which ended with the fall of his government.
Following the mass-citizen upsurge of 1990 and the transition from military dictatorship to democracy, press freedom did improve, though it did not last too long. The caretaker government led by the then chief justice, Shahbuddin Ahmed, which replaced the military regime with a task to hold a general election within 90 days, amended the repressive provisions of the Special Powers Act under which the government had the power to stop any publication.
Following the restoration of electoral democracy, the first elected government led by Khaleda Zia, despite facing huge political turbulence, allowed the media to exercise its freedom and brought in significant positive changes. Her government for the first time opened the airwaves for foreign broadcasters, allowing the BBC World Service to air their programmes on FM frequencies. It also allowed the US cable TV network CNN to broadcast in Bangladesh. But, it refrained from allowing private ownership of broadcast media within the country. The state-owned television and radio were allowed to cover opposition news, though in a limited form. Comparative and historical data since 1973 compiled by the US-based organisation Freedom House, known for tracking global trends in political rights and civil liberties, shows that in 1991 Bangladesh gained the status of ‘free’ democracy which requires among other civil and political rights, the freedom of press and opinion. These new freedoms continued for the best part of her first term in office, but, sadly, did not last for long.
Since then and until 2006, power had rotated between the Awami League and the BNP, but during this period the state of press freedom declined gradually and risks for journalists increased incrementally. In 1996, the Awami League returned to power for the first time since the restoration of democracy and allowed private ownership of broadcast media with the launching of the news and current affairs station, Ekushey TV, along with two others — ATN Bangla and Channel I — for entertainment. However, journalists reporting on corruption and crime by party activists faced serious physical violence, including Tipu Sultan, a reporter at Prothom Alo.
In 2001, the BNP revoked the licence of ETV and the security forces seized broadcast equipment citing a court verdict on exclusion of private channels from terrestrial broadcasting. Newspapers and journalists critical of the government faced threats and were subjected to harassment. It was worse than the previous regime of the Awami League, but after the Awami League regained power in 2009, the situation of media freedom worsened further. The Awami League too shut down three private TV channels that had got licences during previous BNP regime, shut down a printing press publishing a pro-BNP newspaper, Amar Desh, and arrested the editor-publisher of the paper. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, five journalists were killed between 1996 and 2001, and between 2002 and 2006 the number of journalists killed was seven. The same historical data show 11 journalists lost their lives between 2012 and 2021. The Committee to Protect Journalists data on killings, imprisonment and disappearances show increasing intensity of the threats the media has been facing under successive governments in Bangladesh.
As the country is going through an unprecedented political transformation where opposition is almost decimated and all state institutions are crumbling, challenges for survival of independent media and journalistic freedom are enormous. Media which is supposed to hold the power to account, unfortunately, is in no position in Bangladesh to fulfil that obligation to the people. The fifty-year journey of our media, sadly, has now reached a precarious state. But despite increased adversity, the struggle for free press goes on.
(Published in tthe Victory Day supplement of The New Age on 16 December, 2021.)
However, the second episode was the brightest that took place following the restoration of democracy in the 1990s. The first period of freedom was very brief, lasting for less than two years after independence. But as the civic liberty and democracy started gradually shrinking and reduced to a one-party rule, our press had suffered the worst. But again, in between two different military regimes — there were contrasting scenarios. The military regime that ruled between 1975 and 1982 reversed the blanket nationalisation of newspapers that was brought in by BAKSAL, the lone political party created through dissolution of the Awami League and few other leftist parties for transforming the country into a ‘socialist’ state. The second military takeover, led by General Ershad in 1982, once again started stricter tightening of the media and saw frequent official gagging and advisories.
After the restoration of electoral democracy in 1990, we have witnessed a similar pattern. First, there was a gradual liberalisation and then a new kind of control, which many observers describe as the worst state of media freedom experienced in the country. Throughout the last decade Bangladesh’s ranking in the international media freedom index has been continuously falling and it now stands at 152 out of 180 nations. The media in Bangladesh has never been in this precarious state.
Challenges the media face are manifold. First, there is the most dreaded Digital Security Act, one of the harshest repressive laws the country has ever experienced. According to figures compiled by Bangladesh’s top Bangla newspaper Prothom Alo, since the enactment of the Digital Security Act in December 2018, an average of three people per day have had criminal cases filed against them under this law. Human rights groups say since the beginning of the Covid pandemic at least 80 journalists have been sued under the DSA, two have been killed, 70 have injured and at least five were subjected to enforced disappearances for varied periods. In addition, the authorities had resorted to a century-old law, the Official Secrets Act, against a prominent investigative reporter Rozina Islam.
Secondly, many newsroom managers now say that what they fear most is ‘unofficial’ press advice which is given from the other end of a phone. This can be more potent than the previous written directives as they do not exist on paper (and so are not challengeable in a court of law), but, if defied, can result in harassment, interference in doing business and even risk to personal safety.
Thirdly, the threat of physical harm has risen dramatically. Freedom House, one of the international research organisations monitoring global developments in the areas of media, human rights and civic liberty, in its latest annual report said, ‘Throughout 2020, journalists were beaten by uniformed security forces, forced to disappear, or sued for defamation. Journalists have been arrested or attacked in connection with reporting issues relating to the 1971 war and election irregularities during both the 2018 parliamentary polls and 2019 local polls. A climate of impunity for attacks on media workers remains the norm.’
Fourthly, the prevailing state of fear in the country makes self-censorship the norm in the media. A leading global media rights group, Reporters Sans Frontier in its 2021 annual report has said, ‘self-censorship has reached unprecedented levels because editors are justifiably reluctant to risk imprisonment or their media outlet’s closure’. Explaining the reasons behind self-censorship it notes, ‘there has been an alarming increase in police and civilian violence against reporters.’ It further notes that ‘the government now has a tailor-made judicial weapon for silencing troublesome journalists — the 2018 digital security law, under which “negative propaganda” is punishable by up to 14 years in prison.’
The fifth challenge arises from the mushrooming of media outlets encouraged and in many cases patronised by the government and the ruling party. As a result, media plurality has taken a very different meaning in Bangladesh as it is being portrayed only in total numbers of media outlets, not in the sense of divergent voices. Ministers and ruling party leaders regularly cite the unusually high numbers of newspapers and TV channels now operating in the country as proof of media freedom. In the early years of independent Bangladesh media meant only newspapers, as the electronic media or broadcasting was fully under state control, but there has now been a mushrooming of both traditional media outlets and new digital media platforms. At present, there are 1,200 daily newspapers that have declarations in Dhaka and over 3,000 across the country (though it is not clear how many of these are actually published) and over three dozen TV channels. Sadly, such mushroom growth has nearly drowned out truly independent media and provided multiple propaganda tools to the party in power. As a result, audiences are increasingly turning away from traditional media and relying on rumour mills of social media. On the one hand, it is impacting so devastatingly in relations to revenue and sustainability of trusted and independent voices, and on the other ‘praising (of the government) media’ becoming even more reliant on state patronisation. Job insecurity of journalists is now at an all-time high.
Successive governments in Bangladesh have used various incentives and punishments in order to extract loyalty and subservience from the media. These include its powers over granting permissions for publication and broadcasting licences; imposing restrictive import duties on printing materials including newsprint and broadcast equipment; allocation of government advertisements; delaying payments of such advertisements; restricting access to public establishments and official functions; issuance of official and unofficial advisories; applying laws to threaten and harass and even, on occasion, resorting to violence. Some of these tools were inherited from the pre-independence days under Pakistani military rulers. But, within a few years after independence, the then commerce ministry, imposed quotas on locally produced newsprint citing high demand overseas for exports. In the later years, when newspapers became reliant on imported newsprint, this quota system has been used as a powerful tool to reward political allies to profit from selling any excess allocation for profit. Government advertisements have always been a tool to reward loyalty. But, since 2013, the government has been advising private sector businesses, albeit unofficially, not to place their advertisements in those independent newspapers, well known for unmasking corruption in the government and reporting human rights violations by the law enforcement agencies.
Besides the government, the media is also facing serious challenges from the owners as corporate houses are relentlessly pursuing their interests through exerting financial powers to influence news and opinion. A large number of business houses have launched their own newspapers or media outlets to advance their commercial interest and hurt their rivals, and this makes objective journalism harder for those who work for these media platforms. Some businesses also use the promise of advertisements as a tool to suppress stories that might affect their trade adversely.
In the aftermath of the war of independence, the first few years of governance were truly chaotic and the policies towards the media were also incoherent and inconsistent. The media, which had a long history of supporting the political struggle for freedom against dictatorial regimes and exploitation by the West Pakistani ruling class, also celebrated their freedom. Many of those newspapers and magazines that had been forced to shut down during the Pakistani military crackdown started resurfacing. Those papers which continued publishing during the liberation war either were abandoned by their owners who fled to Pakistan or went into hiding, or their editors were removed and replaced. There were exceptions too. The Observer (not the current one under a new management), owned by a former Pakistani minister, Hamidul Haque Chowdhury, was taken over by the government, but the editor Abdus Salam kept his job. However, Salam lost his job in early 1972 after writing an editorial titled, ‘The supreme test’, in which he called for the formation of a national government.
The new found freedom did not last long and the press came under frequent attacks from both the government and the activists of the ruling party. Licenses of quite a few newspapers critical of the government including Haq Katha published by Maulana Bhasani were cancelled. Another prominent daily, Ganakatntha, known for its strong criticism of the government and association with newly-founded opposition party, Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal, became a regular target of harassment and attacks and its editor, poet Al Mahmud, was arrested. Publication of the Holiday was suspended twice — first in 1973 for two months under the Press and Publication Act and again on May 23, 1975 when its editor Enayetullah Khan was jailed under the Special Powers Act. The Holiday editor was also subjected to unusually harsh and nasty criticisms both in parliament and outside by powerful politicians. Khan had angered the ruling party earlier by questioning the political use and abuse of the terminology of ‘collaborator’, in a leader article titled ‘65 million collaborators’ published in the Holiday on February 6, 1972. It was written in support of popular singers like Abdul Latif, Abdul Alim, and Ferdausi Rahman who were prevented from taking part in programmes in Bangladesh Betar and Bangladesh Television as, in common with hundreds of thousands of other civil servants, they remained in the country during the liberation war and continued performing under duress in the radio and television during the liberation war.
In 1973, the Awami League government brought in the Press and Publications Act, empowering the government to grant licenses for newspapers and for registration of all publications including books. Then, on February 2, 1974, it enacted the Special Powers Act granting powers to the government to order preventive detentions for indefinite periods. Under the act, the authorities could prohibit publication of any prejudicial report for the sake of maintaining law and order. But, the worst was yet to come as the country was moving towards one-party rule.
On January 5, 1975, the fourth amendment to the constitution was enacted abolishing the multiparty parliamentary system and a new party under the name of Bangladesh Krishak Sramik Awami League (Baksal) was formed on February 24, 1975. The party was open to the members of the civil and military services. Editors and journalists, with few exceptions, joined Baksal. On June 16, 1975, the government enacted the Newspapers Declaration (Amendment) Ordinance under which publication of 29 daily and 138 weekly newspapers and periodicals were prohibited. Only two English and two Bangla newspapers were allowed to continue under direct government control. Of the four, The Bangladesh Observer and the Dainik Bangla were already under government control. The other two newspapers were The Bangladesh Times, owned by Sheikh Fazlul Huq Moni, and the Bangla Daily Ittefaq, owned by heirs to the late Tofazzal Hossain (Manik Mia), whose family ties with Sheikh Mujibur Rahman were well known.
Hundreds of journalists lost their jobs following the closure of newspapers. Most of them were offered jobs in government offices, some in public relations, others in various departments including Customs and Excise. A good number of journalists, however, refused to accept government jobs or were left unemployed due to delays in finding them suitable posts. An international press freedom group, the International Press Institute, however, said in its 1975 annual report, ‘The suspension on June 16 of all newspapers except for the government dailies marked the end of the last vestiges of press freedom in the country. Thus, in three short years, the press passed from the virtual freedom of 1972 to total government suppression.’
Politics took a tragic turn on August 15, 1975, when a group of rogue army officers staged a bloody coup killing president Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and his entire family except two of his daughters — Sheikh Hasina and her younger sister Sheikh Rehana — who were then staying in Brussels. Coup plotters installed a new government headed by Khandaker Mushtaq Ahmed, a close associate of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. The new cabinet consisted entirely of Awami League leaders. But, within a short period two more coup and counter coups took place through which General Ziaur Rahman emerged as the de facto ruler, assuming the office of the president in April 1977.
Post-coup governments embarked on a series of policies, which were diametrically opposed to those of the previous regime. In reversing Baksal’s governing system, the Mushtaq government also repealed the Newspapers Declaration (Amendment) Ordinance (1975). As a result, banned newspapers got an opportunity to resume their publications. For many journalists it meant the end of uncertainties and not having to quit their profession. General Ziaur Rahman later founded a new government-funded newspaper from the northern region of the country called Dainik Barta; set up an institution for the training of journalists, the Press Institute of Bangladesh; formed the Press Council as an arbitration body to deal with complaints against the press; and, granted lease of a piece of government land for the National Press Club. When he founded his own political party, he also launched a daily newspaper, Dainik Desh, for promoting his party’s policies and activities.
Despite these positive actions in favour of journalism, the government’s interventions into editorial freedom did not end while the new managers of the papers used to receive ‘press advice’ from the government’s Press and Information Department almost on a regular basis. Journalists’ demands for scrapping preventative rules of the Special Powers Act including closure of publications and indefinite detentions of journalists remained unheeded. A weekly named, The Reporter, was closed for publishing a list of alleged Russian agents in the country. Journalist Durga Das Bhattacharya was detained under the Special Powers Act and imprisoned. After the assassination of General Ziaur Rahman, his successor president Sattar’s civilian regime too continued the practice of issuing so-called ‘press advice’. Examples cited by journalist Mahfuz Ullah in his book documenting the state of press freedom include an incident on April 26, 1982 when the government’s advisory issued to the newspapers said arrests during curfews should not be reported. The government thought publications of such news would be viewed as a political challenge to the government.
Then, in 1982, came a bloodless coup mounted by Lieutenant General Hussain Muhammad Ershad. Ironically, General Ershad had told journalists immediately after assuming power that he wanted journalists to write freely with objectivity which they could not under the previous BNP government. But, it was his government which issued most of the written directives to the press, sometimes concerning matters which did not have any link to the affairs of the state. As chronicled by late journalist Mahfuz Ullah in his book, Press Advice, that shows how media advisories became embedded in state policy as a way of controlling the media. One such instruction was an instruction in November 1985 to publish a poem said to be written by him on the occasion of his visit to Malaysia.
During Ershad’s rule, due to frequent gagging of opposition news, journalists devised a new technique to inform readers about the opposition’s action programmes to avoid harsh consequences. As the government ordered newspapers not to report hartals (general strikes), journalists used to write opposition calls for observance of ‘a countrywide programme’ and readers immediately recognised it for what it actually meant. Ershad devised a strategic approach to keep the media under pressure by organising monthly meetings with editors where he referred disparagingly to critical coverage of his government. Several newspapers, including popular weeklies Jai Jai Din, Bichitra, Ekota also faced closure during Ershad’s rule. In February 1987, the pro-Awami League newspaper Banglar Bani was also banned for a few months. Proscribing foreign newspapers and magazines too was a common practice.
At one stage when indications were evident that his fall was imminent following an unprecedented alliance in late 1990 of two political foes — Sheikh Hasina and Khaleda Zia — Ershad sought to impose stricter pre-censorship on the media so that newspapers were ordered to get pre-publication approval from government officials. Journalist unions and editors council refused to accept this new policy and went on a strike which ended with the fall of his government.
Following the mass-citizen upsurge of 1990 and the transition from military dictatorship to democracy, press freedom did improve, though it did not last too long. The caretaker government led by the then chief justice, Shahbuddin Ahmed, which replaced the military regime with a task to hold a general election within 90 days, amended the repressive provisions of the Special Powers Act under which the government had the power to stop any publication.
Following the restoration of electoral democracy, the first elected government led by Khaleda Zia, despite facing huge political turbulence, allowed the media to exercise its freedom and brought in significant positive changes. Her government for the first time opened the airwaves for foreign broadcasters, allowing the BBC World Service to air their programmes on FM frequencies. It also allowed the US cable TV network CNN to broadcast in Bangladesh. But, it refrained from allowing private ownership of broadcast media within the country. The state-owned television and radio were allowed to cover opposition news, though in a limited form. Comparative and historical data since 1973 compiled by the US-based organisation Freedom House, known for tracking global trends in political rights and civil liberties, shows that in 1991 Bangladesh gained the status of ‘free’ democracy which requires among other civil and political rights, the freedom of press and opinion. These new freedoms continued for the best part of her first term in office, but, sadly, did not last for long.
Since then and until 2006, power had rotated between the Awami League and the BNP, but during this period the state of press freedom declined gradually and risks for journalists increased incrementally. In 1996, the Awami League returned to power for the first time since the restoration of democracy and allowed private ownership of broadcast media with the launching of the news and current affairs station, Ekushey TV, along with two others — ATN Bangla and Channel I — for entertainment. However, journalists reporting on corruption and crime by party activists faced serious physical violence, including Tipu Sultan, a reporter at Prothom Alo.
In 2001, the BNP revoked the licence of ETV and the security forces seized broadcast equipment citing a court verdict on exclusion of private channels from terrestrial broadcasting. Newspapers and journalists critical of the government faced threats and were subjected to harassment. It was worse than the previous regime of the Awami League, but after the Awami League regained power in 2009, the situation of media freedom worsened further. The Awami League too shut down three private TV channels that had got licences during previous BNP regime, shut down a printing press publishing a pro-BNP newspaper, Amar Desh, and arrested the editor-publisher of the paper. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, five journalists were killed between 1996 and 2001, and between 2002 and 2006 the number of journalists killed was seven. The same historical data show 11 journalists lost their lives between 2012 and 2021. The Committee to Protect Journalists data on killings, imprisonment and disappearances show increasing intensity of the threats the media has been facing under successive governments in Bangladesh.
As the country is going through an unprecedented political transformation where opposition is almost decimated and all state institutions are crumbling, challenges for survival of independent media and journalistic freedom are enormous. Media which is supposed to hold the power to account, unfortunately, is in no position in Bangladesh to fulfil that obligation to the people. The fifty-year journey of our media, sadly, has now reached a precarious state. But despite increased adversity, the struggle for free press goes on.
(Published in tthe Victory Day supplement of The New Age on 16 December, 2021.)
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