DHAKA, Bangladesh — The famed Bangladeshi director had tried to do everything by the rules.
Before shooting his film, the filmmaker, Mostofa Sarwar Farooki, submitted the script for approval by the country’s Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. He had received permission to cast prominent Indian and Palestinian actors, in addition to Bangladeshi artists.
But even as “Saturday Afternoon” – a feature film based on the 2016 terrorist attack at a bakery in the capital, Dhaka, which left 24 people dead – screened to applause and awards at festivals around the world. Abroad, the government of Bangladesh refused to allow his release back home.
For three years, the country’s film censorship board has rejected Mr Farooki’s appeals – an indication analysts and activists say of how Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s government is shrinking space for free speech , sometimes arbitrarily.
“They didn’t inform us of a specific reason,” Mr. Farooki said of the film’s rejection. “They only said the film might tarnish the image of the country or incite religious unrest.”
Officials in Ms Hasina’s government justify their actions by citing credible threats from Bangladesh emanating from Islamic militancy, which they say could derail the country’s impressive efforts to grow its economy and lift people out of poverty.
But analysts and activists say it has blurred the lines between counterterrorism efforts and political repression. As Ms Hasina, 75, seeks another term next year on top of her already record tenure, she is increasingly manifesting a trend that has long plagued Bangladeshi governance: winner-takes-all politics. of authoritarianism.
Recent election victories for Ms Hasina, who is the daughter of Bangladesh’s founding father and has been in power for a total of 19 years, have been marred by accusations of voter fraud and intimidation of opponents to secure inflated margins . Unsure of the extent of their actual public support, officials in his government have resorted to repression and strict control, analysts say.
Officials from the ruling Awami League party said its opponents were playing politics by criticizing regulatory scrutiny of films and other works. “Those who make it known that freedom of expression is being stifled are actually carrying out a political campaign against the government,” said Biplab Barua, who is Ms Hasina’s special assistant. “We want to uphold all the rights guaranteed by the Constitution.”
But in Bangladesh, a wide range of independent voices said these rights were being violated.
In recent years, Ms. Hasina’s government has particularly weaponized a digital security law to arrest journalists, activists and opposition members, creating an atmosphere of fear.
The United Nations has called the 2018 Digital Security Act an “example of flawed legislation” which “imposes draconian penalties for a wide range of vaguely defined acts”.
In the past two years alone, around 2,200 people have been detained under the law, according to the Center for Governance Studies, a Dhaka-based think tank. In the past nine months, 25 complaints have been filed against people who have criticized the prime minister or his allies, according to Article 19, a London-based human rights organization.
One of those arrested, writer Mushtaq Ahmed, 53, who had criticized the government’s Covid relief efforts, died in jail after being denied bail half a dozen times .
“It has created an environment of self-censorship,” said Akter Hossain, editor and general secretary of the Dhaka Union of Journalists, of the law. “Every newsroom in Bangladesh thinks twice before publishing an article that is essential for the ruling party or the government.”
Sometimes the repression has turned absurd.
In July, police arrested an amateur crooner with a wide following on social media who was singing poems by well-known Bengali writers. The reason? The singer, Ashraful Alom, known online as Hero Alom, was singing out of tune – and it was an insult to Bengali culture.
Mr Alom was released after promising in writing that he “would not create or publish any content that depicts Bangladeshi culture in a perverse way, and that he would not create satirical, defamatory and derogatory content”, according to Hafiz Al Asad , a police deputy. Commissioner.
For filmmakers and other artists, the challenge is to navigate an environment in which authorities could find anything that is a threat and anything that goes against cultural and national values.
A few weeks ago, a group of directors and other artists held a press conference to protest repeated legal battles and censorship challenges. Speaking behind a wall of barbed wire, erected to make a symbolic statement, they said they would not be able to tell stories if the restrictions continued.
“Any act of pressure on art must stop,” said Jaya Ahsan, a popular actress in both Bangladesh and West Bengal, across the Indian border. “Not just cinema, every kind of art should be free – how else can we write, play or even speak our language?”
The director of a film, ‘Hawa’, has been sued by the government for showing caged or eaten birds, which the country’s wildlife authority found offensive. Police objected to another film, “Nabab LLB”, because it showed a police officer using vulgar language while questioning a subject.
The Bangladesh Film Censor Board recently refused a certificate for another film, “The Border”, directed by Saikat Nasir. The fictional work, which depicts a Bangladeshi village along the Indian border, features an Indian protagonist who takes part in a murderous mission and other crimes.
The council said it could not authorize a film which tarnishes the image of India, a close ally of Ms Hasina. But he also mentioned a reason that seemed to misunderstand the very nature of works of fiction.
“The film shows a godfather in the Satkhira region, whose ministers and legislators are all hostages,” the council director said. “But such a situation does not exist in Bangladesh.”
Mejbaur Rahman Sumon, the director of “Hawa”, said the atmosphere in which “anything can hurt anyone’s feeling” made it impossible to produce quality art.
“The bird was caged for a while and then released,” Mr Sumon said of the animal at the center of the government’s objection to his film. “But after releasing the bird, I now feel like I’ve caged myself.”
For Mr Farooki, the director of “Saturday Afternoon”, the hardest part of the three-year struggle to get the film to audiences in Bangladesh has been figuring out exactly what is wrong.
The film, which depicts tense moments of human struggle during a terrorist hostage crisis, clearly aims to expose the hypocrisies of the terrorists throughout.
Several of the characters, simple citizens trapped in the attack, stand up to the terrorists. A hijab-wearing woman holds back tears to defend the character of other women whom abusers denigrate, including her own mother, repeatedly cursed by terrorists, and a young woman in ripped jeans and a sweater who is shot dead for having failed a test of piety.
Mushfiqur Rahman Gulzar, a member of the censorship board, said he had no objections to the film. The deputy chairman of the board declined to comment, saying the decision to issue a certificate to the film was up to the Ministry of Information.
In a recent interview with local media, Information and Broadcasting Minister Hasan Mahmud said the ministry would issue a certificate for the film if the director adheres to the censorship board’s suggestions.
The problem, Mr. Farooki said, is that he received no specific suggestions from the council.
The minister, however, cited another problem in his media interview: that the film did not show the sacrifice of two police officers killed in the attack on the bakery.
“My film is not a documentary about the attack,” Mr Farooki said. “It’s a fictional feature film where no real characters exist.”
“Even if I had intended to portray real characters,” he added, “can they dictate a story?”
Saif Hasnat reported from Dhaka and Mujib Mashal from New Delhi.