Zillur Rahman : BEING granted entry into a foreign country, such as the USA, is not and never has been a fundamental human right for citizens of Bangladesh. But considering the recent murmuring in a certain wing of Bangladesh’s media community, it would seem like the new US visa policy is literally infringing on their basic rights. In fact, they are implying that not being granted entry into the USA for them or their family is akin to them being robbed of their freedom of speech. Now, if any of that seems absurd to you, I can assure you that it most certainly is.
In late May this year, the US Department of State announced a new visa policy ‘to promote democratic elections in Bangladesh’. In the policy, it was stated that ‘Under this policy, the United States will be able to restrict the issuance of visas for any Bangladeshi individual, believed to be responsible for, or complicit in, undermining the democratic election process in Bangladesh’. I would like to draw the reader’s attention to the wording ‘any Bangladeshi individual’. Unless some members of the media community consider themselves to be anything else, I believe they are also counted in the category of ‘any Bangladeshi individual’.
When asked to clarify this matter in an interview with Channel 24, the US ambassador in Dhaka, Peter Haas, restated the obvious fact that local news media could also come under visa restriction if they act in any way to undermine the democratic election process in Bangladesh.
This was the catalyst behind all the recent twisting and turning among the so-called journalists and civil society, who are now making a hail-mary attempt to label this visa policy as anti-free speech. It is indeed interesting that these same members of the ‘press’ and so-called civil society who are crying now about press freedom are the same batch of press people who called for the arrest of the editor of Prothom Alo and journalist Shamsuzzaman Shams, who called for the resignation of the editor of the Daily Star and who did not utter a word when newspaper and TV channels were forced to shut down before. Now, these so-called journalists are calling on the first amendment of the US constitution to protect them, as if they have already been given citizenship in the USA, and it is only Peter Haas’s machinations that are declining them their god-given right to spend a vacation to visit the Niagara Falls.
The truth of the matter is that US visa sanctions against foreign media are nothing new. In May 2022, the US announced a slate of new sanctions against Russia, cutting off Kremlin-controlled media outlets from American advertisers and prohibiting the country from using US-provided management and accounting consulting services. In November 2022, the US sanctioned six senior members of Iranian state-run media, accusing them of broadcasting forced confessions to undermine the protests roiling Iran. The current talk of the visa sanctions in Bangladesh falls entirely in line with the US foreign policy of advocating for the democratic process worldwide. Even the top leaders of Bangladesh’s current government have hailed the policy as having the same outlook towards democracy that the people of Bangladesh hold.
These weak attempts at linking press freedom to the visa policy between two sovereign nations hide the insidious fact that a certain group of people are not fond of the fact that all the failings of Bangladesh’s democracy are being exposed for the world to see. As the USA is the most active international actor in the region, US ambassador Peter Haas is also the most visible proponent of US foreign policy in Bangladesh. As a result, the ambassador has become a local celebrity. Some see him as a saviour who has arrived just in time to rescue Bangladesh from its political quagmire. Others see him as a rogue element who is obscuring US-Bangladesh relations and frightening them with the dreaded new US visa policy. Of course, those who are most outspoken in their opposition to him have their own questionable past and multiple reasons to fear any action taken against undemocratic actors.
At the end of the day, it must be understood that the ambassador’s office has complete discretion in determining who to approve or refuse entry into the United States. The US ambassador’s mission is to carry out US foreign policy for Bangladesh in Bangladesh. Targeting the ambassador in a smear campaign will not change the reality that the visa policy was decided and declared by the US Department of State, addressed by secretary of state Antony J Blinken, and then clarified on live television by assistant secretary of state Donald Lu. The only thing this does is exacerbate tensions between Bangladesh and a world superpower that has been our single largest provider of foreign aid and support in terms of Rohingya refugees, Covid vaccines, and a variety of other concerns. Just sticking to party lines will not boost any careers. They will only cause further embarrassment for everyone involved.
Zillur Rahman is the executive director of the Centre for Governance Studies and a television talk show host.
New Age
