Art Withers in a Country Where Anything Can Be Deemed a Threat

10/4/2022 The New York Times
” alt=”” aria-hidden=”true” />Art Withers in a Country Where Anything Can Be Deemed a Threat

In Bangladesh, a crackdown on free speech has left filmmakers in a Kafkaesque bind as their movies are blocked for vague reasons.

Movies, Censorship

In Bangladesh, a crackdown on free speech has left filmmakers in a Kafkaesque bind as their movies are blocked for vague reasons.

016 terrorist attack Officials in Ms. Hasina’s government justify their actions by citing Bangladesh’s credible threats from Islamic militancy, which they say could derail the country’s impressive efforts at expanding its economy and lifting the population out of poverty.

European Pressphoto Agency and intimidation of opponents to secure inflated margins. Unsure of the extent of their actual public support, officials in her government have resorted to crackdowns and tight control, analysts say. The United Nations has called the 2018 Digital Security Act “an example of flawed legislation” that “imposes draconian punishments for a wide range of vaguely defined acts.”

9:26 p.SEATTLE, WASHINGTON – OCTOBER 01: Tony Kemp #5 of the Oakland Athletics scores a run during the first inning against the Seattle Mariners at T-Mobile Park on October 01, 2022, in Seattle, Washington. October 2, 2022, at 6:29 p.No doubt, the LG 97-inch G2 OLED is crazy-town expensive for a TV, but considering what it does? It’s actually a bargain.

m. ET DHAKA, Bangladesh — The celebrated Bangladeshi director had tried to do everything by the rules.m. Before shooting his movie, the filmmaker, Mostofa Sarwar Farooki, submitted the script for approval by the country’s Ministry of Information and Broadcasting.m. He had received permission to cast prominent Indian and Palestinian actors, in addition to Bangladeshi artists.P. But even as the film, “Saturday Afternoon” — a single-shot feature loosely based on the 2016 terrorist attack at a bakery in Dhaka, the capital, that left 24 dead — has been screened to applause and awards at festivals abroad, Bangladesh’s government has refused to permit its release at home. So, you know, thanks for the indulgence.

For three years, the country’s film censor board has been denying Mr. The A’s lost 5-1 in Seattle, their sixth straight loss, and No. James Kaprielian carried a no-hitter into the sixth inning and was backed by four home runs, including a pair from Shea Langeliers. Farooki’s appeals — an indication, analysts and activists say, of how the government of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is shrinking the space for free speech, sometimes in arbitrary ways. “They didn’t inform us of a specific reason,” Mr. “I thought Sears did a great job today commanding the baseball, utilizing the fastball at the top of the zone,” A’s manager Mark Kotsay said. Farooki said of the film’s rejection. In eight career starts against Seattle, the A’s right-hander has held the Mariners to a. “They only said the film might tarnish the image of the country or incite religious unrest. …. My point is that a high-performance 97-inch TV is not only going to beat the pants off of any comparably priced projector/screen setup in terms of performance, but it’s going to be easier to use and more reliable.

” Officials in Ms. Hasina’s government justify their actions by citing Bangladesh’s credible threats from Islamic militancy, which they say could derail the country’s impressive efforts at expanding its economy and lifting the population out of poverty.” Sears went 6-3 with a 3. “I think overall the club played really well today and it was a good finish for (Kaprielian) in terms of his bounce back from some struggles in the middle of the season to ending this month and really performing well,” Oakland manager Mark Kotsay said. Image A movie, “Saturday Afternoon,” which is loosely based on a 2016 terrorist attack, has been blocked in Bangladesh. Above, ambulances carry the bodies of victims of the attack. Saturday was his 10th appearance with Oakland — his first out of the bullpen — and was among his most effective. Credit. Two batters later, Pache, another piece from the Olson trade, hit his third of the season for a 3-0 lead. Consider what the first consumer 4K TV cost when it was introduced 10 years ago.

He struck out a season-high seven and allowed one unearned run over five innings in Sept. European Pressphoto Agency But the analysts and activists say she has blurred the lines between counterterrorism efforts and political crackdown. Moving forward, the A’s have to be pleased with Sears’ success against their AL West rivals.208) shortstop. As Ms. Hasina, 75, seeks another term next year on top of her already record-setting tenure, she is increasingly demonstrating a tendency that has long plagued Bangladeshi governance: a winner-takes-all politics verging on authoritarianism. 21, Sears went 2-0 and allowed one earned run over 16 innings with 16 strikeouts. I’m sorry, what were you just saying about the $25,000 TV? Oh, that you’d like to have four of them? Good call.

Recent election victories by Ms. The Mariners avoided a 10-0 shutout when Winker hit a three-run homer in the ninth against A’s reliever Sam Selman. Hasina, who is the daughter of Bangladesh’s founding father and has been in power for a total of 19 years, have been marred by accusations of vote rigging and intimidation of opponents to secure inflated margins. The Mariners answered with three runs of their own in the bottom of the first. Unsure of the extent of their actual public support, officials in her government have resorted to crackdowns and tight control, analysts say. Officials from the governing party, the Awami League, said that its opponents were playing politics by criticizing regulatory control of films and other works. He struck out six, walked two and gave up just two hits, both of which the A’s wiped away with double plays. “Those who are publicizing that free expression is being stifled are actually running a political campaign against the government,” said Biplab Barua, who serves as Ms.

Hasina’s special assistant. He gave up three runs and three hits, striking out two and walking two before yielding to Sears. “We want to uphold all the rights guaranteed in the Constitution.” But in Bangladesh, a wide range of independent voices have said those rights are being infringed. Castillo kept the A’s bats quiet after the first inning, striking out eight in six innings of two-hit ball as Seattle kept pace with the Toronto Blue Jays in its bid to host an AL wild-card series. In recent years, Ms. Hasina’s government has particularly weaponized a digital security law to arrest journalists, activists and opposition members, creating an atmosphere of fear. The right-hander settled down after giving up two quick hits and a walk in the first inning to fall behind 1-0 — about 12 hours after most Mariners left the ballpark after clinching the club’s first playoff appearance in 21 years.

The United Nations has called the 2018 Digital Security Act “an example of flawed legislation” that “imposes draconian punishments for a wide range of vaguely defined acts.” In the past two years alone, about 2,200 people have been detained under the law, according to the Center for Governance Studies, a Dhaka-based think tank. “I felt with him out on the mound and how the game was going, the way the crowd was into it today coming off last night, it was a nice, perfectly executed ballgame with a W behind it. Over the past nine months, 25 cases have been filed against people who criticized the prime minister or her allies, according to Article 19, a London-based human rights organization. One of those arrested, the writer Mushtaq Ahmed, 53, who had been critical of the government’s Covid relief efforts, died in jail after being denied bail half a dozen times.” Related Articles. Image A 2021 protest against a digital security law that has been used to arrest government critics.

The man in the photo is the writer Mushtaq Ahmed, who died in custody. Credit… Monirul Alam/EPA, via Shutterstock “It has created an environment of self-censorship,” Akter Hossain, an editor and the general secretary of the Dhaka Union of Journalists, said about the law.

“Every newsroom in Bangladesh thinks twice before filing a story that is critical to the ruling party or the government.” Sometimes, the crackdown has veered into the absurd. In July, the police arrested an amateur crooner with a large social media following who sang poems by well-known Bengali writers. The reason? The singer, Ashraful Alom, known online as Hero Alom, was singing out of tune — and that was an insult to Bengali culture. Mr.

Alom was released after giving a written promise that he would “not create or publish any content that represents Bangladeshi culture perversely, and he will not create contents that are satirical, libelous and derogatory,” according to Hafiz Al Asad, a deputy police commissioner. Image Ashraful Alom was arrested after his out-of-tune songs were deemed to be an insult to Bengali culture. Credit…

Munir Uz Zaman/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images For filmmakers and other artists, the challenge is navigating an environment in which the authorities could find anything a threat, and anything to be against cultural and national values. A few weeks ago, a group of film directors and other artists held a news conference to protest repeated legal battles and censorship challenges. Speaking from behind a wall of barbed wire, erected to make a symbolic statement, they said they would not be able to tell stories if the restrictions continued. “Every act of putting pressure on art should be stopped,” said Jaya Ahsan, an actress who is popular both in Bangladesh and in West Bengal, across the border in India. “Not just film, every type of art should be free — otherwise, how can we write, act or even speak our language?” The director of one film, “Hawa,” has been sued by the government for showing birds caged or eaten, which the country’s wildlife protection authority found offensive.

The police objected to another film, “Nabab LLB,” because it showed a police officer using vulgar language while questioning a subject. Image Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina of Bangladesh with her Indian counterpart, Narendra Modi. One movie was blocked in Bangladesh, government censors said, because it would tarnish India’s image. Credit..

. Adnan Abidi/Reuters The Bangladesh Film Censor Board recently denied a certificate to yet another film, “The Border,” directed by Saikat Nasir. The work of fiction, which portrays a Bangladeshi village along the Indian border, includes an Indian protagonist who takes part in a killing mission and other crimes. The board said it could not allow a film that tarnishes the image of India, a close ally of Ms. Hasina.

But it also mentioned a reason that seemed to misunderstand the very nature of fictional works. “The film shows a godfather in the country’s Satkhira region, to whom the ministers and lawmakers are all hostages,” the board’s director told local news media . “But no such situation exists in Bangladesh.” Mejbaur Rahman Sumon, the director of “Hawa,” said the atmosphere in which “anything can hurt anyone’s sentiment” was making it impossible to produce good art. “The bird was caged for a while and then released,” Mr.

Sumon said of the animal at the center of the government objection to his film. “But after freeing the bird, I now feel like I’ve caged myself.” For Mr. Farooki, the director of “Saturday Afternoon,” the most difficult part of the three-year struggle to release the film to audiences in Bangladesh has been figuring out exactly what about it is objectionable. Image The filmmaker Mostofa Sarwar Farooki said that the government should not be able to dictate the content of fictional works.

Credit… Sazzad Hossain/SOPA Images/LightRocket, via Getty Images The film, which depicts tense moments of human struggle during a terrorist hostage-taking, clearly aims to expose the hypocrisies of the terrorists throughout. Several of the characters, ordinary citizens stuck in the attack, stand up to the terrorists.

A hijab-wearing woman fights back tears to defend the character of other women whom the attackers disparage, including her own mother, who is repeatedly cursed by the terrorists, and a young woman in ripped jeans and a sweater who is shot dead for failing a piety test. Mushfiqur Rahman Gulzar, a member of the censor board, said he had no objection to the film. The board’s vice chairman declined to comment, saying the decision to issue the film a certificate rested with the information ministry. , the information and broadcasting minister, Hasan Mahmud, said the ministry would issue a certificate for the film if the director adhered to the suggestions of the censor board. The problem, Mr.

Farooki said, is that he didn’t receive any specific suggestions from the board. The minister, however, cited another issue in his media interview: that the film had not shown the sacrifice of two police officers killed in the bakery attack. “My film is not a documentary of the attack,” Mr. Farooki said. “It’s a fictional feature where no real character exists.

” “Even if I had intended to portray real characters,” he added, “can they dictate a story?” Saif Hasnat reported from Dhaka and Mujib Mashal from New Delhi. Advertisement .