Author: Editorial
Publication: The Hindustan Times
Date: May 22, 2002
To impose their warped interpretation
of the Islamic code, the Taliban used to smash TV sets and hang video cassettes
on trees in the same manner as they 'celebrated' the public hanging of
dissenters or the lynching of women in Kabul's football stadium. In almost
a similar enactment of censorship, Prime Minister Khaleda Zia of Bangladesh
seems to be emulating Mullah Omar.
Her latest gift to the nation is
the banning of several private TV channels so as to "resist the adverse
impact of alien culture" on the religious values of Bangladesh. In other
words, her Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) seems determined to turn
this young democracy into a hardline Islamic State.
Since the BNP came to power riding
piggy-back on its fundamentalist ally, the Jamaat-e-Islami, the Bangladeshi
government has left no stone unturned to play the Islamic card. Not only
are there reports that jehadis from Pakistan and Chechnya have found a
safe haven in the country, there has been a virtual witch-hunt against
the minorities, as was substantiated by the Amnesty International and the
US-based Human Rights Watch. This kind of State-sponsored persecution was
clearly absent under the far more liberal and secular regime of Sheikh
Hasina.
While Buddhists and Hindus have
been targeted, often by anti-social elements allied with the BNP, political
dissenters have been terrorised. The ruling regime, instead of responding
to international concern, has tried every means possible to muzzle the
media, as was noted by the Brussels-based Reporters sans Frontiers. There
are reports that journalists have been threatened, assaulted and falsely
accused of "manufacturing stories of minority persecution so as to tarnish
Bangladesh's image" (remember Narendra Modi?). Critical newspapers have
been denied advertisements while journalists have been sacked from a government-controlled
news agency. It's not surprising, therefore, that now the axe has fallen
on private TV channels. Indeed, Khaleda Zia's fascination with Islamic
dictatorship is transparent.
