Tag: Shahidul Alam

Bangladesh’s Spin Doctors Are Wrong-Footed by Their Own Doosra

Sheikh Hasina, a long standing member of the tyranny club of Trump, Netanyahu and Modi, has been playing the game for some time. But arrogance has its drawbacks.

There is a particular type of bowling in cricket called the Googly or the Doosra. It is a rare spin ball  that sends you the wrong way, which only few bowlers have mastered. Good batsmen – and women – can tell from the bowler’s arm and wrist action which way the ball will spin and play accordingly. Except in the case of the deceptive Doosra. Many a famous scalp has been taken by the well-executed Doosra. In Bangladeshi politics, it is the spin doctors themselves who seem to be falling prey to the Doosra, with the outcome not going quite the way it was intended. 

Bangladeshi citizens have an unusual choice. The coming 48 hours (I began writing the piece in July 22) could be a ‘general holiday’ as declared by the government.

The quota students have declared there will be a ‘complete shutdown’.

The Army chief Waker-Uz-Zaman announced on TV that they’ve brought things under control and the country is heading back to ‘normal’.

There are soldiers in the streets enforcing an ongoing curfew with orders to shoot to kill. Curfew isn’t what one associates with a ‘general holiday,’ though sadly, killing unarmed citizens could be considered normal in Gaza or Kashmir.

In Bangladesh, with no internet, no cash, no banking services, and with people with ‘pay as you go’ accounts for gas and electricity on the verge of having their connections closed down due to non-payment, one wonders whether this will become the new normal.

The ‘shutdown’ moniker makes some sense. Most shops are closed, and while there are people on the streets – especially in the 2-3 hour window when the curfew is called off – the city is tense. Curfew was relaxed today, July 22, from 10 am to 5 pm, and offices and banks were open from 11-3 pm. The only people who ventured out any distance from home, whether or not they had a curfew pass, are people on essential duty. Hospital staff, journalists, fire service people.

Also read: Bruised, Battered, Targeted, Undaunted: Bangladesh’s Students Will Not Bow

People could be seen in the back streets, where there appears to be generally no military or police presence, but there are also reports of people being hunted down and killed in alleyways, a source of intense fear.

The policing is also site-specific. The Maghreb azaan (call to prayer) floats across Rabindra Sharani, the outdoor recreation centre in the well-to-do residential area of Dhanmondi. There are no security forces here. Young women and men walk by the lakeside after dusk. Puppies frolic by the amphitheatre as kids play football and parents walk toddlers on the stage. I am told life is also ‘normal’ in the upmarket tri-state areas of Gulshan, Baridhara and Banani. Diplomats and decision-makers live there, and it wouldn’t do to show an overt military presence in such areas.

These are the ‘normal’ zones.


Mohammadpur, less than a kilometre away from Rabindra Sarani, is a ‘curfew’ zone. Topu, the head of the Photography Department of Pathshala, the South Asian Media Institute which I founded, rings at around 7.30 pm to say that a graduate student Ashraful Haque Rocky has been picked up by the police. Luckily, he has a press card as he used to work for a prominent newspaper. They have taken his camera away and so far he has not been roughed up. We are trying to get someone from the newspaper to ring, to make sure he is not physically harmed or disappeared. We anxiously wait for more information from the police station. After a lot of lobbying through multiple sources, a message comes in just before midnight that Rocky has been released. He has his camera. For the moment, we know nothing more.

News trickles in through our network that anyone taking injured students to hospital, even if they be helpful bystanders, are also getting arrested by plainclothes police. Injured students themselves are getting arrested, as soon as they are well enough to be released. They don’t always get beaten up or put in jail. Sometimes it is just extortion. A friend’s brother was released upon paying a ransom of Tk one lakh, just short of $ 1,000 – a lot of money in Bangladesh.

Newspapers also report Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus bucking the government narrative with a statement to the international community on Monday, “Bangladesh has been engulfed in a crisis that only seems to get worse each passing day. High school students have been amongst the victims.”

It is July 23 as I continue writing this essay. Local news channels reported last night, July 22, that there had been ‘no untoward incident’, though a friend provides eye witness reports of two students and two passersby being killed by the police in the Notun Bazar area of Dhaka. A young rag picker had been shot dead in a different part of the city. She also talks of the smart tanks stationed outside her house in Gulshan.

The foreign minister Hasan Mahmud had summoned the diplomatic community to ‘brief’ them on the current situation, with a presentation. It didn’t go quite as planned. Unusual for diplomats, the UN Resident Coordinator had asked the FM about the alleged use of UN-marked armoured personnel carriers and helicopters to suppress protesters. The outgoing US Ambassador Peter Haas, who had been instrumental in the US government’s sanctions against the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) for its human rights abuses, was the one to respond to the FM, “I am surprised you did not show the footage of police firing at unarmed protesters.”

There are dissenting voices among civil society despite the fear and repression. Thirty three eminent citizens have asked the government to apologise unconditionally to citizens for all the deaths of protesters since 16th July. The Communist Party of Bangladesh has demanded fresh general elections, while Rashtra Sanskar Andolan (Movement for State Reform) has demanded the government’s resignation. Twenty five women’s rights activists and teachers termed the Supreme Court’s verdict on quota system “a trap to confuse the ongoing just protests against the fascist government”. 

Protestors in Bangladesh. Photo: Shahidul Alam.

My partner Rahnuma and I are both aware that martyrs do not do good reporting. Working with limited resources, along with our wider team of dedicated activists, we have been looking out for each other. I have been out on the streets, on most occasions Rahnuma being my bodyguard. Even in this warlike environment, some show solidarity and want updates. A few even ask for selfies, while heavy set Awami League types scowl from a distance. Curfew and trigger happy security forces have made it difficult to visit friends in hospital, finding safe homes, and getting supplies.

Finding ways to beat the Internet ban and get messages such as this one out has been far from easy. We’ve managed so far. It is for you readers to take the next steps to freedom

Broadband connection was restored last night i.e., July 23, but selectively. We now have email and WhatsApp access at home, but no YouTube, no Facebook, and no social media. My niece, two roads down, has none.

Meanwhile the spin doctors are working overtime. The students, who were called “razaakars” (war of liberation collaborators) a week ago, then became “komolmoti shishu” (sweet innocent kids) a few days later, and are now “obujh chhatro” (naive students) whom the ”dushkritikari o jongi” (miscreants and terrorists) have exploited.

The PM met with the business community on Monday afternoon. They were concerned about the effect this problem was having on the nation’s economy. Parts of the discussion was aired on TV. The PM absolved the quota protesters of any ill-deeds, they are not the reason the army has been brought  in, she reminded us.

Video screengrab of a clip showing Hasina after her meeting with businesspersons.

Strange then that one of the demands by the protestors’ is that all charges against them be dropped. There is silence about the ongoing arrests of students. The spin doctors are working overtime to fit the quota protests which spilled over into a nationwide uprising, into the government’s holdall explanation, “the BNP-Jamaat-Shibir are responsible.” They will not be spared. They are the ones trying to hold back the country and turn back the development process. The entire cabinet nods.

Some of the party faithfuls come to the podium to hail the PM for her leadership and for thwarting the opposition’s evil plans so successfully. They assure her that the nation will continue in its glorious journey under her able leadership. They would like her to be Prime Minister “for life.” The images of Sheikh Hasina and her father ‘Bangabandhu’ (friend of  Bengal) Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, plastered along every wall across the country, the billboards and banners that litter the countryside, the Bangabandhu corner, required by law to be present in every library and prominently placed at the airport and all important buildings, collectively create the North Korea-like adulation of the great leader. 

An official photograph of Sheikh Hasina with Mujibur Rahman’s portrait behind her. Photo: Instagram/pmofbd

As in North Korea, the Bangladeshi leader has total control. The Argentinian army’s loss in the Malvinas (Falklands) Islands, while a loss for the nation, resulted in an unexpected gain. It broke the aura of invincibility of the army, which allowed the resistance to build and eventually overthrow the military regime. It is one of the few instances where the military rulers have been brought to trial. The aura of invincibility is important to maintain. That is why the photo of the soldier on the receiving end of a flying kick by a student, way back in 2007, was quickly hushed up and has disappeared from official archives. It is also probably the reason why the recent attack on the home minister’s house, though instigated by helicopter fire on protestors down below in the first place, never made it to the print and electronic media. Even the acknowledgement of such temerity, even if provoked, is dangerous.

The ‘New Age’ website’s home page on July 24.

The business community needs the internet to be up and running immediately. The downtime is costing them and they are getting agitated. The great leader informed them that she had explained everything to the naive students and they had understood. The students were no longer the problem. What was left was to tackle the terrorists and the miscreants, which she would take care of. You don’t bite the hand that feeds you. The business community knew where the red lines were and were careful not to cross them. They bowed and retreated.

The media has largely long stopped behaving as the fourth estate and has morphed into a PR network, for their corporations and now for the government. With extremely rare exceptions (the daily New Age being one), independent media has perished.

Embedded journalism is the norm. The few free-thinking journalists who still survive in this space worry about the moles surrounding them. Media owners confide that their headlines are dictated by military intelligence. Their own culpability, they conveniently ignore. Even the headlines, some say, are dictated by security agencies.

Even so, there are brave journalists who do what journalists must. Rigorous research. Detailed fact checking. Connecting the dots. Good reporters find holes in spin doctor statements, who get caught in their own web of lies.

Different ministers making contradictory statements, create traps for each other.

Why the police opened fire and killed “komolmoti shishus” is not an easy one to answer.

If the attackers were BNP and their allies, why they were chanting pro-Sheikh Hasina slogans is also unexplained.

If there was nothing to hide, why, after the claim that it was a technology issue was debunked by the industry experts, was the Internet still down?

The government accuses international agencies who are reporting on the situation, of providing fake news. Why then is Dhaka Medical College Hospital avoiding to provide figures for the dead and injured?

Tyrants across the globe, Trump, Netanyahu and Modi have resorted to the ‘fake news’ accusation to deny human rights violations that are clear to the public and the rest of the world. They’ve also used the full spectrum of repressive state machinery, including media, to deny culpability and hide their own guilt. They have also clubbed together, sharing resources and copying from each other’s playbook. Sheikh Hasina, a long standing member of the tyranny club has been playing the game for some time. But arrogance has its drawbacks. It would be wrong to underestimate the public and spin can only take you so far. Especially when the spin doctors seem to be getting wrong-footed by their own Doosra.

Shahidul Alam is an award-winning Bangladeshi photographer and activist.

‘Willing Accomplice in Israel’s Genocide’: Shahidul Alam Returns Honorary UK Doctorate

The firebrand photographer said that despite the appointment of James Purnell, a known Zionist, as Vice Chancellor of the University of the Arts London, he was initially encouraged by its students’ vocal support for Palestine. 

Dhaka: Renowned Bangladeshi photojournalist and human rights activist Shahidul Alam has returned his honorary doctorate from the University of the Arts London in a show of solidarity with Palestinians suffering amidst the ongoing conflict with Israel.

Alam, a TIME magazine ‘Person of the Year’ for 2018, has been a vocal critic of the Israeli military response in Gaza following the Hamas attacks on Israeli citizens. He has not only made numerous posts through his social media handles condemning Israel’s attack but also criticised the Western government’s tacit support to Israel in global TV networks.

Alam was awarded with an Honorary Doctorate by the University of the Arts London on July 8, 2022, at the Royal Festival Hall in that city. The prestigious award recognised his exceptional contributions to photography and activism.

Aside from bagging dozens of global awards for his photography, Alam has showcased his works in world’s premier institutions such as the Museum of Modern Art, Centre Georges Pompidou, Tate Modern, and the Museum of Contemporary Arts.

Notably, he is the first Asian to receive the Mother Jones Award for documentary photography and the first non-Caucasian to lead World Press Photo’s international jury.

Alam is also credited for single-handedly transforming his native Dhaka into a global photography hub, attracting esteemed photographers to teach and mentor, while fostering some of the world’s most promising emerging talent in his world renowned Drik Gallery and Pathashala Academy.

Returning the award

Alam said that he had, in 2022, gladly accepted the honorary doctorate degree from UAL Chancellor Grayson Perry. Alam said that he had then taken into note the university’s dedication to academic freedom and freedom of expression. At the time, UAL was ranked among the top two universities globally for art and design.

In recent times, inspired by demonstrations at Columbia University, student protests against Israel’s onslaught on Gaza have emerged on numerous university campuses across the Western world.

These students demand that universities cut ties with companies supporting Israel’s military actions in Gaza, and in some instances, sever all connections with Israel itself. Since the arrests at Columbia on April 18, hundreds of protesters have been detained across the US and Europe.

The firebrand human right defender notes that despite the appointment of James Purnell, a known Zionist, as Vice-Chancellor of the University of the Arts London, he was initially encouraged by UAL students’ vocal support for Palestine.

“These students were at the forefront of demonstrations urging their university to publicly support a ceasefire in Gaza,” Alam said in a press statement, “I am however expressing deep disappointment with how far removed the UAL administration, and specifically Vice Chancellor Purnell, appear to be from the student body’s stance on this issue.”

The statement issued by the Drik Gallery – the organisation Alam founded – said that the UAL students have repeatedly pointed out how they have been “stifled, stereotyped, and ignored.”

The students claim that UAL, “through its partnerships with PUMA, Kornit, LVMH, L’Oréal, and many other Israeli or Israel-affiliated companies and institutions, including Israel Oceanographic And Limnological Research, Shenkar Engineering and Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design” “is a willing accomplice in Israel’s regime of occupation, apartheid, and ongoing genocide.”

In light of this, Alam stated that he can no longer continue to “remain associated with UAL” and had officially informed Stephen Cross, Dean of Media, LCC that he was returning the Honorary Doctorate.

“The Israel is conducting genocide in Gaza and I cannot be associated with any organisation which try to stifle the voices of those who protest against this,” he said.

Faisal Mahmud is a journalist based in Dhaka.

 

The Art World Is Succumbing to the Pressure of Ostracising Those Who Support Palestine

The conflation of anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism is dangerous and the culture sector is cracking under its weight.

As a Jewish girl growing up in provincial England then Italy,  I grew accustomed to anti-Semitism. “Don’t be Jewey!” in the playground when I wouldn’t share sweets. “Steen? Don’t you mean Stein?” when I told teachers my mother’s maiden name. And over and over: “You don’t look Jewish” though my blonde, snub-nosed looks make me a ringer for my Polish grandmother. One elderly Italian lady told me that she thought Jews struggled with Nazis because they were similar.

Such occasions are upsetting but I have never felt unsafe. This is not the experience of many Jews. If you attend synagogue and if your appearance marks you as Jewish, such badges of belonging make you a target. Since Hamas’s attack of October 7, and Israel’s retaliation, reports of anti-Semitic attacks have soared in Europe and the US.

But Islamophobia is also ever-present. A 2021 report by the UN found it is rising worldwide. The victory of anti-Islamic politician Geert Wilders in the Dutch elections mirrors the success of populist leaders such as Trump and Narendra Modi. Since October 7, that hatred has intensified.

Also read: The Right Wing Is on the Rise Globally

Equality and justice are collective operations. It is unjust to Muslims when governments and institutions fail to tackle Islamophobia with the same ferocity with which they tackle anti-Semitism. But it also endangers Jews because it suggests they deserve special treatment.

The conflation of anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism is also dangerous. There is an irrationality coiled within a concept that states Israel and Jewishness are the same thing. There is an old Jewish joke about one Jew needing two synagogues: the one he goes to and the one he doesn’t. There are a myriad ways of being Jewish. Many of us identify as Jewish but also as a cornucopia of other things. To riff on the US poet Walt Whitman, Jews – like everyone else – contain multitudes.

The culture sector is cracking under the weight of this unreason. Recently international dealer Lisson Gallery cancelled a show by Ai Weiwei after a tweet which reportedly stated: “Financially, culturally, and in terms of media influence, the Jewish community has had a significant presence in the United States. The annual $3 billion aid package to Israel has, for decades, been touted as one of the most valuable investments the United States has ever made. This partnership is often described as one of shared destiny”. 

Ai seemed to conflate Jewishness with Zionism. Furthermore, by implying that the Jewish community is a powerful, homogenous entity, he risked falling into anti-Semitic tropes that the Jews run Hollywood and Congress and are plotting world domination. Certainly, there are powerful Jews in the United States. There are many powerless ones too. Some support Israel. Many don’t.

But Ai deleted his tweet. Given that, couldn’t Lisson have gone ahead? One erased tweet, from an artist indubitably committed to justice, does not make a pogrom.

There are parallels to be drawn with last year’s debacle at the German contemporary arts festival Documenta when it became embroiled in accusations of anti-Semitism stoked by a government which fails to distinguish between Zionism and Judaism.

Other baffling decisions have followed. For Documenta to accuse committee member Ranjit Hoskoté, the most sensitive of thinkers, of anti-Semitism is to drive out exactly the kind of reflective, nuanced voice that culture needs. A photography biennale actually cancelled itself rather than permit curation by photojournalist, teacher and activist Shahidul Alam whom they dubbed anti-Semitic for describing the situation in Gaza as a genocide and comparing it to the Holocaust.

Also read: What Explains the Political Right’s Ascendancy to Global Power?

As someone who knows Alam well, I can verify that he is not anti-Semitic. His courage, wisdom and humanity have been proven time and again not least when he went to prison for criticising his own government in Bangladesh. If I were in danger from anti-Semitism – or anything else – it’s Alam I would want at my side.

Alam and I may debate his posts. I try to avoid comparisons between different atrocities because I believe that specificity is intrinsic to solutions. He and I will probably, as we have before, agree to differ.

Art should be a space where differences are permitted freedom. Art springs from friction. From contradiction, paradox, opposing forces birthing newness. Within that alchemy, more complex, imaginative truths emerge. For Alam and his team, the cancellation signals that voices from the Global South – the majority world, as Alam puts it – are not truly welcome beyond the region despite the lip service paid to “diversity”.

These repressions are in lockstep with a wider crackdown on expression. In the UK, Bristol’s Arnolfini Gallery has dropped Palestinian events for fear they contradict state guidance that culture venues must remain apolitical or risk funding cuts. Given the political kernel of so much contemporary culture, this demand is absurd but it is indicative of Britain’s intolerant Tory administration. In truth, Arnolfini has held many political events so why do the Palestinian ones provoke censorship?

The situation is becoming Orwellian in its mechanisms of exclusion, erasure and silence. Even Jewish artists, such as Candice Breitz, are now being ostracised for their Palestinian sympathies.

There is anti-Semitism and there is Islamophobia: real, violent ideologies that destroy lives. There are also a million ghosts, fantasies, mis-speakings and mis-perceptions of those hate crimes. We need to be able to distinguish them. We need to understand who has the power to kill us and who is expressing an opinion with which we may not agree but which does not endanger us. Otherwise, we will waste our energy fighting shadows while the real monsters thrive.

When I argued that Ai’s tweet could be construed as anti-Semitic, my non-Jewish partner didn’t get it. I explained. He got it. Or said he did. That’s ok. That’s two people having different histories. (My partner’s Argentinian and objects every time I forget to describe those islands in the South Atlantic as Las Malvinas.) That’s all of us.

The horror in Gaza is ripping faultlines through the art sector. The failure of major institutions to condemn Israel’s war crimes in Gaza as they condemned Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has triggered outrage, protests and sit-ins. Those who disagree say that Hamas’s massacre makes such comparisons shaky.

Time and again I remember lines by the radical poet Adrienne Rich, who was Jewish on her father’s side. “Split at the root/Neither Gentile nor Jew […but] I’m a good reader of histories.”

We don’t have to be superlative historians to recognise, as António Guterres said, that October 7 didn’t happen in a vacuum. Nor did the atrocities in Gaza. The ghosts of millions in Europe and Palestine haunt those dying today.

Even as I condemn October 7, I don’t believe Palestinian people should pay for Hitler’s crimes. Art stakes itself on empathy: between artist and subject; art and viewer. It also wagers on mystery: that which bewilders us, makes us hesitate. Sometimes it makes us angry. Sometimes it redeems us. Sometimes it does both. It’s somewhere to backtrack, rethink then recomplicate. The lady who compared the Jews to Nazis had, as a young woman, hidden a Jew in her attic during the war at enormous personal risk. Humanity is as multi-faceted as a diamond. Art is a place where its strangeness can shine.

The cancellations damage the freedom and creativity they claim to protect. As James Baldwin put it: “Life is more important than art. That’s why art is so important.” If dialogue across difference is shut down in the house of culture, what hope remains elsewhere?

Rachel Spence is a poet and arts writer. Her latest book is Venice Unclocked (2022, Ivory Press). Her work has appeared in the Financial Times, Hyperallergic and The Art Newspaper.

German Photo Biennale Cancelled Over Curator’s Support for Palestinian Rights, Criticism of Israel

The announcement comes just a week after a similar controversy involving the international art festival Documenta in Germany’s Kassel resulted in the resignation of all six members of its search panel.

New Delhi: The 2024 edition of the Biennale für aktuelle Fotografie, a contemporary photo exhibition, curated by Shahidul Alam, Tanzim Wahab and Munem Wasif, has been cancelled due to Shahidul’s Facebook posts in support of Palestine.

The curators were informed of the cancellation through a press release on November 23.

The tenth edition of the exhibition was due to be held in the German cities of Mannheim, Ludwigshafen and Heidelberg, in March 2024.

According to the Biennale’s press release, as first reported by the Art Newspaper, Alam critical posts about the Israeli military’s campaign in Gaza on social media prompted the decision. Alam’s Facebook page contained “content that can be read as antisemitic and antisemitic content”, the event’s organisers alleged in a statement, a charge that Alam and his colleagues have refuted.

“We were invited to curate the Biennale because they claimed they wanted our voice, and our perspective on how we see the world. But in a moment of crisis, it has appeared that our voices were only invited on their terms, subservient to their conditions,” they said in a statement.

Alam is a photojournalist based in Dhaka who has been actively posting on social media since October 7, when Hamas militants invaded Israeli territory, resulting in approximately 1,200 deaths and the taking of over 200 hostages.

The Biennale organisers released a statement saying they voiced concerns to Alam and the festival’s other curators, Bangladeshi photographers Tanzim Wahab and Munem Wasif, in attempts to “sensitise [them] to Germany’s special historical responsibility for the state of Israel and its right to exist.” However, Alam continued to post pro-Palestinian content because he “sees himself as an activist and demands freedom of expression.”

Meanwhile, Wahab and Wasif said they would not participate in the Biennale without Alam, the newspaper added.

“The consequences of the cancellation for the Biennale für aktuelle Fotografie and the organising team are far-reaching. They jeopardise the future of the entire event. In the time ahead, we will do everything in our power to maintain the Biennale as one of the largest and most important photography events in Germany and Europe in the long term,” said the organisers.

In a statement, the curators said: “Since 15 October, we had been in multiple discussions with the Biennale management regarding social media posts made by Shahidul Alam, on his Facebook account, related to the ongoing war crimes in Gaza. While the posts were a response to the actions of the Israeli government, the Biennale incorrectly equated these to anti-Semitism. We feel that the failure to draw a distinction between criticism of a government and of a people, is irresponsible and damaging to the honesty of public discourse.”

“In times of crisis, cultural institutions are meant to create a safe space for careful listening, with and despite our differences. The very institution that was supposed to host us, and make space for diverse voices, has slandered their invited curators. Many of us, from the Global South, who are invited to work with Western institutions, on the premise of inclusivity, often share this scepticism – of how far our diversity is being tokenised or instrumentalised for course correction of their historical legacies,” they said.

“How truly welcoming are these institutions towards radically different ways of thinking, which emerge from vastly different contexts, both contemporary and historical? Have we lost the basic human right to question, protest, or collectively mourn?” they added.

Separately, the curatorial advisors of Biennale have criticised the move as a “witch hunting practice”, taking place in German cultural institutions for several years.

“This disdainful form of scapegoating of Shahidul Alam and many others is outright censorship; it is racist and discriminatory. The ease and callousness with which these type of accusations are pronounced in Germany these days suggests that fascism is returning to the present,” they said in a statement.

The announcement comes just a week after a similar controversy involving the international art festival Documenta in Germany’s Kassel resulted in the resignation of all six Finding Committee members. Ranjit Hoskote, a writer and curator based in Mumbai, faced allegations of anti-Semitism due to his endorsement of a Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions petition in 2019.

Following the accusations, he stepped down, saying, “I feel, strongly, that I have been subjected to the proceedings of a kangaroo court.”

Alam referred to the collective resignation letter from four of Hoskote’s colleagues as an exposé of Germany’s “blinkered position on freedom of expression.”

Below are the full statements from the curators and curatorial advisors:

§

Statement by Curators of Biennale für aktuelle Fotografie 2024

We are dismayed by the decision of the Director, Yasmin Meinicke, and the Board of the Biennale für aktuelle Fotografie, taken in consultation with German state authorities to unilaterally cancel the 2024 edition. For 18 months, we worked with 44 artists, six partner organisations, three advisors and various colleagues to bring the Biennale to fruition. As the curators, we only found out about this cancellation through a press release in the public domain, published without our consent, on 23 November 2023.

We find the conduct of the Director and the Board of the Biennale to be a breach of trust and antithetical to the very premise of the theme we were intending to explore in this edition.

Further, it is in violation of our contractual agreement, which states, “All press releases are published in agreement with the curator and the managing director of the Biennale.”

The title of our edition was “Listening to Disquiet,” which looked to address the question of what embodied listening may mean—as a precondition to forming opinions—in the context of a biennale. Our belief in social justice, our collective struggles, our friendships, our mutual losses, and our solidarity urge us to listen carefully. Not only to hear, but to absorb the range of frequencies emitted by this disquiet, and by the images produced by artists across geographies and temporalities. We are saddened that we will not be able to share our planned exhibition with the public.

Since 15 October, we had been in multiple discussions with the Biennale management regarding social media posts made by Shahidul Alam, on his Facebook account, related to the ongoing war crimes in Gaza. While the posts were a response to the actions of the Israeli government, the Biennale incorrectly equated these to anti-Semitism. We feel that the failure to draw a distinction between criticism of a government and of a people, is irresponsible and damaging to the honesty of public discourse.

During in-person discussions in Mannheim, in the week of 23 October, several partners to the biennale—including multiple directors of associated institutions, some members of the Board as well as the Biennale team expressed their disagreement with the position of the director on these social media posts. Several members of the Biennale team voiced their indignation at the developing atmosphere of self-censorship.

After a series of communications, we were informed on 14 November that we could continue as curators of the upcoming edition. Yet, on 23 November, the Biennale Director, after meeting with the mayors of cultural affairs of all three cities in which the Biennale was to be held—Mannheim, Ludwigshafen and Heidelberg—sent a press release, unilaterally announcing the cancellation of the event. The director did not seek to challenge state censorship or to fulfil her role as a leader of the inviting institution, to exercise care towards the curators, and in turn the artists.

At a time where there has been an indefensible escalation in relentless brutalities against the Palestinian people, we believe that we have a moral responsibility to decide which side of history we will stand on. Recent events have led to the killing of civilians on both the Israeli and Palestinian side, which we have stood against, and continue to condemn. However, we cannot ignore the disproportionate toll on Palestinians now and historically since 1948. For us to disregard this stark difference—in the number of Palestinians killed, their homes destroyed, their basic civil liberties curtailed by the State of Israel—would be to turn a blind eye to unfolding realities.

Our acknowledgment of the history of the Palestinian cause, and the present assault in Gaza on civilians, does not, in any way, translate to us dismissing the historical persecution of the Jewish people. Such a conflation is a deliberate and dangerous misreading of our position. It is this shrinking space for care towards the persecution of any community, that we seek to address in the critical space of arts, education, and discourse.

In times of crisis, cultural institutions are meant to create a safe space for careful listening, with and despite our differences. The very institution that was supposed to host us, and make space for diverse voices, has slandered their invited curators. Many of us, from the Global South, who are invited to work with Western institutions, on the premise of inclusivity, often share this skepticism—of how far our diversity is being tokenised or instrumentalised for course correction of their historical legacies. How truly welcoming are these institutions towards radically different ways of thinking, which emerge from vastly different contexts, both contemporary and historical? Have we lost the basic human right to question, protest, or collectively mourn? Our difference of perspective—shaped by our colonial past—in reading history and its contemporary fallouts is seen as a reason to educate or “sensitize” us. We were invited to curate the Biennale because they claimed they wanted our voice, and our perspective on how we see the world. But in a moment of crisis, it has appeared that our voices were only invited on their terms, subservient to their conditions.

Censorship cannot separate the waves of communication by force. We will have to take the initiative to listen differently in our own communities. Space must be created. Creating true pluralism by moving beyond our individual comfort zones is part of a long struggle.

Shahidul Alam
Tanzim Wahab
Munem Wasif

Statement by curatorial advisors of Biennale für aktuelle Fotografie 2024

The accusation of anti-semitism against Dr. Shahidul Alam comes as no surprise. It is the logical continuation of a witch hunting practice taking place in German cultural institutions for several years now (at least since early 2020 when Achille Mbembe was desinvited from the Ruhrtriennale). It reveals the incapacity of Germany and its institutions to deal with its own past, to deal with conflict, and to question its self-awarded chronic superiority and entitlement — even in a context in which the object of its Staatsraison has clearly and publicly stated genocidal intent.

This disdainful form of scapegoating of Dr. Shahidul Alam and many others is outright censorship, it is racist and discriminatory.

The ease and callousness with which these type of accusations are pronounced in Germany these days suggests that fascism is returning to the present.

In this context we should all actively refuse to contribute to cultural labour in Germany!

Yasmine Eid Sabbagh

§

We often see western cultural institutions call upon the labour of many, under the ostensible premise of supporting a diversity of voices and fostering critical thought. However, this decision of the Biennale to cancel an entire an entire edition over Shahidul’s social media posts and to communicate it through a press release before they even personally informed the curators, reveals a hierarchical mindset. By offering an invitation, it is assumed that they define the parameters of this diversity, and a critical lens can be used to view the rest of the world, but not themselves. It is worth asking then, if these so-called collaborations are meant for toeing the institutional line and if those invited must express gratitude, in so far as, posing no challenge to that position.

With this censorship, the Western liberal democracy, with its supposed tenets of free speech and expression, is exposing its racist double-standards—valuing the rights of some communities above others. In selectively acknowledging history, and the persecution of only one set of people, it appears that Germany is seeking to absolve itself of its complicity in past events at the cost of another historical wrong in the making. I stand in full solidarity with all three curators, for having the courage to acknowledge the long arc of multiple histories and oppose the grotesque war crimes being committed by Israel in the present moment.

Tanvi Mishra

 

 

Bangladeshi Photographer Shahidul Alam Pulls Out of KNMA Exhibition, Criticises Kiran Nadar

Alam was referring to Nadar’s role as advisor for the exhibition ‘Jana Shakti: A Collective Power’ at the National Gallery of Modern Art in Delhi. The exhibition was created to mark 100 episodes of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s radio show ‘Mann ki Baat’.

New Delhi: Bangladeshi photographer Shahidul Alam has withdrawn his work from a planned exhibition at the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art in Bangladesh. A retrospective of his work – ‘Singed but not Burnt’ – was supposed to launch on July 17.

Alam announced his decision in a Facebook post. “The show ‘Singed but not Burnt’ which is currently showing at the Wrightwood659 Gallery in Chicago, was scheduled to show at the Kiran Nadar Museum (KNMA) in Noida later this month. I have decided to withdraw from the show at KNMA. Last few days of show in Chicago,” he said.

According to The Indian Express, Alam has written to Kiran Nadar explaining why he does not want to show his work at a museum she runs. “As an artist, journalist and human rights worker, I wish to express solidarity with the artists who note that in India ‘government-run cultural institutions have become instruments of state-sponsored propaganda rather than spaces for critical thinking’. The situation is no different in my own country Bangladesh… There are two areas of concern. The clear endorsement by Ms Nadar of art events which are part of the propaganda machinery of the current Indian regime, and the censure of people who make legitimate critiques of such associations,” he told the newspaper.

Alam was referring to Nadar’s role as advisor for the exhibition ‘Jana Shakti: A Collective Power’ at the National Gallery of Modern Art in Delhi. The exhibition was created to mark 100 episodes of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s radio show ‘Mann ki Baat’. The other instance he was talking about was Sandip K. Luis being removed from the post of Manager, Curatorial Research and Publications at KNMA, following his statement on social media critical of the Jan Shakti exhibition and Nadar’s association with it.

Bangladeshi Citizens Are Being Strangulated by the Digital Security Act

A person can be put away in prison on a completely baseless case. The accused will be jailed for several months, taking them out of circulation. This is how the DSA has been weaponised.

The smart young woman on the other side of the peephole called me ‘Shahidul Uncle’. Ours is somewhat of an open house, with my partner Rahnuma’s students, my students, and our activist friends, arriving and leaving at all hours. As burly men rushed in when I opened the door, I realised what was going on. My immediate strategy was to delay my abduction and to raise as much noise as I possibly could. That strategy is probably what saved my life.

I had been whisked away, blindfolded, and handcuffed. Had my family and friends, alerted by my screams, not immediately swung into action, informing local and international media, and setting up a vigil outside the place where I was being tortured, I might well have ended up like the many others who are ‘disappeared’ and ‘crossfired’ in Bangladesh on a regular basis.

Civil society had been campaigning for reforms to the Information and Communication Technology Act, 2006 (ICT Act), under which I had been arrested. But while I was in jail, rather than reforming the ICT Act, they had replaced it with the even more draconian Digital Security Act, 2018 (DSA).

Surprisingly, those implying that the Bangladeshi prime minister is “a woman who, according to the customs and manners of the country, ought not to be compelled to appear in public, or where such person is under the age of 18 years or is an idiot or lunatic, or is from sickness or infirmity” – are mostly ruling party politicians seeking to curry favour with their leader. Section 29 of the DSA, governed by Bangladesh’s Code of Criminal Procedure, says that “no court shall take cognisance of an offence unless the complaint is filed by the defamed person”, except in such cases.

Overzealous party faithful have filed numerous defamation cases on behalf of the prime minister and benefitted from such acts of fealty. The courts have played ball, and the accused have been promptly jailed, sometimes tortured. Many have spent months in jail, without charges ever having been framed. Some have lost their lives.

The party faithful have also been quick to file defamation cases for each other, with the DSA as the weapon of choice. Those arrested include Mohammad Emon, a 14-year-old high school student, accused of having shared a Facebook post; Abu Zaman, a farmer who can neither read nor write, let alone use the Internet, accused of having defamed on Facebook; and writer Mushtaq Ahmed, who died in prison after being held for more than 10 months without trial. Cartoonist Kabir Kishore Ahmed, who like Mushtaq had been denied bail six times, was released on bail a week after Mushtaq died. He is currently being treated for what he says are torture-related injuries. Kishore maintains Mushtaq had electric shocks applied to his genitals. Mushtaq’s father passed away months after burying his son.

Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina arrives to address the 73rd session of the United Nations General Assembly at U.N. headquarters in New York, U.S., September 27, 2018. REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz/File Photo

Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. Photo: Reuters/Eduardo Munoz

Denial is the government’s default response. Then comes a series of unrelated new cases that keeps the accused and its defence team busy, while the government comes up with other diversionary tactics. Photojournalist Shafiqul Islam Kajol reportedly had knowledge of a sex scandal where ruling party members were implicated. He ‘disappeared’. The government publicly denied all knowledge of his whereabouts. He was ‘discovered’ 53 days later, 100 yards from the Indian border, where many disappeared people regularly ‘reappear’. He was held in pre-trial detention for seven months. His bail was denied at least 13 times before being granted.

Also read: Arrest of a 15-Year-Old under UAPA in J&K Shows the Govt’s Insecurity

It was touted as a law enacted to protect the people. But rather than protecting people in imminent danger with the arrest resulting in the population being protected, almost all the cases were about protecting ruling party politicians or people close to them. Journalists were arrested for having reported on government corruption. Cartoonists arrested for pointing out the nexus between corrupt businesspeople and lawmakers. Businesspeople arrested for commenting on unpopular visiting state guests. A student arrested for sharing a popular post, which questioned the prime minister’s motives. A Sufi singer arrested for veering from religious dogma. A labour leader arrested for campaigning for workers’ rights.

Laws need to be precise and specific. The DSA is quite the opposite. A vague rambling catch-all law, open to all sorts of interpretation, gives the police virtually unlimited powers to arrest people without a warrant on suspicion they might be intending to commit a crime. No evidence needed.

There is a motive behind assuming police have telepathic powers. A person can be put away in prison on a completely baseless case. The accused will be jailed for several months, taking them out of circulation. This is the perfect strategy prior to an election, or a business contract being signed, or some crucial deal being made. This is how the DSA has been weaponised.

Also read: It’s Time for the Government to Redeem Itself and Repeal the UAPA

The criminalisation of what would normally be a civil offence allows the law to be used to entrap people into accepting an offer ‘they cannot refuse’. The criminalisation of legitimate forms of expression goes against the core principles of the constitution of Bangladesh and the recommendations of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Bangladesh is a party. It goes against the core aspirations of the war of liberation and the directives of the father of the nation that the DSA purports to protect.

Freedom is the oxygen that democracy breathes. A police force turned into a private army, a rubber-stamp judiciary, a rent-seeking bureaucracy and a pet election commission foretell a death by strangulation. A blatantly rigged election is the final nail in the coffin. A nation born out of genocide and rape camps, of poets and thinkers and farmers turned freedom fighters. Of brave women and men who fought and died for the love of a free nation, surely deserve better.

I hope the DSA is not applied to the party members for their aspersions on the prime minister.

Shahidul Alam is a Bangladeshi photojournalist, teacher and social activist. 

Shahidul Alam Among CPJ’s 2020 International Press Freedom Awardees

The watchdog acknowledged that the COVID-19 pandemic has not only made the job of journalists more difficult and dangerous but has fuelled a ‘ferocious press freedom crackdown’.

New Delhi: The Committee to Protect Journalists has announced that the recipients of the 2020 International Press Freedom Awards include Shahidul Alam from Bangladesh, Mohammad Mosaed from Iran, Dapo Olorunyomi from Nigeria and Svetlana Prokopyeva from Russia.

All four journalists have faced arrests or criminal prosecution in reprisal for their reporting.

“Like brave and committed journalists everywhere, CPJ’s honorees set out to report the news without fear or favor for the benefit of their communities, their country, and the world,” Joel Simon, CPJ’s executive director, said.

“They understood that they would confront powerful forces, enemies of the truth, who would try to stop them from doing their work. What they did not foresee was COVID-19. The global pandemic has not only made their jobs more difficult and dangerous, it has fueled a ferocious press freedom crackdown as autocratic leaders around the world suppress unwelcome news under the guise of protecting public health,” Simon added.

Human rights lawyer Amal Clooney will also be honoured by the Ney York-based watchdog with the Gwen Ifill Press Freedom Award.

Dhaka-based photojournalist and social activist Shahidul Alam had been arrested in 2018 under a draconian section of the law on information and communication technology that carried a maximum jail term of 14 years for posting a video on social media about student protests in Dhaka. Alam was finally granted bail after 102 days in custody. Alam is also the founder of the Bangladeshi multimedia training organisation the Pathshala Media Institute and the Drik photo library.

Also read: ‘Humane Response Criminalised’: PEN Delhi Expresses Solidarity With Journalist Patricia Mukhim

Freelance reporter Mohammad Mosaed was arrested and interrogated for several hours earlier this year in February for social media posts critical of the government’s handling of the outbreak of the coronavirus outbreak in the country. His social media accounts were also suspended. Mosaed had previously been arrested in November 2019 amid Iran’s nationwide internet shutdown and was detained for 16 days in Tehran’s Evin prison.

Co-founder and publisher of the Premium Times, Dapo Olorunyomi has been referred to as the “godfather” of online journalism in Nigeria. He has been arrested twice before he had to go into hiding in 1995. Most recently, he was arrested in 2017 when the police raided the Premium Times’ office on orders of the military for allegations of defaming the chief of army staff.

Svetlana Prokopyeva is a regional correspondent for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. In early 2019, her home was raided by authorities who seized her equipment and personal belongings and interrogated her. She was charged with “justifying terrorism” and her bank accounts were frozen. On July 6, she was convicted and ordered to pay a fine of 500,000 rubles. The prosecutor had sought a six-year prison term.

Previous recipients of the CPJ’s International Press Freedom Awards include Neha Dixit from India, Patrícia Campos Mello from Brazil, Lucía Pineda Ubau and Miguel Mora from Nicaragua and Maxence Melo Mubyazi from Tanzania.

Amal Clooney will receive the Gwen Ifill Press Freedom Award for representing arrested journalists. Last year, Clooney had represented Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo of Reuters, who had been imprisoned in Myanmar for 17 months after they reported on the genocide of Rohingya Muslims. In 2014, she also represented Canadian Al Jazeera journalist Mohamed Fahmy who was being held in Egypt, along with other journalists.

As the co-founder of the Clooney Foundation for Justice, she promotes freedom of speech and journalism via its TrialWatch initiative, which monitors the trials of journalists worldwide and provides free legal representation for those in need.

Amal Clooney. Photo: Reuters

“Journalists in trouble have no better champion than Amal Clooney, which is why we are so delighted to honor her with the Gwen Ifill Press Freedom Award. A talented barrister, gifted negotiator, and powerful speaker, Clooney works tirelessly to free journalists unjustly targeted by despotic leaders using increasingly punitive laws to stifle reporting,” said Kathleen Carroll, CPJ board chair.

Bangladesh Journalist’s Disappearance Casts Poor Light on Press Freedom

A prominent Bangladeshi journalist has recently gone missing after defamation charges were lodged against him by an influential ruling party lawmaker.


Shafiqul Islam Kajol, a leading Bangladeshi photojournalist and newspaper editor, went missing on March 10, a day after defamation charges were filed against him by an influential ruling party lawmaker.

CCTV footage released later by the international human rights group Amnesty International showed that a group of unidentified men approached Kajol’s motorbike and appeared to tamper with it on the day the journalist was last seen before his disappearance.

But Bangladeshi authorities have so far been unable to trace the journalist’s whereabouts.

“We don’t think my father went missing on his own. We suspect he may have been abducted,” Kajol’s son Monorom Polok said at a press conference, adding: “We are anxious about his safety. We have searched the emergency wards in hospitals, but there is no trace of him.”

‘Draconian law’

Kajol, who worked as a senior photographer for several top dailies and edited his own small newspaper, disappeared after leaving his Dhaka home for work.

It happened a day after Bangadesh’s ruling party Awami League lawmaker Saifuzzaman Shikor, a former aide to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, filed a defamation case against Kajol and 31 others accusing them of maligning the lawmaker by linking him to a couple who ran a Dhaka escort service.

Others accused in the case included Matiur Rahman Chowdhury, another top editor in the country.

The case against the journalists was filed under Bangladesh’s controversial Digital Security Act, which has been slammed as “draconian” by human rights activists.

Also read: Bangladeshi Journalist’s Arrest Caps Series of Attacks on Media During Election

“The Digital Security Act is designed to efficiently censor the Bangladeshi cyberspace and curtail freedom of speech and freedom of the press,” Tasneem Khalil, editor-in-chief of Netra News, a public interest journalism platform, told DW.

“Human rights organisations raised alarm over this law even before it was enacted, whatever fear they expressed then is now proving to be true,” he added.

Demand for strong action

Kajol’s family members have approached the police several times since he went missing. But they say the police have been reluctant to investigate the matter.

“It is intolerable that the Dhaka police are treating Shafiqul Islam Kajol’s disappearance in such a careless manner,” said Daniel Bastard, the head of Reporters Without Borders’ Asia-Pacific desk.

“We urge Bangladesh’s Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan to do everything possible to ensure that Kajol is found as quickly as possible or else Khan will be held responsible for anything that happens to Kajol,” he added.

Human rights groups also urged Bangladeshi authorities to immediately launch an investigation to determine the fate and whereabouts of the missing journalist.

“The circumstances surrounding the disappearance of Shafiqul Islam Kajol raise serious alarm and send a chilling message that people can no longer express their opinions freely and safely,” Saad Hammadi, South Asia Campaigner at AI, told DW.

“The authorities must urgently determine his fate and whereabouts, and ensure he is immediately released if under state custody,” he added.

Enforced disappearances

Bangladeshi authorities have a history of being involved in arbitrary detentions and forced disappearances. Enforced disappearances have mushroomed in the country since Hasina took power in 2009, according to rights groups.

The security forces of the South Asian nation have forcibly disappeared over 550 people over the past decade, according to local human rights organisation Odhikar. The number includes many rights activists suspected to have been abducted by security agencies.

“The case of Shafiqul Islam Kajol is deeply concerning, particularly given the Bangladeshi authorities’ record of abducting people and holding them in secret detention where their safety and lives are at risk,” said Brad Adams, Asia director of Human Rights Watch. He added: “The Bangladeshi government should take immediate steps to locate Kajol and bring him to safety.”

(DW)

Denied Indian Visa, Shahidul Alam Attends Delhi Event Via Skype

The Bangladeshi photographer had been critical of the Indian government – a stance which has cost him a visa earlier too.

New Delhi: From a waiting room at London’s Heathrow airport, with children’s toys scattered all around him, a cheery Shahidul Alam addressed an event at the city’s British Council via Skype.

This was not the medium through which Alam had planned on addressing the audience.

Alam was to have spoken on the relationship between politics and art in person. But for reasons unknown, he was denied a visa to India.

So he improvised with what he could. He addressed the audience via Skype and took questions via WhatsApp.

All this work-around meant that the 2018 Facebook post he had made was still alive in the memories of authorities.

A Bangladeshi photographer, Alam had been jailed for over 100 days last year by the country’s government, over a Facebook post in which he had been critical of the state. The 63-year-old was TIME magazine’s ‘person of the year’ for 2018. The magazine said he had gone from “photographer to prisoner.”

Over a connection which cracked often, Alam addressed the packed hall, talking about his work and going through a slide-show of some of his photographs, which were projected on the screen. There was one photo he took of a group of Rohingya people. He also showed an image from an exhibition about Kalpana Chakma, a woman who went missing in 1996, and was apparently abducted by the army.

Alam also spoke about his time in jail in Bangladesh. “I used that time productively. I convinced the wardens to let us paint. The various prisoners and I made 33 murals. There is a gallery now in that jail.”

He then displayed a photo of a boat, which also inspired a mural that was painted by those in prison with him. “This is by far the photo I am most proud of,” said Alam.

Alam projects the photograph of the boat and the mural of the photo in the prison he had been at, on the screen. Photo: The Wire

He also spoke about how tough it has been to find galleries to exhibit the art of people like him and described an incident from many years ago when he wondered if he could hold an exhibition in a mosque. He said he had looked into history and seen that mosques had been used for versatile purposes. Alam managed to convince the heads of one mosque and organised an art exhibition there. “People of all religions and sexualities came,” he said.

Shohini Ghosh, the event’s moderator, said that the fact that Alam used spaces like jails and mosques for art meant that there are spaces still available and spaces still left to conquer for the arts. Ghosh is a professor at Jamia Millia Islamia University.

By then, the audio was choppy for Alam, so conversation moved to WhatsApp, on which Alam took a question from this reporters as well: Has his unique situation impinged on his art, does his art profit from this?

Alam replied that his life has changed dramatically since he was imprisoned and then released. “A woman came up to me with a child and asked me to bless him. She said she wanted him to grow up to be like me. I found it very powerful. We think we should keep our head down but there are people wanting to revolt.”

“I should thank the Bangladesh government,” he added.

Also read | ‘The Tide Will Turn’: Read Arundhati Roy’s Letter to Bangladeshi Photographer Shahidul Alam

Before the controversy, he said, some people abroad and some from Bangladesh’s creative circles knew him for his work. After his release, the equation changed. People on the streets sometimes hugged him with tears in their eyes, saying that his case had touched their lives.

The controversy has also been challenging, because while previously he would bicycle or walk to meet people, talk with and photograph them, now Alam says he doesn’t travel alone and is constantly reporting back home.

“We need to ensure our governments don’t get away with keeping us all separate,” he said, ending his presentation.

Replying to subsequent emails from The Wire, Alam said he did not know why his visa was denied and he was not given an explanation. “I can only surmise. Several other prominent citizens have been denied visas. All of them have been critical of the Indian government.”

He recalled that in the early 2000s too, he had been “consistently” denied an Indian visa for many years. This was after he exhibited work done by children born in Sonagachhi, Kolkata’s red-light district.

Alam would now catch the connecting flight from London to Germany where he will work. Next, he will attend the UN General Assembly in New York. He had planned to make a quick stop in Delhi for this talk, but the plan had to be scuttled over the visa denial.

The panel discussion in Delhi today was part of a day-long series of talks by the Serendipity Arts Festival and Alkazi Foundation. Alam was on a panel titled, ‘Political Dimensions of (Arts) Practices.’ The other panelists were Shohini Ghosh, Ashmina Ranjit and Sudhanva Deshpande.

Why was Shahidul Alam in jail?

Last year, Alam live-streamed a video on Facebook where he spoke about student protests in Dhaka and about how he alleged he was attacked by members of the ruling party when he attended the protests. He said they broke his camera while he was filming the protests. He had also spoken to Al-Jazeera around that time, speaking critically of the government.

Also read: Why the Bangladesh Government Is Scared of Shahidul Alam

The student protests had been over the demand for safer roads after two young people were killed in a road accident last July.

Alam was arrested on the allegation of spreading “propaganda and false information”.

In November 2018, Alam was granted permanent bail in Bangaldesh after 102 days in custody. Last month, Bangladesh’s Supreme Court upheld a lower court’s stay order on further probes by the government against the photographer.

Alam is an award winning photographer, journalist, curator, teacher and activist. Many famous organisations and personalities lent their support to Alam’s release including Amnesty International, International Federation of Journalists and several Indian photographers, filmmakers, artists and journalists.

“Had there been any evidence, it would have been in the public domain. Yet, over a year after my arrest, torture and period in jail, the prosecution has not even been able to frame charges. I salute the judiciary for their independent decision. They are the one of the few hopes that Bangladesh has left,” Alam had told The Wire, after the court ruling.

Bangladesh SC Upholds HC’s Stay Order in Case Against Shahidul Alam

“It is comforting to see the higher courts taking the right decision,” the photographer told The Wire.

New Delhi: Much to the relief of well-known Dhaka-based photographer Shahidul Alam, the Bangladesh Supreme Court has upheld the Dhaka high court’s order that stayed further probe in a case filed by the government under the Information and Communication Act.

On August 5, 2018, Alam, the founder of the popular Drik Gallery and Pathshala South Asia Media Institute, was picked up from his residence in Dhaka’s posh Dhanmondi area under the Section 57 of the Act – a section that was recently repealed. After he published photos of a students’ demonstration in the city against deaths due to bad traffic management, and for road safety, the 63-year-old was charged with ‘spreading disinformation’.

The arrest triggered outrage against the government’s action both within and outside the country.

After 107 days, the high court ordered his release on bail. Five days after the court order was passed, he was set free on November 20.

Also read: ‘The Tide Will Turn’: Read Arundhati Roy’s Letter to Bangladeshi Photographer Shahidul Alam

On March 3, Alam filed a writ petition in the high court challenging the legality of the charges brought against him. On March 14, the high court stayed the investigation in the case. The court also reportedly issued a rule “asking the government why the continuation of probing the case should not be declared illegal, and contradictory to the Digital Security Act, 2018 of the Constitution”.

Dhaka-based media reported on August 18 that a four-member appellate division of the Supreme Court, led by Chief Justice Syed Mahmud Hossain, also asked the high court bench, led by Justice Moyeel Islam Chowdhury, “to dispose of rule by December 18”.

Reacting to the apex court order, Alam’s lawyer Jyotirmoy Barua told reporters, “By this order, the stay order on investigation of the case filed against Shahidul remains same.”

Alam, in an email response, told The Wire that his biggest fear was a judiciary whose freedom had been curtailed. “At a time when the major institutions of state have been turned into extensions of the ruling party, and with notable exceptions, architects, writers, university teachers, artists, poets, professional bodies and the media have become mouthpieces of the government, the biggest fear is the erosion of the independence of the judiciary,” he wrote.

He further added, “It is comforting to see the higher courts taking the right decision, knowing it might displease the government. I am accused of provoking and instigating students through my online reporting. Had there been any evidence, it would have been in the public domain. Yet, over a year after my arrest, torture and period in jail, the prosecution has not even been able to frame charges. I salute the judiciary for their independent decision. They are the one of the few hopes that Bangladesh has left.”