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Category: Censorship

‘You are guilty because we say so.’ 

Published by Shahidul Alam on September 15, 2023

The imprisonment of Odhikar’s Adilur Rahman Khan and ASM Nasiruddin Elan 

The humiliation of being put in that cage was not lost on anyone. Odhikar’s Secretary Adilur Rahman Khan and Director ASM Nasiruddin Elan had been there before, as indeed had I. Multiple times, on some occasions because the judge wanted to see me inside again. His sadistic pleasure in putting me back in the cage, on public display. The rambling judgement at the end of Odhikar’s case could have been reduced to two sentences. “You are guilty because we say so. You will go to jail, because we can.” 

I knew Adil and Elan through my crossfire exhibition, a show I had produced in 2010 based on extensive research by Momena Jalil, Fariha Karim and others of the Drik team. We were to open the show on 22nd March 2010, but the government intervened. Apparently, we had no right to show our own artwork in our own gallery without special government permission. We had asked which law this was stipulated by, but they weren’t able to produce any. Riot police came over anyway and closed down our gallery. Mahasweta Devi, the fiery Indian writer and activist had flown over to open the show. Nurul Kabir, one of the bravest editors Bangladesh has seen and one who still has the spine to resist publishing government propaganda, was also one of the speakers. With armed police surrounding the gallery, we resorted to opening the show in the streets of Dhanmondi outside our office.  

Police prevent human rights defender Adilur Rahman Khan from raising his fist in a show of defiance, as he enters prison van. Adil succeeded in breaking free and raising his clenched fist. 14th September 2023. Outside Judge Court. Dhaka. Photo: Dipu Malakar/Prothom Alo
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The journalist who got too close

Published by Shahidul Alam on April 11, 2020

‘REPEAT a lie often enough and it becomes the truth’, is a law of propaganda often attributed to the Nazi Joseph Goebbels. The Bangladesh government seems to have studied Goebbels’ book well. The lies generally come in the form of denials. ‘No, we have not been involved in “crossfire” and “disappearances”.’ ‘There is no political motive.’ ‘No one will be spared.’ ‘The elections were fair.’ ‘The judiciary is independent,’ the list goes on. The lies are repeated ad nauseam in political rallies, in talk shows, in press briefings and through social media trolls.

Shafiqul Islam Kajol photographed by his son Monorom Polok

‘We do not condone any such incident and will bring the responsible officials to justice’ said the foreign minister Dipu Moni at the Universal Periodic Review of Bangladesh at the Human Rights Council in Geneva on February 4, 2009 in response to accusations that the government was involved in ‘crossfire,’ a Bangladeshi euphemism for extra-judicial killings. She added that the government would show ‘zero tolerance’ to extra-judicial killings, or torture and death in custody. Indeed, doing so was part of the election campaign for the Bangladesh Awami League when they were in the opposition. As often happens however, once elected, their position changed, and ‘crossfire’ has become so integral to the Bangladeshi lingo that MPs now use the term in parliament, ‘You are allowing crossfire as part of a fight against drugs. Then why aren’t you doing the same in case of rape?’

Continue readingThe journalist who got too close

Obituary of a Democracy

Published by Shahidul Alam on January 1, 2020

In an interview with Shahidul Alam from his hospital bed, Chief Coordinator of Ganosamhati Andolon, Zonayed Saki, talks about the attack by police which left over fifty of his comrades injured. General Secretary of Biplobi Workers’ Party Saiful Haq was also injured. They were protesting the rigged elections on 30 December 2018. Opposition activists remember 30 December  for the ‘Death of Democracy’.

I am Zonayed Saki. I am the chief coordinator of Gonosamhati Andolon.
Gonosamhati Andolon is a political party in Bangladesh working for the rights of people.
You all know that in Bangladesh on the 30th December 2018, the election that took place was a vote robbery.
There has never before been an election like this in Bangladesh. Most ballots were stamped the previous night, and they filled up the ballot boxes.
And the entire state machinery was used towards this vote robbery.
There has never been a previous instance where this has happened in Bangladesh, because the Prime Minister had, prior to the election, had discussions with all political parties of Bangladesh.

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The Tide Will Turn

Published by Shahidul Alam on October 30, 2019

Shahidul Alam: The Tide Will Turn

Edited by Vijay Prashad

Texts by Shahidul Alam and Arundhati Roy

To my fellow prisoners in Keraniganj Jail, and the youth of Bangladesh who continue to resist, and to Abrar Farhad who was murdered by fellow students for his defiance.
Book design by Shahidul Alam and Holger Feroudj / Steidl Design
184 pages
7.3 x 9.3 in. / 18.5 x 23.5 cm
37 black-and-white and 74 colour photographs Four-colour process
Clothbound hardcover
€ 28.00 / £ 25.00 / US$ 30.00
ISBN 978-3-95829-693-0

A Bangladeshi policeman gags photographer Shahidul Alam to prevent him from speaking to the press during a court appearance 6 August 2018. Photo courtesy Suvra Kanti Das

“On the night of 5 August, I did not know if I was going to live or die,” writes Shahidul Alam, one of Bangladesh’s most respected photo- journalists, essayists and social activists, remembering his arrest, torture and eventual 101-day incarceration in Keraniganj Jail in 2018. Just a few hours before, he had given a television interview criticising the government’s brutal handling of the student protests of that year which had called for improved road safety and an end to wider social injustice—in his words, “the years of misrule, the corruption, the wanton killing, the wealth amassed by the ruling coterie.” Combining Alam’s photos and texts with those of a range of collaborators, including artwork by Sofia Karim and fellow inmates, The Tide Will Turn documents his experiences, the global support for his release, and the ongoing fight for secularism and democracy in Bangladesh and beyond.

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Described by its editor Vijay Prashad as about “the beauty and tragedy of our world, about how to photograph that dialectic,
and about how to write about it,”

Continue readingThe Tide Will Turn

Shahidul Alam: Caught in the Crossfire of Bangladesh’s Fledgling Democracy

Published by Shahidul Alam on February 17, 2019

DHAKA, BANGLADESH, 10/16/2018 © SK HASAN ALI / SHUTTERSTOCK

By Rachel Spence in Fair Observer •   OCTOBER 24, 2018

How do you persuade a government to release a prisoner, however wrongfully incarcerated, if it doesn’t want to cooperate?

Thousands of signatures, tweets, Instagram and Facebook posts. Dozens of articles. Then there are the rallies: from Kathmandu to New York, from Rome to New Delhi, London to Mumbai. Week by week, hundreds of people are gathering in public spaces to protest against the incarceration in Dhaka, Bangladesh, of photographer, journalist, teacher and activist Shahidul Alam.

Among the most headline-grabbing initiatives is Wasfia Nazreen’s sky-high stunt. The mountaineer and social activist — the first Bangladeshi to climb the Seven Summits — flew over Manhattan in an airplane trailing a banner that read “Free Shahidul Alam. Free our teachers.” Another high-profile intervention was made by artist Tania Bruguera, who was herself locked up in her native Cuba after she offended the state censors, and recently devoted her Tate Modern exhibition in London to a display of Alam’s photographs. “What keeps you going when you’re in prison,” Bruguera told me, “are your principles. And the support of others around you.”

Continue readingShahidul Alam: Caught in the Crossfire of Bangladesh’s Fledgling Democracy

‘The Shahidul Alam I Know Is Gentle’

Published by Shahidul Alam on January 10, 2019

Urvashi Butalia writes about the times she met and worked with the Bangladeshi photojournalist, who was granted bail by the High Court in Dhaka after 102 days of detention.

By Urvashi Butalia November 16, 2018

I cannot now remember when I first met Shahidul Alam, but I think it was some twenty or more years ago when both of us served on the board of an organisation called Panos South Asia. My first impression of him was of a somewhat large, bearded man who spoke with an accent I could not place. It did not take long – perhaps a few hours – for this to change and for the warm, affectionate and caring human being to emerge.

Poppy McPherson

✔@poppymcp

Iconic shot of Bangladeshi photojournalist and rights activist Shahidul Alam, shared by the #FreeShahidul campaign. He finally got bail today after more than 100 days in prison, accused of spreading propaganda. He was arrested after posting on Facebook about protests in Dhaka.

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To me, Shahidul came across that time as the best kind of nationalist. He loved – he still does – his country Bangladesh. His stint abroad – I never actually knew where he has studied or spent any time – had actually left this feeling much stronger in him. He told all of us about Drik, the photo agency that showcased photographers from the global South and that fiercely protected their rights and their work, refusing to accept that simply because they belonged to the South, their value was any the less. Drik charged for their photos as did international agencies, and why not, was Shahidul’s question.

Continue reading‘The Shahidul Alam I Know Is Gentle’