Al Jazeera’s wild claims on July August violence in Bangladesh - A textbook case of media trial to cover up ongoing witch hunt against dissenters

Al Jazeera has released a 35-minute report on the July–August 2024 violence in Bangladesh, purporting to investigate alleged human rights abuses. In reality, the documentary closely mirrors the narrative of the current regime led by Dr. Muhammad Yunus and appears designed to influence public opinion and judicial proceedings in favor of that administration.

The report repeats unsubstantiated claims that Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina ordered the killing of “unarmed protesters,” but fails to present any credible evidence. Instead, it relies almost exclusively on materials and testimony supplied by regime-aligned actors—including prosecutors, government officials, and affiliates of Jamaat-e-Islami—while ignoring the widespread abuses committed during and after the violence. Al Jazeera’s selection bias and confirmation bias in the documentary demonstrate a disturbing departure from journalistic integrity.

1. A One-Sided Investigation Framed by the Regime’s Narrative
Al Jazeera’s investigation is anything but independent. It relies entirely on evidence provided by the regime, featuring only voices aligned with the current regime or its ideological allies. These include the state attorney, the regime’s press secretary, and a senior Jamaat-e-Islami leader—all of whom have publicly advocated for decimating the Awami League’s presence in Bangladesh.

The documentary presents regime-supplied audio recordings and scripted accounts from the Yunus-appointed Chief Prosecutor of the ICT Tribunal as if they were independent evidence. It is worth mentioning that Tajul has already been described as a partisan figure by rights activists with a motivated agenda against Sheikh Hasina. The documentary ignores ample counter-evidence—including statements from protest leaders admitting that their demands were designed to provoke confrontation, and that attacks on law enforcement and critical infrastructure were part of a broader strategy to destabilize the state
The documentary carefully avoids any perspective that might challenge its thesis. While the documentary follows the narrative of the Younus appointed state prosecutor, it fails to present a single voice from defense attorneys representing those accused. It interviews families of protesters but ignores those of police officers and Awami League supporters who were murdered—many in brutal, public fashion. No senior police officers involved in managing the protests were interviewed, nor were any Awami League or Bangadesh Student League leaders. This lack of due representation undermines the report’s credibility and violates fundamental journalistic standards

2. No Credible Evidence Linking Sheikh Hasina to Use of Lethal Force or intention to kill protesters:
Al Jazeera’s central accusation—that Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina authorized the use of lethal force on unarmed protesters—is based entirely on unverified audio recordings supplied by the regime. No video evidence has been presented to support this claim, and no forensic authentication has been offered to confirm the identity of the speaker.

Despite this, the documentary treats the audios as conclusive. Chief prosecutor Tajul Islam—appointed by the Yunus regime and a central figure in the production—openly admitted to providing these recordings to media outlets. Weeks before the documentary aired, he posted on Facebook: “More will come. Everyone should wait,” signaling his involvement in shaping its content. His role as both prosecutor and media source fundamentally compromises the credibility of the materials presented.
Source: Tajul Islam Facebook Post, July 9

Tajul has already been discredited in multiple reports for misrepresenting facts and lying before the court, including falsely attributing the killing of police officers to Awami League activists, contradicting statements from regime-aligned protestors who admitted their role in killing Cops, arson of state infrastructure, and violence.

• New Age Bangladesh – Tajul Islam Appointed ICT Chief Prosecutor
• DW Bengali – Politicized Judiciary and July Violence

Even more troubling is Al Jazeera’s contradictory framing. On one hand, it claims the audios were leaked by intelligence officials from the Hasina administration—whom it also labels part of a “ruthless network.” If these officials are complicit in the very crimes being alleged, how can their supposed leaks be trusted as evidence? The report never addresses this contradiction.

3. Misrepresentation and Manipulation of Evidence
Even if taken at face value, the audio recordings presented in Al Jazeera’s documentary do not support the claim that Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina authorized unlawful killings. The excerpts used appear to be part of a longer, context-specific conversation in which the speakers discuss three distinct groups involved in the unrest. The female voice—allegedly Hasina’s—clearly states that lethal force had not been authorized earlier due to the presence of students and the need to ensure their safety.

The decisional authority to use firearms lies solely with senior police officers or magistrates on the ground. The Prime Minister and other senior executive officials are not part of the chain of command governing operational decisions related to the use of firearms.
Furthermore, it is important to note that the deployment of lethal force does not necessarily imply intent to kill; it may involve the use of proportionate force aimed at neutralizing imminent threats without resulting in fatal outcomes. In fact, the documentary includes a separate (unverified) recording of the Police Commissioner reportedly instructing officers to shoot below the waist—a standard protocol to avoid fatal outcomes.

The documentary further distorts the story by overlaying it with speculative commentary from regime figures such as prosecutor Tajul Islam and press secretary Shafiq. They narrate the conversation between Prime Minister Hasina and the Army Chief as though she explicitly ordered the Army Chief to open fire on civilians. Yet the Army Chief, who himself appears in the documentary, makes no such claim. This speculative interpretation stems entirely from Tajul and Shafiq—neither of whom was present during the conversation they purport to describe.

Throughout the documentary, Tajul’s distorted interpretation of the footage is used to deceive viewers. For example, one segment shows helicopters flying over Dhaka while playing Tajul’s narration about aerial gunfire to kill people. Yet no such footage of gunfire exists. RAB, even under this regime, denied allegations that they fired any lethal weapon from helicopters; they only used non-lethal tear shells and sound grenades. Even the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) reported no confirmation of helicopter-fired bullets. Almost a year has elapsed, but the regime failed to gather a single video evidence on bullets fired from helicopters. The documentary completely omitted these facts and used Tajul’s narration to mislead the audience into believing that bullets were fired from a helicopter to kill people.

Finally, the claim of government interference in the forensic evidence of Abu Sayeed is contradicted by the documentary’s own material. In the leaked conversation allegedly between Salman F. Rahman and the Police Chief, Police Chief clearly mentioned that no communication took place between the doctor or medical institution and Police. But the government doctor mentioned Police forced him to temper the document. If the leaked private conversation is genuine, this Police Chief claiming doctors not communicating with police is more credible it than the claim of a government-employed doctor, especially one who admits to having previously tampered reports under political pressure but only revealed it after a regime change.

4. Globally recognized terror outfit leader introduced as independent voice
One of the documentary’s central figures, Abu Shadik Kayem, is introduced as a neutral “student protest organizer.” In reality, he is the Dhaka University president of Islami Chhatra Shibir—the student wing of Jamaat-e-Islami, ranked third among the top ten most active non-state armed groups across the world in 2013, according to “IHS Jane’s 2013 Global Terrorism & Insurgency Attack Index”.

Source: Dhaka Tribune – Shibir Global Ranking

Al Jazeera deliberately did not disclose this affiliation, creating the false impression that Kayem speaks as an objective witness rather than a partisan actor with a history of radical involvement.
After August 5, Kayem’s political ties became public, prompting backlash from other student activists who accused him of infiltrating the movement to further Shibir’s agenda. His own party members later admitted that this was part of a calculated strategy to exploit the protests for political gain.

Sources:
• Jagonews24 – Kayem’s Affiliation Revealed
• Voice7 News

Al Jazeera’s failure to disclose this background amounts to a serious breach of journalistic responsibility. By presenting a high-ranking figure from a globally recognized Islamic terrorist group as a dispassionate observer, the outlet has misled its audience and sanitized the radical elements embedded within the protest movement.

5. Al Jazeera’s Biased Retelling of Events without background

The documentary selectively frames the July–August unrest as a peaceful protest, omitting the scale and brutality of the coordinated violence that unfolded across the country.

During the uprising, armed insurgents within the protest broke into prisons, destroyed highly secured Key Point Installations (KPIs), looted police armories, and burned down police stations and government buildings. Dozens of ruling party activists and police officers were murdered—some had their throats slit, others were hung upside down from overpasses.

Additionally, aftermath the regime change, the insurgents broke out thousands of criminals, including 98 high-ranking convicted Islamic terrorists from prisons. The attacks included coordinated assaults on more than 450 police stations, and the looting of roughly 6,000 firearms and over 600,000 rounds of ammunition.

This was an insurgency with a clear political objective of dismantling the state and replacing it with a regime aligned with Islamist hardliners.

Totally omitting this background, the documentary portrays state action without context and recasts a violent insurgency as a fully democratic movement.

6. Hiding Ongoing Weaponization of Judiciary and Orchestrating a Media Trial
With no substantive evidence to support its case, the regime has increasingly relied on media platforms to build public pressure and shape judicial outcomes. Al Jazeera’s documentary is not an outlier; it is part of this coordinated strategy to legitimize a politically motivated trial through selective leaks, partisan voices, and emotionally charged narratives.

Chief prosecutor Tajul Islam has played a central role in this campaign. When the BBC World Service broadcast regime-supplied audio clips, Tajul publicly celebrated the exposure, claiming that his office had provided the materials, which undermined the credibility of both the evidence and the broadcast.

Source: DW Bengali Report

Evidence presented in an ongoing trial is the property of the court and cannot legally be shared with third parties, including media outlets, without explicit judicial authorization. Yet this principle has been repeatedly violated by prosecutors aligned with the regime, which is further proof that the judicial process has been compromised.

The regime’s broader strategy is to deny defendants access to fair legal representation, control the public narrative through sympathetic media, and present hearsay as fact. Judges reportedly face intimidation; defense lawyers are blocked from visiting clients or attacked inside court premises; and prosecutors with longstanding ties to Jamaat-e-Islami—many of whom previously sought to downplay war crimes—have been handpicked to oversee politically sensitive cases.

Source: Prothom Alo Report

Despite this climate of repression, Al Jazeera and the BBC have continued to present regime-appointed prosecutors as neutral sources—effectively laundering partisan claims into global headlines. In doing so, they help legitimize politically motivated trials and obscure the collapse of judicial independence in Bangladesh.

7. Al Jazeera’s Consistent Pattern of Hostility Towards Bangladesh Awami League
Al Jazeera’s latest documentary is part of a long-established pattern of bias in its coverage of the Bangladesh Awami League. The outlet has consistently amplified narratives aligned with Islamist hardliners and downplayed secular, democratic developments under the Awami League and the leadership of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.

This is not the first time Al Jazeera has shown hostility toward Bangladesh’s secular government. During the BNP-Jamaat era, the outlet remained largely silent on the rise of Islamist terrorism. But after the Hasina administration launched war crimes trials for 1971 genocide perpetrators, Al Jazeera became a vocal critic, undermining the legitimacy of the tribunal. In one broadcast, it even minimized the 1971 death toll to 300,000–500,000, disregarding the well-documented figure of three million victims.

When Hefazat-e-Islam called for a ban on girls’ education and launched violent protests in Dhaka, Al Jazeera portrayed the group as a grassroots reformist movement and likened the events to the Arab Spring. During the COVID-19 pandemic, it predicted a catastrophic collapse and over a million deaths in Bangladesh, which never materialized.

The network’s consistent attempts to frame Prime Minister Hasina’s administration in conspiratorial or authoritarian terms while ignoring or sanitizing Islamist extremism reflect deeper cultural and ideological biases among its editorial leadership.

Source: Press Xpress – Al Jazeera’s Smear Campaign

Al Jazeera’s documentary is not an act of independent reporting—it is a calculated attempt to influence an ongoing judicial process and legitimize an illegal and unconstitutional regime led by Dr. Yunus. Through selective sourcing, biased references, omission of key facts, and reliance on unverified audio, it advances a political agenda rather than uncovering the truth.