Photojournalist Fatima Tuj Johora faced tear gas, rubber bullets, and police aggression while covering Bangladesh’s protest movement. But what she feared most was the lack of trust toward journalists.
The 29-year-old independent journalist said that many student protesters and law enforcement officials have accused journalists of peddling government narratives, eroding trust in media and their coverage of the anti-government protests that started in July. The demonstrations began against moves to reinstitute guaranteed civil service jobs for the relatives of fighters in Bangladesh’s 1971 war of independence against Pakistan—a quota system seen by most of the public as a vehicle for corruption and nepotism.
But they soon sparked a wider uprising, and on Aug. 5, the force of the protests ended the 15-year regime of authoritarian leader Sheikh Hasina, who resigned and fled the country.
Before that point, Hasina’s heavy-handed approach turned many Bangladeshis against their country’s own media.
“Many think the media is part of the government,” Johora told Foreign Policy. “We had to continuously convince the police and protesters that we were there to tell the truth. Working in that scenario was more difficult than covering the protest itself.” Yet the efforts of some journalists on the front line have also seen them heralded as heroes by protesters.
Bangladesh has seen robust media growth in the past two decades, with about 3,000 print media outlets, 30 radio stations, 30 television channels, and hundreds of news websites. However, a lack of transparency among these outlets over ownership and political affiliations has raised questions about editorial independence.
A 2020 report published by the Dhaka-based Center for Governance Studies think tank suggested that politicians, especially from Hasina’s Awami League party, were often involved in media ownership and lobbied in favor of business groups to acquire publishing and broadcast licenses. The researchers concluded that the media’s role was not limited to informing the public—it also shaped politics. Press conferences with the prime minister became known among some of the reporters who spoke with Foreign Policy as “praise conferences,” as many journalists strove to flatter, rather than question, the leader.
But efforts at censorship spun out of control on July 14 at an otherwise routine press conference. Hasina was briefing journalists about her recent trip to China, but Farzana Rupa from the pro-government Ekattor TV and Probhash Amin of ATN News asked about the job quota protests. The prime minister’s response was to question if descendants of razakars—an offensive term for those who collaborated with Pakistan in 1971—should get the quota instead.
The flippancy of her response infuriated not just the protesters—at that point, mainly students who feared being shut out of a tight job market—but also large sections of the wider public, leading to the mass protests that turned deadly in the following days.
At least 440 people have been killed in clashes—mostly student protesters and multiple police officers—as security forces tried to quell unrest between July 16 and Aug. 5, according to multiple media reports. A crowdsourced online portal suggests that nearly 500 people have died and more 33,000 have been injured, with thousands of others arrested or disappeared.
“Media also had a role in triggering these things,” writer and activist Rahnuma Ahmed told Foreign Policy. “There was tremendous anger in the student movement and generally among people at large toward the media because of their crucial role in supporting this despot. The media is an essential part of the regime. We want media that cares for the nation … not [media that] dances to the tune of the government.”
But the media didn’t have an easy time under Hasina. A year after she assumed office for the second time in January 2009, authorities shuttered the Amar Desh newspaper, which supported the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party, and arrested its editor Mahmudur Rahman. The government has since cracked down on social media to curb dissent and jailed prominent journalists, such as Shahidul Alam, for criticizing the government. Hasina’s regime also sowed distrust in the media with targeted attacks: The prime minister called one of the country’s most circulated newspapers, Prothom Alo, “an enemy of the Awami League, democracy, and the people of Bangladesh.”
Last year, the press freedom group Reporters Without Borders said that journalists in Bangladesh face “judicial harassment, police violence, online harassment,” and “attacks while out reporting.” Such events have also been reported by Bangladeshi media during the recent protests.
At least five journalists—two in the capital city of Dhaka and one each in Sylhet, Gazipur, and Sirajganj—have been killed and about 200 have been injured while covering the protests, according to local media representatives whom Foreign Policy spoke with.
“The police shot rubber bullets when the protesters got aggressive,” Johora said. “One of my colleagues tried to convince them that we were journalists, but they still shot at us.”
Sazid Hossain, a photographer at the influential Prothom Alo, captured the violence in one of the defining photos of the movement, snapped on July 15. In his photo, at least three men—who he says belonged to the Chhatra League, a student wing of the Awami League—are pointing guns at other protesting students inside Dhaka University. The photo was prominently placed on the front page of the Bangla-language Prothom Alo the next day. But that came at personal risk.
Hossain told Foreign Policy that the supporters of the Awami League attacked him a few days later in the Mohakhali neighborhood of Dhaka. He said a mob dragged him off his motorcycle, kicked him, and charged with sticks while trying to snatch his camera, resulting in injuries.
“They were shouting ‘beat the journalist,’” he recalled. “I knew it was risky trying to take that photo; I could have been dead. But it was my duty to show the world what was happening—that the politically affiliated students were carrying arms to target other protesters. I wanted to show the truth.”
Saydia Gulrukh, a journalist at the English-language daily New Age, said one of her colleagues suffered burns from a stun grenade at a protest site but refused to leave. Gulrukh wrote about the harrowing stories from the streets, as well as her experience in the morgue and the emergency unit of the Dhaka Medical College Hospital, where friends had to negotiate with police to have a dead photojournalist’s body released.
“Journalists were particularly targeted—I have seen video footage of the police directly shooting at journalists,” she told Foreign Policy. “Photojournalist friends often drew inspiration from the way Palestinian journalists have been braving the world every day. However, fear of being picked up or run over by a car in a staged accident was constant.”
Many Bangladeshi journalists have been hailed for their relentless coverage of the protests, which has been crucial in informing the public about their progression and documenting state atrocities. In one viral video, a crowd is seen cheering for a journalist from Jamuna TV, which has been commended for its journalistic integrity.
“As a Bangladeshi journalist, I was moved by how reporters back home took control to tell their stories their way,” Washington, D.C.-based Bloomberg News reporter Nazmul Ahasan wrote on X (formerly Twitter). “They brilliantly covered the biggest story since Bangladesh came into being … it was satisfying to witness this rare phenomenon unfold.”
As rewarding it was covering the protests, Johora and Hossain said it was equally traumatic. Both journalists described the gut-wrenching experience of photographing the injured and the dead at the Dhaka Medical College Hospital, which Johora described as “the worst scenario” that she has witnessed in her five-year career.
Meanwhile, diluted coverage of the protests with a pro-government slant has also harmed the image of journalists. Analysts and journalists say that media outlets cozy with the Awami League—including Ekattor TV, Somoy TV, Bangladesh Pratidin, and Kaler Kantho—have sowed distrust among the public with their divisive rhetoric.
“Sometimes, what I witness on the streets and what I see on news channels on TV are completely different,” Johora said. “Many channels aren’t telling the truth and trying to add spice to the news. It’s frustrating.”
This trust deficit goes back to the media’s role in bolstering Hasina’s image. Ahmed—the aforementioned writer and activist, who is also the co-founder of the Drik Picture Library—said the media “played a crucial role in adulating the party in power” and creating a “fictive representation of Hasina as ‘mother of humanity’”—a title bestowed by media in 2017 for her humanitarian assistance for the tens of thousands of persecuted Rohingya refugees who fled to Bangladesh from Myanmar.
A series of draconian laws aimed at strangling free speech as well as a culture of self-censorship have also squeezed media outlets and journalists. The government has used the 2018 Digital Security Act—now replaced with the 2023 Cyber Security Act—to crack down on dissent and silence journalists, creating a climate of fear. While these acts aimed to strengthen cybersecurity and digital privacy as well as regulate online content, critics argue that they have been used to squash free speech and dissent. Human Rights Watch has described the Digital Security Act as having “provisions criminalizing vaguely defined types of speech,” suppressing dissent with lengthy prison terms.
An April study by the Center for Governance Studies noted that 451 journalists were charged and 97 others detained between October 2018 and September 2023 under the Digital Security Act, accused of either publishing or sharing “offensive, false or fear-inducing data information.”
Rifat Sultana, an assistant professor of journalism at the State University of Bangladesh, said that the country’s media outlets often self-censor to avoid further trouble.
“The restrictions on media freedom during the quota reform movement contributed to a broader erosion of trust in the media,” she told Foreign Policy. “When media outlets were seen as compromised or censored, it undermined their credibility.”
Bangladeshi journalists in the diaspora have been providing fearless analysis on the protests. Paris-based blogger and social activist Pinaki Bhattacharya has been vocal about the movement, with one of the latest videos on his YouTube channel discussing Muhammad Yunus, the newly announced head of Bangladesh’s interim government, racking up nearly 3 million views. Sweden-based Netra News has also been a critical voice in covering the protests.
But it was a different story within Bangladesh, as the Hasina government imposed several limitations on the protest coverage. The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting and an intelligence agency issued directives ordering media outlets not to broadcast or publish the nine-point demands from the student movement, which included an apology from Hasina, one journalist told Foreign Policy. These authorities also allegedly stopped the live broadcasting of television channels airing ongoing protests on the street, though such restrictions have now been lifted.
Rajib Ahmed, the deputy head of reporting at Prothom Alo, said his newsroom managed to report despite such pressures, relentlessly publishing news from Dhaka and other cities. He said the newsroom ensured the reporting was fair and accurate amid an onslaught of misinformation and disinformation aimed at discrediting journalistic standards.
Referring to the death counts, Rajib said that his newsroom mostly depended on hospitals, the relatives of the deceased, and the police to verify the numbers. Prothom Alo estimates that about 560 people were killed during the protests between July 16 to Aug. 4.
“It’s because of the trust of our readers that our print subscriptions have gone up significantly, and there has been a spike in our online readers, too,” he told Foreign Policy.
But Rajib acknowledged that political interference and the tendency of some media houses to kowtow to rulers have led to mistrust and anger among the public. That anger prompted protesters vandalizing the offices of multiple private television channels—including Ekattor TV and Somoy TV—after Hasina resigned and fled the country. In July, the headquarters of state-run Bangladesh TV was also set on fire.
The distrust was visible among many protesters, including Mir Mugdho, who died after being shot in the forehead by security forces. In one of his last Facebook posts, he had written, “Remember, you and I, we are the media. There is no other media.”
For many journalists, the message is a reminder to rise and reflect. The protest movement, they say, could serve as a turning point.
“Many journalists were on the side of the people, but it will be mistaken to be in denial of the fact that the media at large in Bangladesh has lost people’s trust,” said Gulrukh, the journalist from New Age. “The first step forward is to recognize the rise of sycophancy—the sycophantic turn in the media industry.”
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