Bangladeshi newspapers attacked by mob

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You're listening to the documentary from the BBC World Service.

Shomosh and Awanda Yedda, Fifth Floor, Boirino, Taran Yub has stayed.

This is the Fifth Floor at the heart of global storytelling with BBC journalists from all around the world.

I'm your host, Irana Taranik.

In December, the offices of two of Bangladesh's biggest newspapers, the Daily Star and Prottom Allo,

were surrounded by mobs attacked and set on fire. At the Daily Star,

journalists were forced to take shelter on the roof of the building. They were eventually rescued

by the army, and many required hospital treatment. Prottom Allo is a Bengali language sister

paper of the Daily Star. It was also attacked at the same time. The BBC's Shautik Viswas

went to Dhaka to investigate the causes of this violence, and he's with me now.

Shautik, welcome to the Fifth Floor, and thank you for finding time for us.

Thank you.

First of all, what were the signs of trouble in Dhaka on the 18th of December?

This attack has a very curious genesis, because, you know, that day,

Sharif Osman Hadhi was a young prominent youth leader, had died in a Singapore hospital,

after being shot by masked attackers outside at Dhaka mosque the previous week.

Now, Hadhi was an upcoming young youth leader. He was not a politician. He had started a cultural

organization. He was a nationalist, and a lot of his speeches and his rhetoric had a lot of

anti-India sentiment. Now, anti-India sentiments are not uncommon in Bangladesh. It has had a

love and hate relationship with India, so that's not uncommon. And the Daily Star and the Prottom Allo

had come under attack from a lot of people include Hadhi's organization of being agents of India.

Now, that's also not very uncommon in Bangladesh, where, you know, people are identified as pro-India

or anti-India. But anyway, so these papers are branded as Indian agents, accused of downplaying

Hadhi's assassination. And mind you, it was a huge, huge story. Almost the entire nation was

in mourning because of the murder of this leader. So, it does seem that the mob which came and

attacked these two newspapers, attacked it because they believed that they were anti-Indian papers.

But it's still not clear whether the people belonging to Hadhi's organizations were behind

the attack. That's absolutely unclear. So, we really don't know that who did this and why did

they do it? We don't know because there's been no clarity on what the motive of this attack might

have been. We know that on Facebook, and I've heard this from a lot of people that there were a bunch

of Facebookers, Bangladesh's, who were not in the country, apparently ordering in courts.

Who were these people? Why were they orchestrating these attacks online? That's absolutely unclear.

There's been no clarity on what the motive of this attack might have been.

You already mentioned that there was a lot of anti-India sentiment and those two newspapers were

accused of being pro-Indian in their tone. But these two newspapers are really big in Bangladesh.

You liken them to the French Le Monde or the New York Times or the Times. Was there any proof given

that the newspapers were biased in any way? Or was it just sort of totally invented?

I think a bit of it was invented. I have never found bias. I mean, the daily star is a pretty kind of,

I would imagine a neutral newspaper in a very, very oppressive news environment in Bangladesh.

And Guatemala is a really, really good newspaper. It's almost like the laman of Bangladesh. It's like

the leading Bengal in newspaper. It's about twenty-eight years old. And the daily star is about

thirty-four years old. And both are very reputable, serious newspapers. They're not tabloids or

screechy kind of media. They're very complete. Let's go back to that night of the 18th of December.

The newspaper journalist Zima Islam. She's young, isn't she? Yeah, she's a thirty-something

investigative reporter. She's finishing her article late about Sharif Osman Hadi,

about his funeral and the whole case of his tragic death after shooting. She does her job

of a journalist. She files the story away. Can you tell us what happened to her and her colleagues

that evening? So, it must have been close to midnight when it finished a story. And the very

interesting fact is that she said they knew that the building was going to come under attack,

because a lot of stuff was coming out on Facebook, which was basically a lot of people posting

things that are garbage on the way to attack these newspapers and so on. So, they had been

threats. Remember, Facebook is hugely popular in Bangladesh. In ways it is not in most countries

around the world. It's still a go-to place for news. I think in a country of

170 million, about 50 million people are on Facebook. So, she said that they knew that there was

a mob, a protester is moving towards these two papers, but they thought that it would be just

some protest and some demonstrations happening outside the office and it had happened in the run

up to this attack. So, she said, my first job was to make sure that I finished my story. So,

she stayed on and there were about 27 colleagues of hers. And this is an amazing thing. As they're

looking at their Facebook phones and saying that there is a crowd or a mob moving towards the office,

she actually said, stop. Finish is a story. Hit submit. And then she heads downstairs with

her colleagues. When they went down, they realized things were very bad.

Shatik, I was thinking, what would I do if a mob surrounded my building? Would I finish the story?

Would I try to save myself? And as yet, I don't know the answers. Tell me,

a journalist knew that the mob is after them. They knew they were innocent in doing their job

and presenting the balanced view of the major story for Bangladesh. Where was the security?

Where was the police? Yeah, now that's a very good question because if you think that the mob

had collected over like one hour and where were the security. Now, remember, this is happening

in December when Bangladesh was being ruled by an interim government. There had been a lot of

mob attacks during that time. And one reason was that the police and the security forces were

completely demoralized after the July 24 uprising when Sheikh Hassanah had to flee the country

and a 15-year-old government collapsed. Now, she is accused, her party and she is accused of

killing 1400 people according to the student protests broke out. And a lot of these shootings,

the police were allegedly responsible. So you can imagine the police is demoralized, the security

forces are demoralized. And I would think that is one of the reason why they couldn't do much.

It tells you about the failure of the state in a complete, complete collapse of law in order

which was happening in Bangladesh that allowed the mob to go in and then they then they vandalized

and set fire to the building. So it was not a simple protest. How did the journalist eventually

escape? So Zayma told me the story, five past midnight, she's files a story and then they said,

let's go down. A bunch of journalists had already made the way out of the building. It's a,

I think an eight-story building with a roof on the nine-floor. But 28 of them were trapped inside

including two women, one of them was Zayma. And when they went down, they actually saw, you know,

they heard the sound of brick smashing glass at the reception from outside and people were trying

to come in at which point they realized that it was very, very unsafe to try to go out through

the reception because there was a huge mob outside waiting outside that come into the office.

And at that point, all of them decided to just climb up nine floors and go up to the roof

because they thought if the building was set on fire, they would still have a chance if they went

to the roof, which I thought was a very brave and intelligent part of the mobil decision that

they didn't log themselves into any of the floors, really. I think the newsroom was in the seventh floor.

They had gone down to the first floor and they climbed all the way back to the ninth floor.

By which time Zayma says that the smoke was already kind of funneling up the elevator shaft.

So it was a very dramatic precarious four and a half hours on the roof in the darkness

with the smoke coming up. And they were getting messages from their colleagues downstairs who had kind

of melted into that crowd. And they were sending messages that they're planning murder,

they could drop a bomb, you know, things like that because things are very bad.

For four and a half hours, these 27 people were literally trapped. And Zayma was I think one of the

bravest, but there were people who collapsed from inhaling smoke. She said one of her favorite colleagues

actually passed out. They had a single tap which was riding on the roof, they soaked whatever they

could, anchored shirts, things like that, t-shirts and held it. And they just kind of

you know, waited and waited till the army came. The army came after four and a half hours as you

were saying. And how did that affect them? How did it affect their work as journalists and their

lives? So the other thing is the army and the police possibly had come earlier, but they were not

able to control them all. And as I said, it also tells you how badly the lawyer in order was

compromised in Bangladesh. By the time they came in, I think a bunch of people from the mob had

already come into the building and they had started setting fire on every floor. There was a

fantastic photo exhibition which is going on on the ground floor and the first floor, I think,

of the July 24 movement by the best photographers they had. That was one to send us. They went up

to the first floor, they burned down an auditorium, they burned down. The entire archive. So all in all,

I think this effort from like two million dollars worth of losses, you know. When I went there

about 40, 50 days later, it was like it seemed that it had been just freshly attacked. It was just

like piles and piles of glass. He'd buy the entrance and a burnt out shell and foreign

diplomats were still filing through. At the same time, a similar attack was launched against its

Bengali sister, Proto Malo. Can you tell us what was happening there? Proto Malo was lucky. The

journalist at Proto Malo had already evacuated by the time the mob died. So thankfully, we didn't have

siege-like situation at Proto Malo. So how do you come back after that? How long did it take them to

resume operation, to resume working? So the interesting thing is these 28 journalists and

staffers went down to the staircase. The army created a safe passage, but the newspaper actually

didn't come out the next morning. The print edition came out on the 20th. On the 20th of December,

they came back with a eight-page edition and the headline prominently was unbound, which was a very,

very striking headline with a photograph of the burning building. I think it was one of the most

powerful front pages I've seen on newspapers. Are there precedents for something similar for

attacks against journalists in Bangladesh? And going on from there, what are the challenges for

the new Prime Minister of Bangladesh? Bangladesh is not the safest country to be a journalist.

Now, if you look at the reporters without borders ranking from 2025, I think it rains at 149.

It used to be in the 150s and 60s. It's notched up a little bit because the last one year,

media has seen some relative freedoms because there was entered in government. But yeah, I mean,

a lot of intimidation in the last 15 years, a lot of restrictive laws, a lot of journalists have

been jailed for criticizing the government. A lot of the media groups are actually owned by

business houses with those ties with the political parties. And journalists are charged by this

digital security act for any online criticism. So the freedom of the press has been under a lot of

stress, especially in the last 15 years, as the government got more and more oppressive. But,

you know, there are, I think, 200 newspapers or something in Bangladesh, coming out every morning,

small bit. So ostensibly, if you go there, you will think that this must be a very, very

vibrant country media-wise because there's so much of print. There's literally, there's still

new stands. There's still a lot of newspapers and magazines and so on. And of course,

Guatemala and Delhi Star are the leading periodicals. But yes, they have worked under a lot of stress.

And to your question about what a new government could do is, I think the new government has

to possibly make sure that Bangladesh should return to a vibrant democracy, which it has been

from time to time. When I went to Bangladesh in Dhaka, I'm not saying in December, it was exactly

that. Because there was an interim government in power. Suddenly, the media was like,

felt completely free. People were discussing everything under the sun, criticizing, in bar rooms,

and hotels, and restaurants. And it felt like the most vibrant South Asian capital in December.

More vibrant than Delhi. Absolutely. I mean, it was so free. The new government needs to make sure

that the argumentative Bangladeshi civil society and media should not be strangled, you know.

Because, you know, Bengal is a very argumentative people. They love debates and they love

criticism and everything else. So this is completely unlike the character of Bangladesh to kind of

put the media in better Israel. Thank you, Shotik, Shotik, Pizwas.

You're listening to the documentary from the BBC World Service. This is the fifth floor,

and I'm Irana Taranyuk.

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Hallyu, or the Korean Wave, is what South Koreans call the international success of TV shows

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How has the bands return been received in their home country, South Korea?

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and then Kwanghwamun is the main gate of Kyungbokung Palace, which was the main royal palace during

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foreign visitors to see but also for Koreans. It has a deeper meaning and many people see Kwanghwamun

Square as a historic and symbolic space that represents the country itself. There is a certain

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right? Yeah. Can you tell us this absence of nearly three years from touring, from giving

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on this issue. But before the government's announcement came out, BTS announced that, yeah,

we'll do the service. We'll go to the military. Domestically, yeah, I cannot deny that whether

men did the military duty or not plays a great role in how people see them. So after they completed

their military service, yeah, people kind of see them more respectfully. Military services,

regarded as kind of armor here. And because their popularity was connected to their stage performances

and their beautiful kind of harmonious singing and dancing, many skeptics thought,

oh, BTS in two years time, nobody will know them, nobody will remember them. Their popularity

hasn't faded, has it? Yeah, I was really surprised to see that people are so excited about

their coming back. And then I really panic to see that all the world tour tickets were sold out,

very shortly. To be honest, as a journalist, I tried to get the tickets for the Kwongamun concert

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enter it at right time and found that, yeah, I was in the queue and that my number was like

30,000. Wow. It was crazy. Did you get a ticket? I didn't get the ticket. I wasn't able to get the

ticket. And all of my colleagues said, yeah, my number was 10,000. My number was 20,000. So, yeah,

we were all so surprised to see that popularity. You have to come to London in July to see them

if you are lucky with the tickets. Oh, yeah, I hope so. As a Korean, are you proud

by this phenomenon called Hallyu or the Korean Wave? How does it make you feel? Oh, yeah, well,

in fact, Korea has never really received this much global tension culturally before. So,

many people, including me, feel very happy and proud about their country's current cultural

popularity. Yeah, in the past, when I traveled abroad, I always had to explain where Korea was or

whether Kim Jong-il or his father Kim Jong-il was from North or South. And then where I was from.

So, seeing the whole world paying attention to BTS performing here and so, I mean, BTS

became a world star. And their comeback concert here is a big news. The BBC, Netflix, and every other

media is focusing on that show. Yeah, that's really surreal to me. And wonderful. Thank you so

much, Sunwook. Thank you, Sunwook. And thank you to all my guests this week. Before we go, we love

hearing from you. If you have questions for us or our correspondents, we want to tell us what you

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