The Coalition for Human Rights & Democracy in Bangladesh (CHRD Bangladesh) strongly condemns the calculated disinformation campaign, as well as renewed attacks on the media by the administration of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in the run up to the national elections, due in January of 2024. These are illegal, unethical, illogical and above all, highly repressive.
Disinformation propaganda
The government of Bangladesh under Sheikh Hasina started a calculated disinformation campaign to wedge benefits before the coming election.
“Hundreds of articles praising Bangladeshi government policies apparently by independent experts have appeared in national and international media, but the authors have questionable credentials, fake photos, and may not even exist,” an AFP investigation has found.
The US urges the Awami League government to hold a free, fair and credible election, which is seen as a warning to its illegal victory through greatly fraudulent electoral managements in 2014 and 2018. According to most observers, under a fair election, the ruling regime will lose badly.
AFP’s assertion is borne out of analysis of more than 700 articles published by authors who were largely found to be non-existent. Even most of the references and quotes used by them are not found. The contents and views of their articles largely conformed to the ruling administration’s official versions of misleading “great success” story, thereby exposing writers’ malafide intents.
“It’s a coordinated influence operation,” said a journalism professor at a Bangladesh University, aimed at promoting the Hasina administration. Sheikh Hasina suffers from serious credibility due to her 15 years of authoritarian rule, totally devoid of democracy, human rights, and freedom. Concerns, warnings, protests from local and international rights groups and sanctions from the United States have been met with defiance.
The Cyber Security Act
Faced with strong criticism from within the country, as well as around the world about the draconian Digital Security Act (DSA), the repressive government came up with a newer version styled as Cyber Security Act (CSA), which retains almost all of the criteria and punitive provisions of the former. The intent is clear.
“Sheikh Hasina’s government approved this draconian bill (CSA) in a rush in order to take advantage of its majority in parliament, before the parliamentary elections scheduled for January 2024,” says the prestigious Reporters Without Borders (RSF). The Paris based RSF (Reporters Sans Frontier) further called for quashing the proposed CSA and repealing the existing DSA. Thousands, including minors, have been languishing in crowded jails under the DSA, some succumbing to the police and Rapid Action Battalion’s (RAB) brutalities under custody.
RSF also noted that there has been a surge in the violations of press freedom in the country. Scores succeeded to escape the tyranny of the regime and lived abroad, most carrying multiple cases under the DSA. Those who could not, either hid in the country or landed in jails to suffer further in tortures and other related abuses. There is no dearth of examples.
The Coalition for Human Rights & Democracy in Bangladesh (CHRD Bangladesh) demands that the government of Bangladesh refrain from such illegal, false, and maligning disinformation campaign forthwith. CHRD Bangladesh also demands that both the proposed CSA and the existing DSA be scrapped urgently. The media and the journalists must perform their duties freely and without any controlling restrictions, more so because the important national election is nearing.