⁨Awami League comments on BBC World Service Documentary

We would like first to express our deep sorrow at the tragic events of last summer and the loss of life that occurred. It is a scandal that those events have since fuelled further chaos, violence, and death in Bangladesh. We believe the decisions made at the time by senior government officials were proportionate, taken in good faith, and aimed at preventing precisely the lawlessness we now see unfolding in the country.

The Awami League categorically denies and rejects claims that some of its senior leaders, including the Prime Minister herself, were personally responsible for or directed the use of lethal force against crowds. The BBC report’s imputation of guilt is unjustified but also ill-considered in its timing.

These matters are currently the subject of highly-politicized legal proceedings in Bangladesh. It is irresponsible of the BBC to risk prejudicing these proceedings further by airing its programme at this time. It would never have done so if there were legal proceedings underway in the UK.

The BBC’s arrogance in this regard is aggravated by its apparent endorsement of evidence which, though flimsy, will likely be used in the court proceedings. It has aired an audio recording ascribed to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.

The recording’s authenticity cannot be verified, but in any case, its contents are not nearly as sensational as the BBC tries to suggest. The language in the recording in no way amounts to any specific order or intention to use illegitimate force, nor does it suggest the exercise of inappropriate power on the Prime Minister’s part.

Throughout the crisis, she used reasonable means to defend public order and the constitution, by her duties under the constitution and her electoral mandate, and exercising appropriate restraint wherever possible. National leaders are often forced to make difficult decisions, but we are confident that her actions as Prime Minister complied with Bangladeshi and international law.

The BBC documentary entirely fails to demonstrate that the political leadership directed the shooting of protesters. Operational decisions on the ground were made by security forces, not the political leadership.
For the most part, the security forces behaved proportionately and acted per police training and operational protocols under the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC), which requires them to take necessary action to ensure public safety and the protection of lives and property without even requiring external orders. But the situation was fast-moving and volatile, and it is clear that discipline did regrettably break down in some instances. The Awami League-led government never sought to hide this.

On the contrary, it established an independent inquiry commission into allegations of misconduct in early August, ahead of the government’s violent overthrow. Support was also pledged to the bereaved.

The Prime Minister mourns every life lost during the unrest. Her record on human rights is well established - she made Bangladesh one of the few Muslim-majority countries to ratify the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. She led efforts to support and protect Rohingya refugees fleeing genocide in Myanmar. Her leadership ushered in unprecedented prosperity, with high economic growth rates.

Although it purports to offer a thorough and blow-by-blow account of street-level events in Dhaka leading up to the government’s overthrow, particularly centred on protests around the Jatrabari Police Station, the BBC’s documentary does not mention or fails to acknowledge the following important facts and perspectives properly:

• By the time the police opened fire on protestors, Sheikh Hasina was already reportedly fleeing the country, and the chain of command within the police had collapsed. One officer interviewed admits they received no help despite repeated calls to headquarters. It seems reasonable to infer that the police acted out of panic, not, as the BBC suggests without evidence, through any order from higher command, and certainly not from a government which had already fallen.
• The BBC’s own footage shows that police fired only after the army withdrew and protestors began storming the station. The indiscriminate shooting that followed, while very regrettable, can easily be understood as a desperate act of self-preservation by officers.
• Police certainly had good reason to feel threatened by protestors. In Jatrabari itself, near the very station in question, two plainclothes officers had been dragged out, lynched, and hung upside down from an overpass on July 19 and 20. The BBC does not mention this incident in its programme.
• In the closing credits, the BBC acknowledges that 44 police officers were killed during the disturbances, but this forms no part of the documentary’s narrative.
• There is no reference to incidents of arson and looting at police, to attacks on Members of Parliament, ministers, the National Parliament building, the Bangabandhu Memorial Museum, the Liberation War Museum, hospitals, and other government institutions, all of which were also happening at this time.

Disappointingly, the documentary also does not refer at all to the violence that has beset Bangladesh since the government’s overthrow, which sadly vindicates those who sought to defend the constitution last August. It does not mention the many well-reported and documented attacks on minorities - Hindus, Christians, Buddhists – that have assailed the country since then, nor the physical and judicial attacks on Awami League members, journalists, lawyers and cultural activists.

The Awami League would still welcome a truly impartial investigation into the full scope of violence and lawlessness in Bangladesh over the past year, including not only the July and August incidents, but also the ongoing, often overlooked acts of political violence targeting Awami League supporters since 15 August. These include the lynchings, burnings, and killings of dozens of police officers, crimes that remain undocumented and unpunished. All such acts must be subject to thorough and unbiased scrutiny, regardless of the perpetrators’ affiliations.

Joy Bangla
Joy Bangabandhu
Long live Bangladesh.⁩