Country's media under threat of fascism: Mirza Fakhrul

BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir has alleged that the country's media is under the threat of fascism.

Speaking at an iftar party, the BNP leader said our democratic institutions have been destroyed one by one. When I reads the newspapers, magazines and watch television channels, it seems that the threat of fascism has taken hold here too.

He said the government has created a division in society and it is turning the country into a failed state.

“It’s very painful for those who we fought for the Liberation War as all the democratic institutions have been destroyed one after another,” the BNP leader said.

He said the current fascist regime has spread a climate of fear everywhere, including in the media. “Fascism succeeds when a fear of terror is created in the entire society and when a reign of terror is established.”

Pro-BNP faction of the Bangladesh Federal Union of Journalists (BFUJ) and Dhaka Union of Journalists (DUJ) arranged the iftar party at the Jatiya Press Club.

BNP leader alleged that there is no press freedom now in Bangladesh and no government in the past has hampered press freedom in the way the current government is doing now.

“That’s why the media people themselves exercise self-censorship. All of you (journalists) now think whether it can be written or not and whether you may face the Digital Security Act.”

Fakhrul said many journalists have still been facing cases under the DSA. “I have seen in jail many of our youths have been staying there in cases filed under the Digital Security Act.)

He said the government has created such a situation in the country by creating division among the journalists that the media workers now can’t work unitedly for press freedom.

Fakhrul said the government also shut down many media outlets, including the Daily Din Kal while 44 journalists were killed under the rule of the current regime.

“The basic thing is that press freedom is necessary for a democratic state and society, but the government has suppressed this matter,” the BNP leader observed.

He also said it cannot even imagine in a civilised country the way Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina criticised the media in parliament. “The Prime Minister of a civilised country can’t speak in such a language.”

Under the current circumstances of the country, the BNP leader called upon the journalists and professionals for the restoration of democracy.

“The only demand of the people of the country is the resignation of the current regime. We must come forward with this demand by creating a strong unity.