Bangladesh is one of the US’ most important South Asian allies. But in recent times, the Bangladesh government has experienced turbulence since acquiring independence from Pakistan, nearly 50 years ago. Following several militant coups since the early 70s, Bangladesh’s current government is officially a parliamentary republic headed by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. However, despite boasts of the country making social and economic improvements, there is an apparent corruption in the government’s relation with the press and labor rights.
MD Kashem, 59, was born in the capital city of Dhaka in 1958. He was 13 years old when the Liberation War occurred in 1971. Unlike his older brother Debesh, who was 20 at the time and in the army, Kashem was too young to take up arms. However, he had an active role in the war by helping bring weapons and food between camps.
The war ended in under a year and Kashem joined the military when he was 18. There, he got his bachelors in mechanical engineering and worked for the country’s air force. His wife, Shahida Begum, was a school teacher during this time and the two married in 1989. Six years later, they had a son, Rifat, and a decade later they immigrated after winning an annual lottery program which granted them a diversity visa to the US.
In all, Kashem and Shahida have lived most of their lives in BD and have seen firsthand how the country’s news media operates. Kashem, who now works in a uniform store in Jamaica, Queens said that: “The main news channels say only good things about the government- especially the [free channels] on TV. You rarely hear about bad things and the government in the reports.” He also noted that while all news channels weren’t actually all pro-government, almost all channels demonstrate clear biases by promoting certain political groups while antagonizing others.
This coincides with a February 2016 article by BBC profiling Bangladesh’s media. In the article, it was reported that the two largest news broadcasters, Radio Bangladesh (BB) and Bangladesh TV (BTV) were “state-owned and government-friendly”. Additionally, in 2014 and 2015, the government reportedly took direct action against the press after several radio and TV stations broadcasted programming deemed “harmful to the image of law enforcement agencies, which impeded state security.” Following this, a nationwide ban on all broadcasted material fitting this criteria was issued in 2014.
“It’s not like how it is [in the US], when you see Trump arguing with [the news media],” Kashem said. “In BD the government and the news never fight because they are the same thing.”
Kashem’s son, Rifat agreed with his father and added that, “Other than extreme cases and disasters, you won’t get a lot of coverage about the problems happening inside- especially if the government might be involved.” Referencing the disastrous collapse of a textile factory in April of 2013, he commented on how news of the incident was portrayed differently in Bangladesh vs. other countries. Two of Rifat’s aunts and several of his cousins lived in the same district of the collapse. They were a safe distance away from collapse, but in the weeks following the disaster, coverage of the incident appeared to be portrayed differently in the BD news media.
“Right after it happened I remember speaking to my aunt about it and her telling me that the news was calling it a ‘terrible accident’ and that no one expected it to happen. Then I read about it online and saw that apparently the building had cracks in it and the [factory owner] was arrested for forcing people to go in to work.”
In recent years there have been several other disastrous events that occurred in Bangladesh’s large textile industry. The pattern calls to issue another facet where the government is suspected to play a part; the rights of workers. Following the 2013 Rana Plaza collapse, The BBC published several articles examining the ties politics has on Bangladesh’s massive textile industry and consequently, the conditions and treatment workers are forced to endure.