The above news based on a letter written by Paffarel to the EC published and circulated in the media on or around 09.08.2024 is completely false.
This year, the 30th annual Maha Satyaya Kriya and Adhisthana Pooja was held at the Kataragama Kirivehera to protect the country and the people. It is always performed at this time of the year.
During those three decades, respected Mahasangha , national organizations, academics, national movements, and religious organizations participate in this event either invited or uninvited as this is open to public.
It is neither to bless the Prime Minister or any political authority or any person, but for the blessing of the entire country, this Adhisthana Pooja and satyakriya was not and will not be used for any narrow purpose, and many people participate in it voluntarily.
This religious event continued not only until the separatist terrorism was defeated and won, but also to bless the war heroes of the country as well as for the wellbeing of the countrymen.
Referring to the misleading letter sent to the Election Commissioner by the Paffarel Organization, we wish to categorically state neither the , the Prime Minister’s Office nor the Ministry of Public Administration, Home Affairs, Provincial Councils and Local Government, issued any instruction for any official to participate in this and wish to affirm that no official has participated.
Appreciate if you correct the false news you have published.
Image courtesy of Central Bangla Desk of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Jamaat
Bangladesh is currently engulfed in widespread political turmoil, with Ahmadi Muslims also finding themselves in an increasingly precarious situation. Disturbing images and horrifying reports from the general public are circulating on social media platforms revealing a grim picture of the crisis.
One Ahmadi witness writes on social media: They are inside Jamia with 40 other students. Rioters attempted to break down the Jamia gate using a gas cylinder and set the gate on fire.” The account continues, The army eventually arrived, causing the rioters to leave the area.”
Background
For those unfamiliar with the current crisis, the question may arise: How did the situation deteriorate to this point, and what exactly is transpiring?
The current crisis has its roots in a June 2024 decision by the Supreme Court of Bangladesh to reinstate a controversial quota system. This system reserved 30% of government jobs for descendants of those who fought in Bangladesh’s 1971 war of independence. The decision was met with widespread dissatisfaction among students, who viewed it as unjust. Their discontent with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and her Bangladesh Awami League government quickly escalated into a nationwide anti-government reform movement, spearheaded primarily by university students.
As the protests intensified, violent clashes erupted between demonstrators and the student wing of the ruling party. The situation further escalated when police attempted to quell the unrest, ultimately spiralling beyond the government’s control. The scale of the violence and its impact on the country became increasingly apparent, as evidenced by recent media reports.
Just two days ago, Al Jazeera reported:
At least 91 people have been killed, including 13 police officers, and dozens more injured in a new round of violence in Bangladesh as police fired tear gas and lobbed stun grenades to disperse tens of thousands of protesters who returned to the streets to ask Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to resign.” (At least 90 killed as Bangladesh protesters renew call for Hasina to quit”,www.aljazeera.com)
The crisis reached a critical point on 5 August 2024, when Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina was forced to flee the country her father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, had founded in 1971. The rapid escalation of events was further illustrated by another Al Jazeera report:
Hasina resigned after weeks of protests against quotas for government jobs flared into nationwide unrest. At least 280 people were killed and thousands injured as the government cracked down on the demonstrations.” (Bangladesh’s Sheikh Hasina forced to resign: What happened and what’s next?”, www.aljazeera.com)
With the death toll nearly tripling and a sudden leadership vacuum, Bangladesh found itself plunged into anarchy, leaving communities, including Ahmadi Muslims, particularly vulnerable.
Image courtesy of Central Bangla Desk of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Jamaat
Impact on Ahmadi Muslims of Bangladesh
In the ensuing chaos, individuals and groups perceived to have any connection to or sympathy for the former government became targets of violence. The Ahmadiyya Muslim Jamaat, an already persecuted minority community in Bangladesh, found itself particularly vulnerable in this volatile environment.
To gain insight into the current situation facing Ahmadi Muslims, Al Hakam spoke with Feroz Alam Sahib, In-charge Central Bangla Desk of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Jamaat. He provided a sobering account of recent events:
In the last 24 hours alone, over 80 Ahmadi homes in Ahmednagar have been burned and demolished,” Feroz Alam Sahib reports. Our local mosque, including its prayer hall, guesthouse, and entire ground floor was also razed to the ground.”
He continues, The jalsa gah of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Jamaat in Bangladesh has been severely damaged. Its perimeter and stores were set ablaze, destroying numerous valuable items. Jamia Ahmadiyya, our educational institution, came under attack, resulting in injuries to many students. Fortunately, the attackers were unable to breach the building before the army intervened.”
Further detailing the extent of the damage, he said: Thus far, 22 khuddam have been injured, with two in critical condition. Additionally, five mosques and several mu‘allim quarters have been burned and demolished.”
Highlighting the gravity of the situation he adds: It is rather unfortunate to note that there is no functional government; no one is at the helm to control the situation in our beloved homeland.”
Image courtesy of Central Bangla Desk of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Jamaat
Hope for the future
When asked about the future prospects for Ahmadis in Bangladesh, Feroz Alam Sahib said
The situation remains extremely tense. Our Community is small, and we remain vulnerable against potential attacks; there’s no law and order. Our members are watching their homes burn and are understandably very anxious. However, our spiritual leader, Hazrat Khalifatul Masih Vaa, has provided guidance and encouraged us to seek solace in prayer.”
Despite the immediate challenges, Feroz Alam Sahib maintains a sense of long-term optimism, stating:
The Promised Messiahas has prophesied that our Jamaats’s future is divinely secured, even in the face of hostility and adversity. While we may face temporary setbacks, as all divinely guided communities do, we believe we will ultimately progress. Our Community in Bangladesh accepts that we may have to make sacrifices. However, we maintain faith that, by Allah’s grace, something positive will emerge from this crisis.”
Image courtesy of Central Bangla Desk of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Jamaat
The plight of the Ahmadi Muslims in Bangladesh highlights the broader challenges facing various groups amidst political upheaval. As the country grapples with a leadership vacuum and widespread unrest, it serves as yet another example of the global leadership crisis. Hazrat Mirza Masroor Ahmad, Khalifatul Masih Vaa has consistently warned about the spread of such unrest worldwide. We hope and pray that the situation calms down for not only Ahmadis but all citizens of Bangladesh.
Colombo, August 11: Reproduced below is the speech of Adm. Prof. Jayanath Colombage, Sri Lanka’s Ambassador to Indonesia, former Navy Chief and Foreign Secretary at the round table on Indian Ocean Security organized by the Pathfinder Foundation at Colombo on July 31, 2024:
The topic given to me was ‘Regional Architecture with Maritime Security Remit’. In preparation for this talk I checked through some of the presentations that I have done on a similar topic over the years: I found that I have to repeat most of the areas that I have spoken earlier. Then the question came to my mind as to why so and what does it mean? To me it means despite many discussions we have not achieved expected results.
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The Indian Ocean is not rich only in shipping and marine resources as a warm water, somewhat closed ocean. It is very rich in maritime strategies with practically every major maritime user having a strategy for this region. These strategies show how important this ocean region not only for Indian Ocean littorals but for the global maritime commerce is.
However, it is necessary to examine what these maritime strategies have done to the Indian Ocean. The question is: As having these strategies really improved maritime security in the Indian Ocean?
Usually, when we discuss this topic, we start with the maritime security threats and come up with suggestions. We have many regional security organizations. We conduct many summits, forums, seminars, conferences and discussions. It is necessary to study what has happened to the outcome documents and policy recommendations of a number of initiatives such as IORA, Colombo Security Conclave, Galle Dialogue, Indian Ocean Conference, Indo Pacific Regional Dialogue, and Goa Maritime Conclave, to name a few and a plethora of think tank and research centre work.
Has these really contributed to enhancing maritime security in the IOR? Without answering these questions, I feel this conference will also be just another discussion forum.
The major immediate threat is the unpredictability of mainly the response of non-state actors. Then there are unintended consequences. Of course, major and emerging power competition is a grave concern to ocean governance and the freedom of global maritime commerce.
A few years ago, I used to describe the emerging situation in the IOR in six words: Strategic Competition, Strategic Convergence, and Strategic Dilemma. But now I need six more words to describe and those six are: Strategic Ambiguity, Strategic Chaos and Strategic confusion.
Securitization and militarization of every issue is another problem for the IOR. We also have witnessed that insecurity of one country gives rise to insecurity of other countries and results in an arms race, and this goes to prove that ‘Indivisible security’ -security of any state is inseparable from others in the region
How can we measure the increase in militarization in the IOR? We can find out the increased defence expenditure of the Indian Ocean littorals and other major maritime users. Definitely we can see a substantial increase in this area.
I have one set of figures: visits by warships and research vessels to Sri Lankan ports from 2008 to date: 662 from 29 different navies. Some years more than one ship per week had visited ports in Sri Lanka. We do not know how many submarines carrying nuclear weapons are in this region. I only hope, wish and pray that no country will initiate a war in this ocean. Smaller economies and developing countries cannot withstand another conflict in the IO
We are all aware of the threat posed by the Houthi rebels in the Horn of Africa, Gulf of Eden and Red Sea. In 2009 and following years, Somali pirates took the world merchant shipping for ransom. But this time it is much grave. These events have resulted in destruction of ships, loss of lives, increased shipping cost and congestion in many major ports. Have we been able to counter this threat?
The answer is no, we have not. The Houthis have used suicide boats which is a human guided, sea skimming, low silhouette, anti-ship missile, which is very difficult to detect. Preventing their launching is the best response. The Sri Lanka Navy and shipping around the country suffered many attacks by suicide boats, unmanned suicide boats and underwater saboteurs and submersibles during the conflict.
Did the world lean anything from these asymmetric tactics by a non-state actor used in the conflict in Sri Lanka? Not much, I guess, because it happened in Sri Lanka. But now that the entire world shipping is threatened and we are trying to respond.
Some analysts call this the 5th Generation warfare. This can contribute to the strategic competition-influencing the thinking of states. Some of the threats in the IO are perception or interpolated threats and not necessarily real threats.
If the opponents’ intentions are read incorrectly military actions taken can take a wrong turn. AI generated deep fakes could be a real threat to safety on maritime navigation, and can create havoc
In 2004, the IMO came up with ISPS Code to enhance maritime security. Security in the ports have improved drastically but not in territorial waters. Unstable or failed states provide a breeding ground for violent non-state actors
We need to look at reasons why we are not succeeding in our efforts. The threat is common and the best way is to act collaboratively. But our hidden agendas are preventing us from working together.
International or even regional mechanisms have not worked so well in the IOR. Bi-laterals or mini-laterals are working better. The best example is the Joint Working Group between Australia and Sri Lanka on countering irregular migration by sea. Working together with a joint spirit and collaboration we brought the number of boats leaving Sri Lanka to Australia to a near zero. The Colombo Security Conclave is working well sharing information on white shipping through MDA and focusing on regional security.
We have a fragile freedom of ocean trade across the IOR. Some security event can trigger a collapse very easily. We should not always look at the issues through the political and military lens. We need to look at economic, development needs and impact of marine environment very seriously. We need to evaluate the progress made by each regional architecture.
The IORA is now 27 years old and has 23 members and number of dialogue partners. However, one major flaw is that Pakistan is not a member and Pakistan occupies a major strategic location in the Arabian Sea. So is Myanmar not included.
We need to evaluate the implementation of recommendations of policies and projects made by the working groups, forums of officials, businesses and academics. We should not only focus on holding summits every year and meetings. We need to act and act fact together.
The IO is the third largest Ocean in the world. But I feel it is still too big to handle as one entity. The Western Indian Ocean is having many flash points”. The Bay of Bengal is relatively peaceful. Only Myanmar is the flash point.
BIMSTEC is of late focusing on maritime security. We need to develop consensus, we need collaboration, we need to act fast
I recall that the Centre for the Law of the Sea at the Pathfinder Foundation put forward a Code of Conduct for enhancing maritime security in the Indian Ocean on 2nd January 2018. However, this was not taken seriously. There were arguments against the COC and it was shot down.
Conclusion
The world is facing a new era of crisis, the greatest since the end of World War II. We need peace, stability and international rules based maritime order. We don’t need a single hegemonic power. In any case we have heard that no single country can be a net-security provider in the IO.
The need of the hour is a strong political leadership which can look beyond its own territory. Unfortunately, most of our leaders are compelled to focus their energy on domestic situations. We need balanced neutral foreign policies- balanced engagement with all major powers even as the pressure to choose continues to mount.
We need leaders to have a long-term vision and work together for common maritime security and prosperity for the region. We need results oriented focused leadership and not mere ceremonials. We need to take ownership and responsibility for our region. We need collaborative efforts to maintain the sanctity of the Indian Ocean and to keep it free for maritime commerce and other maritime use.
A key suspect in a Sri Lankan human trafficking case that came to light in 2021 was arrested in Tamil Nadu on Saturday. He has been on the run for the past three years.
The investigation revealed that Aabulkhan, along with his associates, was involved in confining trafficked victims on a boat before sending them to Mangaluru for further confinement. (Photo: India Today)
In Short
NIA arrested key suspect Seeni Aabulkhan in Sri Lankan trafficking case
Aabulkhan was absconding for the last three years
Traffickers confined victims on a boat before sending them to Mangaluru
The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Saturday arrested a key suspect in the Sri Lankan human trafficking case from Tamil Nadu. The accused, Seeni Aabulkhan, had been on the run for the past three years.
The investigation revealed that Aabulkhan, along with his associates, was involved in confining trafficked victims on a boat before sending them to Mangaluru for further confinement. The case began in June 2021 when the Mangaluru Police rescued 13 Sri Lankan nationals from traffickers. The NIA took over the investigation and re-registered the case.
The probe uncovered that a Sri Lankan national named Eesan, believed to be the kingpin of the racket with links to the terror outfit LTTE, collaborated with Aabulkhan to illegally transport 38 Sri Lankan nationals to various parts of Tamil Nadu. The victims were falsely promised employment opportunities in Canada besides assurances to obtain legitimate documents for migration to the country.
The NIA has filed chargesheets against 10 accused between October 2021 and January 2024. The investigation is ongoing as the agency continues its efforts to apprehend the remaining three suspects, who are still at large.
A similar incident occurred in July as the NIA arrested four key accused in Delhi suspected of being involved in luring and trafficking young Indians to foreign countries on the pretext of offering them lucrative jobs.
In an open letter released on Friday, the five signatories — two each from Bangladesh and Nepal and one from Sri Lanka — said: ‘Over the decades, intervention by New Delhi’s political, bureaucratic and intelligence operatives in Colombo, Dhaka and Kathmandu, has contributed to the unending political instability in our countries and has empowered autocratic regimes’
Five prominent citizens of Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka have urged India to refrain from interfering in the domestic politics of their countries, averring that “New Delhi can contribute to stable polities and long-lasting peace in South Asia by abandoning its overt and covert interference in the internal affairs of its neighbours”.
In an open letter released on Friday, the five signatories — two each from Bangladesh and Nepal and one from Sri Lanka — said: “Over the decades, intervention by New Delhi’s political, bureaucratic and intelligence operatives in Colombo, Dhaka and Kathmandu, has contributed to the unending political instability in our countries and has empowered autocratic regimes.”
The immediate trigger for this letter is the situation in Bangladesh. The five signatories to the letter are Firdous Azim, English professor and member of Naripokkho (a feminist organisation), and Manzoor Hasan of the Centre for Peace and Justice at BRAC University in Bangladesh; Kanak Mani Dixit, founding editor of Himal Southasian, andSushil Pyakurel, former commissioner of the National Human Rights Commission of Nepal; and Sri Lankan journalist Lakshman Gunasekara.
While acknowledging India’s role in the liberation, the instances of interference in Bangladesh flagged in the letter include the diversion of river waters as the upper riparian state, access to the Indian Northeast through Bangladeshi territory, and the use of Bangladesh as a sizeable market for Indian goods. “New Delhi actively worked to prop up the autocratic regime of Sheikh Hasina over the last decade and received political and economic concessions in return,” the letter noted.
As for Sri Lanka, “New Delhi’s interventionism peaked with the deployment of the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) in the late 1980s, meant first and foremost to protect India’s ‘national interest’ amidst the Tamil insurgency”.
Stating that Colombo has had to wrestle “with New Delhi’s encroachment in its politics” before and since then, the letter underscores that “lately New Delhi authorities have been actively pushing Indian business conglomerates onto the island”.
And, in the case of Nepal, it was pointed out that now the Indian intervention is not only through politicians and diplomats but also intelligence agencies and “Hindutva activists of the RSS”.
New Delhi, according to the letter, has been “engaged in manufacturing consent within Nepal’s polity to maintain control over Nepal’s water resources”. There is also a mention of the blockade imposed on Nepal in 2015 soon after the earthquake “following the promulgation of the Constitution that was not to New Delhi’s liking”.
About India’s apprehension of China’s growing influence in the region, they argue that “New Delhi must accept the sovereign right of each neighbour to deal with Beijing on its own accord, much as New Delhi does. We find it incongruous that China has become India’s largest trading partner even as New Delhi seeks to prevent the neighbours’ links with Beijing. We insist that Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka are not and should not be in the sphere of influence of China, India or any other power, and that the alarm in New Delhi is misplaced. We recognise that the Maldives and Bhutan too suffer from New Delhi’s efforts to be the decisive player in their internal and external affairs’’.
The Commonwealth Journalists Association has written to Bangladesh’s interim leader Mohammad Yunus urging him to ensure the physical safety of journalists in the country and provide them a secure working environment. This comes in the wake of several media outlets coming under attack over the past week.
The association’s vice-president and general secretary of the Bangladesh National Press Club, Shyamal Dutta, has been targeted in these attacks on the media, it was pointed out, adding that he and his family have also been barred from leaving the country.
Grand Mufti Shawqi Allam discussed in a meeting with Sri Lankan Foreign Minister Ali Sabry ways of fostering cooperation between Dar al Iftaa and Sri Lanka in training Muftis and countering extremism.
In a statement released on Friday 9/8/2024, the Mufti said that Dar al Iftaa established in 2014 the Observatory of Takfiri Fatwas and Extremist Views that has been developed into Salam Center for Extremism Studies, with a view to combating the extremist thought through a disciplined scientific methodology.
The Mufti briefed Sabry on a reference guide to confronting and combating extremism, which was prepared by Dar al Iftaa. The guide offers a comprehensive vision of the concept of extremism and includes effective strategies to confront it on the intellectual, social and cultural levels.
Allam indicated that Dar al Iftaa launched a multi-language app FatwaPro”, which provides correct and moderate religious fatwas to Muslims around the world, with a special focus on Muslim communities in Western countries.
The Mufti expressed Dar al Iftaa’s readiness to train Sri Lankan scholars and Muftis on issuing Fatwas and fighting against the extremism thought.
On his part, the Sri Lankan foreign minister hailed Dar al-Iftaa as being an importance reference source for Muslims around the world, thanks to its experience and its moderate approach.
Sabry said Sri Lanka looks forward to benefiting from Dar al Iftaa’s pioneering expertise in countering extremism, through dispatching a number of Sri Lankan scholars to receive training at the Egyptian Islamic advisory body.
Colombo, August 11 (Daily Mirror) – United Republican Front (URF) leader MP Patali Champika Ranawaka said that no room should be left for the fate that befell Bangladesh to befall Sri Lanka, no matter what.
Making his remarks at a public meeting, he said Bangladesh is heading towards destabilization, further reversing its economic momentum.
He said Sri Lanka would have ended up as a country like Bangladesh today had the Aragalaya activists laid siege to Parliament and ransacked the building.
Before she resigned as Bangladesh Prime Minister and fled her Dhaka residence, Sheikh Hasina wanted to address the nation, especially the protesters whose agitation forced her to quit the top job. That speech was never delivered as the protesters reached her doorstep and the country’s top security officers advised to leave at the earliest.
Now in India, the 76-year-old has spoken to her close associates about the undelivered speech, accessed by NDTV. In the letter, Sheikh Hasina has accused the US for plotting a regime change in the country and would have said this in her speech if she got a chance.
“I resigned so that I did not have to see the procession of dead bodies. They wanted to come to power over the dead bodies of students, but I did not allow it. I resigned from premiership. I could have remained in power if I had surrendered the sovereignty of Saint Martin Island and allowed America to hold sway over the Bay of Bengal. I beseech to the people of my land, please do not be manipulated by radicals,” her undelivered speech says.
The Saint Martin island has an area of just 3 square kilometres and is located in the northeastern part of Bay of Bengal. It is the southernmost part of Bangladesh.
“Maybe, if I had stayed in the country, more lives would have been lost. I have removed myself. You were my strength, you did not want me, so I have left,” it adds.
In her message to her party members, she has said Awami League has always bounced back. “Don’t lose hope. I will return soon. I have lost but the people of Bangladesh have won, the people for whom my father, my family died,” the speech adds.
The Awami League leader had to resign and flee the country amid violent protests by students that started as an agitation against reservation and snowballed into a stand-off with the Sheikh Hasina government. Over 400 protesters were killed as the veteran leader tried to crush the protests.
“If I had remained in the country, more lives would have been lost more resources would have been destroyed. I made the extremely difficult decision to exit. I became your leader because you chose me, you were my strength,” the undelivered speech says.
It adds that she is pained by the targeting of Awami League leaders and that she “will return soon”. “Awami League has stood up again and again. I shall forever pray for the future of Bangladesh.”
She also clarified that she never called the protesting students Razakars.
In one of the statements during the protests, Sheikh Hasina had said, “If not the grandchildren of the freedom fighters, then who will get quota benefits? The grandchildren of the ‘Razakars’?” The word, used to refer to a paramilitary force recruited by the Pakistani army during the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War, sparked a massive backlash and the protests intensified. In her undelivered address to the nation, the Awami League leader has said, “I have never called you Razakars. Rather my words were distorted to incite you. I request you to watch the full video.”
Relations between the US and Bangladesh had nosedived during Sheikh Hasina’s term so much so that Washington DC had said the January elections in which Awami League returned to power were not free or fair.
Months before her exit, Sheikh Hasina had claimed that “conspiracies” were being hatched to topple her government and alleged a “white man’s” plot to carve a new “Christian country” out of Bangladesh and Myanmar. “If I allowed a certain country to build an airbase in Bangladesh, then I would have had no problem,” she had said in May.
Following her resignation and escape, the US said, “The United States has long called for respecting democratic rights in Bangladesh, and we urge that the interim government formation be democratic and inclusive.” Washington DC also said that the US greatly values its relationship with the people of Bangladesh.
Earlier, US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller had condemned the violence against protesters. “We condemn any violence against peaceful protesters. We’ve been watching this matter very closely, both from our embassy and officials here in Washington. (We) have been monitoring the protests, have seen the reports of people dying, being killed in the protests. And we again, call on the government to uphold individual’s rights to protest peacefully,” he had said.
With Sheikh Hasina gone, an interim government under Nobel peace prize winner and Grameen Bank founder Muhammad Yunus has taken charge. Amid reports of attacks on minorities, he has asked students leading the protests to ensure that they their efforts are sabotaged.
“There are many standing by to make your efforts futile. Don’t fail this time,” he said, urging them to protect Hindu, Christian, and Buddhist families from harm. “Are they not the people of this country? You have been able to save the country; can’t you save some families?…You must say – no one can harm them. They are my brothers; we fought together, and we will stay together,” he has said.
In a major development, Bangladesh’s Chief Justice Obaidul Hassan and five other top judges on Saturday were forced to resign amid massive student protests demanding a revamp of the judiciary.
Several other top officials, including Dhaka University Vice-Chancellor Professor Dr Maksud Kamal, have also quit after protests.
Bangladesh’s proximity towards China and deepening bilateral military cooperation had raised red flags in New Delhi and Washington.
New Delhi: While Bangladesh Nationalist Party leader Khaleda Zia has justified Islamist murderous fury against minority Hindus and Indian establishments as anger against India for giving refuge to Sheikh Hasina, fact is that it was ousted PM’s leanings towards China and antipathy towards the west that caused her political downfall.
Ousted Bangladesh prime minister Sheikh Hasina and Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Even though west has been able to install Muhammad Yunus as chief advisor of Bangladesh interim government, the country is facing economic crisis and a challenge from rabid Islamist forces of Jamaat-e-Islami and Hefazat-e-Islam. With Bangladesh police on a strike, Army Chief General Waker-us-Zaman will have to take on the extremist forces who have already radicalised the youth and are using political Islam to gain power.
While the Narendra Modi government tried its best to reconcile Sheikh Hasina with US and UK, its proxy in Indian sub-continent, the Indian national security establishment knew that Sheikh Hasina and US had mutual dislike for each other. The American adverse reaction to Sheikh Hasina was more because of her allowing China to build a submarine base in Pekua, Cox’s Bazaar and buying two Ming class submarines from Beijing rather than her adherence to multi-party democracy. Built by Chinese company, the naval base is aptly called BNS Sheikh Hasina.
Given that Bangladesh juts into the sensitive Siliguri corridor, New Delhi was also not happy with its credit line being used by Dhaka for buying military equipment for countries like China and Turkey and nothing from India. Before she was ousted out of power, visiting Chief of Naval Staff Admiral Dinesh Tripathi offered to build frigates for Bangladesh.
Sheikh Hasina’s ties with China
While Bangladesh, under Sheikh Hasina, was opposed to Pakistan, its proximity towards China and deepening bilateral military cooperation had raised red flags in New Delhi and Washington. Fact is that Bangladesh Army is powered by Chinese military equipment from artillery guns to main battle tanks to missiles to submarines and fighters. The Chinese access to Bangladesh armed forces poses a serious challenge to QUAD’s Indo-Pacific strategy with China already having bases in Cambodia, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Iran.
To add to this pro-China tilt of Sheikh Hasina was evidence that Bangladesh civilian military bureaucracy had been comprised by Beijing just like in Sri Lanka, Nepal, Pakistan and Myanmar. Fact is that it is only after India informed Sheikh Hasina did Bangladesh refuse permission to Chinese built frigate for Pakistan Navy, PNS Taimur, to dock at Chattogram Port from August 7-10 while on way to Karachi via Colombo. Much to Sheikh Hasina’s surprise, her bureaucracy had already cleared the docking of PNS Taimur without informing her.
Even though adversaries of India are celebrating the exit of Sheikh Hasina and labelling it as a diplomatic defeat of Modi, Dhaka will have to seek Indian support as the country is staring at a loan default and looming economic crisis. Just like Sri Lanka and Pakistan, economic crisis will fuel political unrest and in turn pan-Islamic forces in Bangladesh will gain an upper hand. With Chinese capability limited and transactional, the ball is firmly in Yunus and Waker-us-Zaman court as BNP and Khaleda Zia are no answer to Bangladesh.
Image caption,Rotherham was the scene of some of the riots in England this week
Graham Fraser
Technology reporter
Published10 August 2024, 00:06 BST
For days, similar scenes have played out across England and parts of Northern Ireland – unrest, communities in fear, a huge police presence, with the flames being fanned by social media.
For days, journalists at BBC News have been contacting big tech companies, trying to find out what they are doing about it.
Whatever it is, they don’t want to talk about it – the messaging app Telegram has been the only firm to issue an on-the-record statement.
It is hoped the tide has started to turn on the streets. But if they hoped that by keeping quiet they would avoid further scrutiny, the tech firms may well be wrong.
“I think it is horrendous they are not taking more ownership of what is happening”, says Baroness Martha Lane Fox, one of the leading lights in the UK tech scene.
She knows big tech from the inside, having sat on the board of Twitter, as it was then called.
“Generally, they don’t like getting involved in politics – it doesn’t serve them well”, she told the BBC.
Given the UK is a relatively small market, in global terms, she’s “not surprised” by the silence – but says it should not deter the government from acting.
“The lack of accountability and serious regulation that is taking this on is something I think that should alarm all of us”, she says.
What have the tech companies said so far?
Very little.
Meta – the company behind Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp – has made no comment at all. TikTok, Snapchat and the messaging app Signal have also remained silent.
A well-placed source at Snapchat told BBC News the company remained in close contact with the regulator, Ofcom, and the UK government.
Telegram did not comment specifically on the list, but did tell the BBC that its moderators were “actively monitoring the situation and are removing channels and posts containing calls to violence”.
Calls to violence were explicitly forbidden by the messaging platform’s terms of service, it said.
And then there is X.
Elon Musk and a war of words with the Prime Minister
Image caption,X owner Elon Musk was criticised for comments he made about the riots.
X, formerly Twitter, has not responded to any of our requests for comment.
In relation to the riots, there have been false claims, hate and conspiracy theories on the platform.
When Elon Musk bought it in 2022, he reduced its content moderation. A year later, far-right activist Tommy Robinson, real name Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, was reinstated to X after a five-year ban.
Last weekend, Robinson was posting inflammatory messages to his followers on X while relaxing in Cyprus.
X may have been silent this week, but its owner has not.
Mr Musk then posted “why aren’t all communities being protected in Britain?”, and #TwoTierKeir – a hashtag used over accusations of ‘two-tier policing’.
Image caption,Several police officers have been injured in the riots.
“I think that tech companies are often hesitant to wade into politically charged situations”, Matt Navarra, a social media expert, told BBC News.
“I think they fear alienating portions of their user base or becoming entangled in regulatory battles.”
He said it is a “strategic calculation”.
“By remaining silent, they hope the public attention will shift elsewhere, and they can avoid direct responsibility,” he added.
The companies are, he says, prioritising their bottom line over “public safety and social responsibility”.
Adam Leon Smith, Fellow of BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT said the silence was “incredibly disrespectful” to the public.
Media analyst Hanna Kahlert at Midia Research suggested they did not want to say things in public they could for fear of being held to those comments at a later date.
“They are probably going to be very cautious about how they comment on it, because that’s going to define their strategy moving forward – what they are able to do, what their algorithms promote, which for them are activities that brings in ad revenue.”
What could happen next?
More powers are coming the regulator’s way via the Online Safety Act, due to come into force early next year.
Ofcom published an open letter to platforms saying they should not wait until then before taking action.
But some – including the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan – are already questioning whether that is enough.
The prime minister said on Friday that “we’re going to have to look more broadly at social media after this disorder”.
Prof Lorna Woods, a professor of internet law at the University of Essex – who helped shape the legislation – told BBC News: “If the Act were fully in force, it wouldn’t catch all the content. So while organising a riot would be caught, some of the dog whistling tactics and disinformation would not be.”
According to a poll by YouGov this week, two thirds of the British public want social media firms to be held more to account.
Big tech, it seems, has nothing to say. But they could find that others are taking them into a very different future in the UK.
The Supreme Court has ruled that the decision taken by Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) to suspend the party membership of Ministers Manush Nanayakkara and Harin Fernando was lawful.
The court issued this verdict while dismissing a petition filed by the two ministers seeking an order declaring that the SJB’s decision to remove them from the party is unlawful.
The decision was announced by the three-member Supreme Court bench consisting of Justices Vijith Malalgoda, Achala Vengappuli and Arjuna Obeysekara this morning (09).
On July 18, 2023, the Working Committee of the SJB decided to expel party members Harin Fernando and Manusha Nanayakkara from the party. In May 2022, the SJB had suspended the party membership of the two parliamentarians after they had accepted ministerial portfolios in the government while the party had vowed to take disciplinary action against them.
MPs Harin Fernando and Manusha Nanayakkara were sworn in as the Minister of Tourism & Lands and Minister of Labour & Foreign Employment, respectively whereas Minister Fernando was also appointed as the Sports Minister.
Fernando and Nanayakkara had said they accepted ministerial portfolios in the government under President Gotabaya Rajapaksa to do their utmost to find solutions to the ongoing economic crisis as a positive response was not received from many political party leaders for a collective effort.
They both subsequently resigned from their ministerial portfolios on July 9, 2022 along with the rest of the Cabinet, after then President Gotabaya Rajapaksa informed the Speaker of Parliament that he intends to resign.
However, they were both reappointed to the same ministerial portfolios by President Ranil Wickremesinghe when he appointed a new Cabinet on July 22, 2022.
Colombo, August 8: In a revolutionary move, the Interim Government formed in Bangladesh on Thursday after Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s ouster by a student agitation, includes two student leaders, Nahid Islam and Asif Mahmud.
This may well be the first time in the world that student agitators who had toppled a government have been included in the successor government’s Council.
The 17-member Council of Advisors (the de facto cabinet) formed to assist President Muhammad Shahabuddin is completely non-partisan and representative of diverse interests in Bangladesh.
It has Nobel Laureate Dr.Muhammad Yunus as Chief Advisor. Other members are human rights workers, civil society activists, academics, former bureaucrats, professionals, two student leaders, and an Islamic scholar. For the sake of religious diversity, there is a Hindu and a Buddhist.
The Chief Advisor Dr. Yunus is founder of the Grameen Bank. A Nobel Laureate, he is recognised for his work in making cheap credit available to small farmers and rural artisans. Dr Salehuddin Ahmed is an economist and former Governor of the Bangladesh Bank. Brig.Gen. (retd) M Sakhawat Hossain is a former election commissioner of Bangladesh.
Dr Md. Nazrul Islam is a law professor, constitutional law researcher and civil society activist. Adilur Rahman Khan is human rights activist and founder of Odhikar. A.F Hassan Ariff is a former Attorney General. Md. Touhid Hossain is a former Foreign Secretary.
Syeda Rizwana Hasan is CEO of the Bangladesh Environmental Lawyers Association (BELA). She is a member of the Environmental Law Alliance Worldwide and the Environmental Law Commission of International Unions for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
Supradip Chakma is a Buddhist and Chairman of Chittagong Hill Tracts Development Board (CHTDB). He has been diplomat. Farida Akhter is a researcher in agriculture. Dr. Bidhan Ranjan Roy, a Hindu, is Professor of Psychiatry at the National Institute of Mental Health & Hospital. Dr AFM Khalid Hossain is a Deobandi Islamic scholar and a former Vice-President of Hefazat-e-Islam Bangladesh.
Sharmeen Murshid is CEO of the election observation group Brotee. Farooq-e-Azam is a former naval commando and freedom fighter. Nurjahan Begum is a long-standing associate of Muhammad Yunus in Grameen Bank.
The Students
Nahid Islam, a Sociology student at Dhaka University, was a key member of the 13-member coordinating committee of the anti-quota and democracy movement which overthrew Sheikh Hasina. Asif Mahmud, another key student leader in the Council of Advisors, is a Linguistics student in Dhaka University.
Both Nahid and Asif had given the month-long agitation a democratic and inclusive content which attracted wide social support and enabled it to attain its objective of overthrowing the dictatorial Hasina regime.
Nahid Islam was left battered and unconscious under a bridge on 21 July. On, 26 July, he was abducted from the Gonoshasthaya Nagar Hospital in Dhanmondi by persons identifying themselves as personnel from various intelligence agencies.
Asif Mahmud Bhuyain was abducted and tortured on 19 July. He went through interrogation for four days until his release. But on 26 July, Asif was taken from Gonoshasthaya Nagar Hospital by persons who claimed to be personnel from various intelligence agencies and the Dhaka Metropolitan Police.
Nahid, Asif and others in the coordination committee had made it very clear that they were not working for any particular political party. But they insisted that no government could be formed in Bangladesh with persons the committee did not approve. They also stated that they did want army rule either.
It is the coordinating committee headed by Nahid and Asif that invited Dr. Muhammad Yunus to come back from Paris and be the Chief Advisor of the Interim Government.
Students Historical Role
University students have been pioneers in agitation politics both in East Pakistan and in independent Bangladesh. Students were in the forefront of the Bhasha Andolon”, the language movement of 1952, which had, as its aim, the installation of Bengali as an official language of Pakistan in addition to Urdu.
Twenty-nine students were shot dead in the language movement. April 21 is now observed as the International Mother Tongue Day.
The language movement led by students created freedom fighters like Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and Tajuddin Ahmad. Mujib and Tajudden, among many others, led the freedom movement of 1971 which led to the birth of Bangladesh.
During the latest students’ agitation against Sheikh Hasina, the students proclaimed: We have not witnessed 1971, we have not witnessed 1952, but we are witnessing 2024, our freedom struggle.”
The Bangladesh Advisory Council
The 2024 movement is popularly hailed as the second freedom struggle”.
Occupying streets and public spaces had been a feature of students agitations in East Pakistan and Bangladesh since 1948.
In 2018, school students took up the cause of road safety – after the death of two students in traffic accidents – by occupying streets as part of a collective agenda to reform governance which had been insensitive to peoples’ lives.
Universities and their associated hostels turned into centres of intense student activity and planning from the language movement of 1952 onwards, to the liberation war, and the 1990 agitation that brought down the military strongman General H. M. Ershad.
Universities both in the past and the present have been institutions that are the first to be shut down by the authorities to nip demonstrations or movements in the bud.
Hasina, who won her fourth consecutive term as Prime Minister in January, to become the longest-serving leader in Bangladesh, saw the July 2024 student movement as one instigated and led by her bete noire, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, and the Jamaat-e-Islami. While the BNP matriarch Begum Khaleda Zia was under house arrest on corruption charges, the Jamaat-i-Islami was banned.
Hasina’s decision to use the police and her party, the Awami League’s student leaders to launch brutal attacks on agitating students secured an unprecedented and unexpected backlash which was too much for her to take, especially after the army refused to shoot on students.
The Prime Minister could have intervened early and restrained the trigger-happy police,” commented political scientist Prof. Imtiaz Ahmed of Dhaka University.
If she had done that, she might not have suffered the ignominy of fleeing the country with only half an hour to go before a massive invasion of her official residence by students.
Damaged riot gear of security forces is seen next to a burnt vehicle outside a police station on Aug 8. PHOTO: REUTERS
DHAKA/NEW DELHI – Hundreds of Bangladeshi Hindus have tried unsuccessfully to flee to India this week after many homes and businesses of the minority community were vandalised following the overthrow of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.
The Bangladesh Hindu Buddhist Christian Unity Council said that 45 out of 64 districts in the country had seen the targeting of mostly Hindu homes, businesses or temples this week. A school teacher had been killed and 45 other people hurt, it said.
Hindus make up about 8 per cent of Muslim-majority Bangladesh’s 170 million people and have traditionally largely supported Ms Hasina’s Awami League party, which identifies as largely secular, instead of the opposition bloc that includes a hardline Islamist party.
Ms Hasina has taken refuge in India after fleeing the country on Aug 5 in the face of mass protests against what critics called her authoritarian rule – provoking anger among some Bangladeshis towards their neighbour.
Many living close to India are trying to flee but facing resistance from both sides, local people said. Both countries have said they have stepped up border patrolling since the violence.
Mr Mohammad Rakibul Hasan, a local government official in Thakurgaon district in northwestern Bangladesh, said around 700-800 Hindus tried to flee to India around Aug 7 evening after some of their houses were attacked and looted.
“They returned home after we provided protection,” he said. “Border guard troops are patrolling the area. Everything is fine now with no further reports of violence.” & Conditions and Privacy Policy as amended from time to time.
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Early on Aug 8, about 300 Bangladeshis had assembled at a border point near India’s Jalpaiguri district but dispersed later. Indian media showed Indian border troops around a group of people there.
A Hindu goldsmith in the Narsingdi area, about an hour from Dhaka, who did not want to be named for fear of reprisals, said two youths demanded protection money of 1 million Bangladesh taka (S$11,300) and relented only after they agreed to pay 100,000 taka.
Nobel Peace laureate Muhammad Yunus, who returned to Bangladesh on Aug 8 to head an interim government following Ms Hasina’s departure, said attacks on minorities could have been part of a conspiracy. He did not say who was behind the conspiracy.
“Our job is to protect all of them,” he said on arrival in Dhaka from Paris.
“If you have faith in me and trust me, please ensure no one is attacked in the country. If you cannot listen to me on this, I have no use being here.”
The two countries have longstanding cultural and business ties and India played a key role in the 1971 war with Pakistan which led to the creation of Bangladesh.
India, which has a Hindu majority, has said it was worrying that minorities, their businesses and temples had been attacked in many places.
“It is the responsibility of every government to ensure the wellbeing of all its citizens,” India’s foreign ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal told a press conference.
“We hope for the early restoration of law and order in Bangladesh. This is both in the interest of the country itself and the larger region.”
Bangladesh’s Hindu community leaders urged other communities to look after the religious minorities.
“I call upon the conscientious people of the country to forget all differences and stand unitedly by the side of the affected people and build social resistance,” said Ms Moyna Talukdar of the Bangladesh Hindu Law Reform Council. REUTERS
Indian media make claims linking China and Pakistani intelligence to Bangladesh protests and exaggerate scale of attacks on Hindus.
Men run past a vehicle set on fire by protesters at Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University Hospital during a rally against Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and her government on August 4, 2024, the day before Hasina resigned [Rajib Dhar/AP Photo]
Dhaka, Bangladesh – Within hours of Sheikh Hasina’s removal from power after a student-led mass uprising, reports began to appear in some Indian media outlets that members of Hindu minorities in Bangladesh were being targeted by Islamist forces”.
Articles and videos containing misleading content emerged across Indian media and social media platforms.
A video on The Times Group-owned Mirror Now’s YouTube channel, titled Attack on Hindus in Bangladesh? Mass Murders, Killings by Mob, shows footage of violence and arson attacks on four houses, two of them have been identified to be owned by Muslims. The title of the video is clearly misleading as there was no mass murders reported in the incident. Local reports say one of the houses belonged to Bangladesh’s freedom icon Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.
The video also makes unsubstantiated claims, like 24 burnt alive by mob” and Minorities at the centre of attacks”.
Al Jazeera has independently verified that only two Hindus have been killed since Hasina’s ouster on Monday – one police officer and one activist with Hasina’s Awami League party.
Hindus constitute about 8 percent of Bangladesh’s 170 million people and have traditionally been strong supporters of the Awami League, which is generally viewed as secular compared with the opposition coalition, which includes an Islamist party.
Many news reports of attacks on Hindus contain outlandish claims such as more than one crore [10 million] refugees are likely to enter West Bengal soon”, which was made in a Times of India report that quoted Suvendu Adhikari, a senior leader of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s governing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
The ANI news agency, seen close to Modi’s government, quoted a student leader in India as saying the mass uprising was orchestrated by the enemies of Bangladesh”.
An even more bizarre Times of India article stated that Jamaat-e-Islami, Bangladesh’s biggest Islamist party, brought down Sheikh Hasina government in Bangladesh”.
People stand guard in front of a police station that was vandalised on August 5, 2024, in Dhaka [Fatima Tuj Johora/AP Photo]
Political analyst Zahed Ur Rahman said Indian media have reported through an Islamophobic” lens.
The student movement that fomented the mass uprising involving people from all walks of life is unanimously understood as a popular movement here in Bangladesh. But Indian media somehow have been interpreting the whole scenario through their Islamophobic eye,” he told Al Jazeera.
ISI and religious claims
As Hasina fled the country on Monday, news articles in Indian media alleged that Bangladesh’s protests were influenced by the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), a Pakistani spy agency, because it is seeking to turn Bangladesh into an Islamic state with the support of political parties like the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and its former political ally Jamaat-e-Islami.
Some media outlets even urged the Indian government to prepare for a potential refugee crisis, speculating that Hindus would be driven out of Bangladesh.
Speculation suggesting an ISI and Chinese connection to the popular Bangladesh movement was a common thread in social media posts by some commentators and media outlets.
The diplomatic affairs editor of The Economic Times, Dipanjan R Chaudhury, posted on X: Jamaat-e-Islami in Bangladesh politics doesn’t bode well either for country or India. Jamaat track record of promoting cross border terror … is part of recent history.”
[Screen grabs]
The television channel TV9 Gujarati with one million followers on X characterised the uprising as a coup”, stating on the social media platform: Is ISI behind the coup attack in Bangladesh? Is Jamaat-E-Islam behind the violent attacks?”
What is the reality on the ground?
These articles by Indian media and posts in social media contrast sharply with factual reports chronicling the events that led to the Hasina’s resignation. She fled to India, which had backed her.
Local media in Bangladesh reported that since Monday night, several Hindu households across 20 of the country’s 64 districts have been attacked and looted.
Al Jazeera reached out to sources in some of these districts and discovered that the attacks on Hindu households were not driven by religious identity but by political affiliations.
Mustafizur Rahman Hiru, a rent-a-car driver from the central district of Narsingdi, told Al Jazeera that in his village, the two Hindu households targeted were home to local Awami League leaders.
People were angry because these Hindu leaders were bullying others when the Awami League was in power. Now, with Hasina’s fall, they are facing the backlash,” he said.
A Bangladeshi student controls traffic after police went on strike in Dhaka [Munir Uz Zaman/AFP]
In Jashore, a border district with India, a warehouse and home belonging to Babul Saha, a local government chairman who ran for office on the Awami League ticket, were attacked.
Abdur Rab Haider, a resident of Jashore, told Al Jazeera that no Hindu household had been attacked without ties to the Awami League.
Rahman pointed out that Sajeeb Wazed Joy, Hasina’s son, who resides in the United States, has given several interviews to Indian media, spreading rumours and unverified claims about attacks on Hindus and alleged operations by the ISI.
Indian media merrily jumped onto it and spread Joy’s bogus claims,” Rahman told Al Jazeera.
‘Attacks politically motivated, not communal’
In an interview with Al Jazeera, Gobindra Chandra Pramanik, a leader of the Hindu community in Bangladesh, stated that to his knowledge no Hindu households without connections to the Awami League were attacked.
As a leader of the Hindu community, I can confirm that these attacks were politically motivated, not communal,” he said. Across the country, 10 times more Muslim households affiliated with the Awami League were attacked.”
Local media reported that since Monday night, more than 119 people – primarily Awami League leaders, activists and police – were killed in mob violence. Qadaruddin Shishir, the fact-checking editor for the AFP news agency, told Al Jazeera that only two of the victims were Hindus: one policeman and one Awami League activist.
https://imasdk.googleapis.com/js/core/bridge3.657.0_en.html?gdpr=1#goog_56797816Play Video
Video Duration 1 minutes 40 seconds1:40
Zafar Sobhan, editor of Bangladesh’s Dhaka Tribune newspaper, told Al Jazeera that most of the Indian media as a general rule is clueless about Bangladesh”.
I don’t like to attribute to malice that which just as easily can be explained by incompetence. But the uniformity of the misinformation that is routinely peddled in the Indian media suggests that they are taking dictation from a common source,” he said.
But an Indian academic rejected any allegation that the Indian media’s reporting has been Islamophobic.
Sreeradha Datta, a professor at OP Jindal University in Sonipat in northern India, told Al Jazeera that the Indian media’s concern about the safety of Hindus under a non-Hasina administration in Bangladesh stems from past experiences rather than Islamophobia.
Datta noted that during previous non-Awami League governments, such as the BNP-Jamaat alliance, there was an increase in attacks on minorities, and this historical context continues to influence current perceptions.”
The media’s reporting has caused concern in India with several prominent Hindu religious leaders and politicians calling for the protection of Hindus.
Muslims protecting Hindus
Meanwhile, images of individuals, including students from Muslim religious schools, standing watch in front of Hindu temples and homes have been widely circulated on social media.
In Brahmanbaria, a district with one of the largest Hindu populations in Bangladesh, residents, including students, stepped up to protect Hindu households.
Munshi Azizul Haque, an apparel businessman from Brahmanbaria, told Al Jazeera that they are working to prevent any communal violence in the area. We’ve seen how Indian media are depicting attacks on minorities in Bangladesh on social media. The reality is quite different,” he said.
Pramanik also acknowledged that Hindu temples were being protected.
News of Bangladeshi students, including from religious schools, volunteering to protect Hindu temples have been reported locally since the unrest began, and it has been picked up by outlets like Clarion India and The Wire.
Siddharth Varadarajan, founding editor of The Wire, told Al Jazeera that while there is legitimate and genuine concern about reports of attacks on Hindu places of worship, businesses and homes across more than two dozen districts in Bangladesh, the Indian media are also exaggerating the scale and extent of these incidents.
Also, he said, there is a section of the Indian media that is using the Bangladesh situation to boost anti-Muslim rhetoric in service of the BJP and [its ideological parent] RSS’s agenda.
For them, the ouster of Hasina is an Islamist conspiracy hatched in collaboration with Pakistan and China and that the target is India and Hindus,” he said.
Naresh Fernandez, editor of the Indian news portal Scroll.in, said Hindutva (right-wing Hindu nationalism) supporters in India are using the situation in Bangladesh as a screen on which to project their own anxieties, fantasies and conspiracy theories to serve their narrow political purposes”.
They are claiming that Hasina’s fall was actually engineered by international forces and that this is a rehearsal for a similar regime change to be effected in India,” Fernandez told Al Jazeera.
He said, however, that Hindutva supporters are rightfully concerned about the safety of minorities in Bangladesh in this period of crisis, a concern that they fail to demonstrate about minorities in India”.
‘Delhi’s intent to destabilise Dhaka’
Political analyst Farid Erkizia Bakht, meanwhile, suggested that misinformation spread by Indian media reflects New Delhi’s intent to destabilise Dhaka. He noted that India has lost its most valuable ally in the subcontinent and is deeply concerned about the direction of the incoming administration.
Varadarajan also echoed the sentiment.
The popular uprising which unseated Hasina caught New Delhi by surprise, and the government is now scrambling to formulate a coherent and rational policy in the face of the new situation.
It cannot welcome the student-led protest and bottom-up expression of people power or dismiss the change as a ‘coup’ or an ‘anti-India conspiracy’ either as the Hindutva right wing on social media is saying,” he said.
For now, New Delhi will be in a wait-and-watch mode. The focus will be on ensuring the safety of Indian nationals in Bangladesh and monitoring the situation of minorities there,” he added.
Bangladeshi activist and author Aupam Debashis Roy told Al Jazeera that there had been attacks on Hindu minorities but the numbers have been overblown and Bangladesh is being portrayed as being taken over by Islamist forces”, which is not true, he said.
The nature of the soon-to-be-formed interim government will not be radical Islamist” in nature, Roy said. But the BJP-leaning media wants to spread the world that Bangladesh is going to be in the hands of Islamists because it supports their [the BJP’s] narrative … built around previous laws like CAA and NRC,” Roy said, referring to India’s citizenship law and national register of citizens, which have been criticised as being directed against Muslims.
They want to show that Bangladesh is a place for radical Islamists and Hindus and minorities are not safe here. I think that’s why the BJP-leaning Indian media is spreading misinformation about attacks on minorities and an Islamist force taking over Bangladesh,” he added.
US-based Bangladeshi political commentator Shafquat Rabbee Anik said the violence occurring in Bangladesh is a result of the collapse of the police force,” which is mostly due to popular reprisal against excesses committed by them throughout the last 15 years”.
Once Nobel Peace Prize-winning economist Muhammad Yunus officially becomes the leader of the interim government, that will calm down Indian nerves”, Anik predicted.
For one, it will be very hard to portray Yunus as an Islamist trying to take away the rights of the minorities and women.”
The Ahmadiyya Muslim community in Bangladesh has faced severe attacks, with thousands of fanatics targeting mosques, schools, and homes. Recent violence includes the burning of the Ahmadiyya mosque in Taraganj and assaults by madrassa students in Dhaka. The Army has been deployed to restore order as the civil administration remains inactive. Watch our interview with Ahmed Tabshir Chaudhary, Director of External & Public Affairs, Ahmadiyya Muslim Jama’at, Bangladesh, for insights on the situation and community responses.
The Met police chief, Sir Mark Rowley, has praised the show of force and unity from communities” that defeated the threat from far-right troublemakers yesterday, after thousands of anti-racism protesters lined streets of the capital. Our Crime Correspondent, Anthony France, explains what exactly happened, how racist thugs are being fast-tracked through our justice system, and discusses whether this could be the beginning of the end of the riots. In part two, as Justin Timberlake kicks off the UK leg of his world tour, The Standard’s Emma Loffhagen analyses where it all went wrong for the star and how he went from pop’s golden boy to DWI drama.
Targets and benchmarks with IMF, lending countries non-negotiable: If we violate them, we will not receive the necessary funds, leading to another economic collapse in our country: Never defended anyone accused of corruption:
President Ranil Wickremesinghe highlighted that altering agreements with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) or creditors could jeopardise the country’s financial support.
It is not possible to break any agreements made with the International Monetary Fund and our lending countries. These existing targets and benchmarks are non-negotiable. If we violate them, we will not receive the necessary funds, leading to another economic collapse in our country,”he said.
He said that there won’t be any problems for Sri Lanka if the country adheres to the IMF agreement. He added that the IMF will not change its benchmarks; these remain constant for all countries.
We have reached an agreement with the IMF, and we must implement it. While others are proposing changes, they need to specify their plans. The IMF will not change its benchmarks; these remain constant for all countries. For example, if you propose giving something for free and offset this by increasing VAT to 25%, the IMF might agree if the numbers are feasible. However, you cannot alter the benchmarks, revenue figures, or expenditure figures,”he said.
The President while urging all candidates to be honest with voters about the country’s economic challenges said that he is contesting the presidential election for the future of the country and its people.
He emphasised that he has no personal conflicts with anyone, having twice saved the country during severe economic crises.Speaking at a meeting with media heads at the Cinnamon Grand Hotel in Colombo yesterday, the President stated that while other candidates may be running for their personal ambitions, he is contesting the presidential election for the future of the country and its people.
Addressing concerns about corruption, the President noted his efforts in enacting anti-corruption laws and announced plans to present the Bill on the Proceeds of Crime Act to the Cabinet next week. He reiterated that he has never defended anyone accused of corruption.
President Wickremesinghe made these remarks during his first media engagement since officially entering the presidential race.
Addressing the gathering President Wickremesinghe said; I decided to meet with the media for the first time after submitting the deposit for my candidacy for the Presidential Election.
I am serving as president today because no one else stepped up to take on this role. Within two years of assuming the presidency, I addressed the country’s fundamental problems. Solving Sri Lanka’s issues is no small feat; it took Greece ten years and Indonesia eight years. Some doubted how Sri Lanka could tackle these challenges.
However, I believed they could be resolved in a shorter period. I discussed this matter with then-President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and accepted the challenge without fear. I was confident that by engaging with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and making the hard decisions, we could recover. Initially, there was no party support for me. A faction of the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) joined us, while another went to the opposition. Some from the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) aligned with us, while others joined the opposition. I took on this responsibility by forming a government without a party. We have now completed the initial work and have laid the foundation to free the country from bankruptcy. Let’s continue on this path.
People suffered because the country’s economic system collapsed, and the increased tax burden became unbearable for some. I am sorry for that, but without these measures, the economy could not have been managed. Politics in our country is not prepared for the truth.
Stability needs to be established. A country cannot be developed without stability. Yesterday, while watching the events in Bangladesh on television, I thought about what might have happened if I hadn’t taken over. Even though the Bangladesh Prime Minister was asked to step down, no one was ready to take over. When the army intervened, protesters were not in favour of the army taking over. They suggested appointing Mr. Yunus as Prime Minister.
However, according to the constitution, a Prime Minister must be a Member of Parliament. What would happen if we found ourselves in that situation? Fortunately, we managed to form a government. This is why we now have the opportunity to hold the Presidential Election. The future of the country will be decided in this Presidential Election.
We must decide whether to continue on our current path towards becoming a developed country, provide relief to those suffering and build a promising future for our youth, or revert to old politics, risking another economic collapse and a return to an era of shortages and queues.
There is no need to consider personal appearances. The decision should be based on whether the candidates have the strength and policies to save the country. This Presidential Election is not about the future of the candidates but the future of the country and its people. We must decide whether to proceed systematically and solve the country’s problems with determination or risk returning to the situation of 2022.
Different people can make various promises, but many of them are unrealistic. Fulfilling such promises would require increasing VAT. That is the reality we face. We must decide whether we are prepared to tell the truth and save the country or seek power through deception. Therefore, I ask the people for the mandate to continue the programmes initiated by the government.
The following are the questions raised by journalists and the responses provided by President Ranil Wickremesinghe:
Q: Dhammika Perera has withdrawn from the Presidential race and Namal Rajapaksa has been nominated as the presidential candidate. With most SLPP supporters backing you, do you expect a strong challenge from Namal Rajapaksa?
A: I cannot predict the nature of the competition. My goal is not to engage in a fight but to present my policies to the people and demonstrate how we can advance the country. If you agree with my vision, you can vote for me. I am not concerned with what others say. If he wishes to come, I have no objection. In fact, he should clearly convey his message.
Namal Rajapaksa and the SLPP supported me in the Parliamentary Election for the Presidency, and I am grateful for that. We had agreed to work together over the past two years, and that period has now passed.
It is now up to him to determine the party’s position on supporting or nominating a candidate. Meanwhile, it is his responsibility to present his proposals to the country.
This is not my personal contest. It is up to the people to decide their future. They can choose to support my program and vote accordingly, or opt for another candidate.
Q:This question is about the ban on vehicle imports. Is it possible to allow people to import vehicles with a higher tax, and in return, reduce other individual taxes? This would enable those who can afford it to import vehicles. Are you considering options like this for after your re-election?
A:Next year, we will gradually allow vehicle imports because we need the customs duty to help generate revenue. We are waiting until our reserves are built up to a sufficient level, at which point we can permit vehicle imports. Duties from vehicle imports are a significant source of revenue for the government, and we will need this income next year.
MP Udaya Gammanpila told Parliament yesterday that JVP’s Politburo member K. D. Lalkantha has publicly declared that the JVP has planned to take over the Parliament of Sri Lanka and therefore he should be immediately arrested under the criminal law and the law should be enforced against him. MP Udaya Gammanpila mentioned this while joining the adjournment debate on the Mid-Year Fiscal Position Report – 2024.
Lalkantha has said that his party has told the people to come to the Parliament. But it was not possible to do that because some of the people who were in the Aragalaya just left the scene.
If the JVP fighters were able to take over the Parliament then, the same situation in Bangladesh today would have arisen in Sri Lanka too. Bangladesh is still on fire. As suggested by Lal Kantha, the cases are being heard not in courts but on roads today in Bangladesh.
People are being killed after hearing cases on roads. Today, Bangladesh has turned into an anarchy and the country is piled up with mountains of corpses. If that happend to the Sri Lankan Parliament that day, the same situation would have arisen in Sri Lanka today.
If there is no deal with Anura, the law should be implemented now. Attempting to commit a crime is also a crime. It is said that they were ready to take over the Parliament and prepared to wreak havoc. Unlike the others, Lal is an honest man and tells the truth. The government should now arrest Lal Kanta in this regard.
National People’s Power (NPP) National Executive Committee member K. D. Lalkantha, stated that while the Galle Face protests succeeded in removing Gotabaya Rajapaksa from power, the effort to direct the uprising toward a parliamentary change failed, rendering the movement fruitless.
Lalkantha remarked that J. R. Jayewardene, a former leader, did not rely on military control but instead established a strong legal system
with an autocratic executive presidential system, which turned Parliament into a powerless entity.”We shouldn’t call it a parliament; even a dog is more useful. Parliament has become a useless institution,” he said.
He further explained that once a leader is elected for five years, there’s nothing that can be done until the term is over. Unlike how Gotabaya was removed or how leaders in Bangladesh are ousted, people cannot keep protesting indefinitely to remove a leader.
Lalkantha acknowledged that there was an opportunity to channel the people’s uprising at Galle Face into a movement towards Parliament after Gotabaya was ousted.”We tried to redirect the uprising towards Parliament, but the so-called Galle Face leaders who emerged from the dispersed people’s struggle blocked this. The remaining Parliament rebuilt the collapsed tower, rendering Gotabaya’s removal meaningless,” he concluded.
Bangladesh’s military chief announced on Wednesday that an interim government, headed by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, will be sworn in on Thursday. The move follows former prime minister Sheikh Hasina’s resignation and departure to India, with the new administration aiming to restore stability after widespread unrest.
Bangladesh’s military chief said Wednesday that an interim government headed by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus would be sworn in on Thursday night as he returns from Paris to take over the administration and try to restore stability in the country, after an uprising forced former prime minister Sheikh Hasina to step down and flee to neighboring India.
Gen. Waker-Uz-Zaman said in a televised address late Wednesday afternoon that the responsible for the violence since Hasina’s resignation would be brought to justice.
The military chief, flanked by the chiefs of navy and air force, said that he spoke to Yunus and would receive him at the airport on Thursday.
Zaman said he was hopeful that Yunus would take the situation to a beautiful democratic” process.
Speaking to reporters in Paris, Yunus said I’m looking forward to going back home and seeing what’s happening there, and how we can organize ourselves to get out of the trouble that we are in.″
Asked when elections would be held, he put his hands up as if to indicate it was too early to say. ″I’ll go and talk to them. I’m just fresh in this whole area.″
Earlier on Wednesday, ailing opposition leader and former prime minister Khaleda Zia urged all not to follow the path of destruction in Bangladesh as she addressed her supporters from a hospital bed at a rally in Dhaka. It was her first public speech since 2018, when she was convicted of corruption charges and jailed.
No destruction, no anger, and no revenge, we need love and peace to rebuild our country,” she said using a video link.
I have been released now. I want to thank the brave people who were in a do-or-die struggle to make possible the impossible,” she said. This victory brings us a new possibility to come back from the debris of plunder, corruption and ill-politics. We need to reform this country as a prosperous one.”
The development came as Bangladesh was preparing to form an interim government after a mass uprising that left hundreds of people dead and hundreds of others injured.
The student leaders, who organized the weeks of mass protests, said they would unveil a full list of the new Cabinet on Wednesday. The streets of Bangladesh were calm after reports of violence against supporters of Hasina, police and minority communities which followed soon after she fled to India.
The rally by the Bangladesh Nationalist Party came a day after her release from house arrest, amid a new political environment in the country.
Zia’s freedom is largely symbolic as the ailing leader has been staying outside the prison under an executive order of the former government but was not allowed to travel abroad. Her son and the acting head of the party, Tarique Rahman also addressed the crowd online from London, where he has been living in exile since 2008.
Rahman faces several criminal cases and was convicted of corruption and a grenade attack, charges dismissed by supporters as politically motivated.
Zia, who ruled the country from 2001 to 2006, was convicted on corruption charges in 2018 and sentenced to 17 years in prison. Her party said the charges were designed to keep her away from politics.
Bangladesh’s President Mohammed Shahabuddin, a symbolic figure who is acting as the chief executive now under the constitution, dissolved Parliament on Tuesday, clearing the path for an interim administration that is expected to schedule new elections but it’s not clear when those elections will take place.
Shahabuddin named Yunus as the head of an interim government, in consultation with the army and student leaders. He has been a longtime opponent of Hasina.
An economist and banker, Yunus was awarded the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize for his work developing microcredit markets. He has been hailed for bringing thousands out of poverty through Grameen Bank, which he founded in 1983, and which makes small loans to businesspeople who wouldn’t qualify for regular bank loans.
In his first statement since he was named as the head of an interim government, Yunus on Wednesday congratulated the students for taking the lead in making our Second Victory Day possible.” He also appealed to them, members of political parties and other people to stay calm.
Referring to acts of violence that happened after Hasina’s resignation, Yunus said, Violence is our enemy. Please don’t create more enemies. Be calm and get ready to build the country.”
On Wednesday, the streets of Dhaka, the capital, were calm two days after violence gripped the country amid Hasina’s sudden departure. The students were seen cleaning streets and managing traffic in parts of Dhaka as police including traffic police disappeared amid violent attacks on police stations in Dhaka and elsewhere in the country.
The looting of the firearms was also reported in local media. Reports of robberies in parts of Dhaka came in the absence of police.
The Bangladesh Police Association went on strike after police stations and security officials were attacked across the country Monday. The association said many” officers had been killed but gave no number.
Violence in days surrounding Hasina’s resignation killed at least 109 people — including 14 police officers, and left hundreds of others injured, according to media reports, which could not be independently confirmed. Reports said more attacks took place across the country also on Tuesday.
In the southwestern district of Satkhira, 596 prisoners and detainees escaped from a jail after an attack on the facility Monday evening, the United News of Bangladesh agency reported.
Many of the homes of the ministers and MPs for the ruling party were looted, torched or vandalized. People were seen on social media taking valuables from the home of Hasina’s younger sister in Dhaka’s Gulshan area. Four separate neighbors told The Associated Press that the lootings took place at her home.
Elsewhere in Dhaka, charred bodies were recovered from a museum, which was used by Hasina’s father before he was assassinated along with most of his family in 1975, media reports said.
Local media also reported that many of the dead in two days of violence since her resignation included ruling party officials, mostly outside Dhaka. Those details could not be independently confirmed.
There are growing fears among the country’s Hindu minority, which has been targeted in the past during political unrest and which has long been seen as pro-Hasina, that they could again face attacks. Local reports of violence against Hindu leaders and other minorities could not be confirmed.
In one case in Dhaka, the home of a popular Hindu musician was attacked and some 3,000 musical instruments were destroyed by the attackers, the family said.
Opposition politicians have publicly called on people not to attack minority groups, while student leaders asked supporters to guard Hindu temples and other places of worship.
The unrest began in July with protests against a quota system for government jobs, which critics said favored people with connections to her party. But they soon grew into a broader challenge to Hasina’s 15-year rule, which was marked by human rights abuses, corruption, allegations of rigged elections and a brutal crackdown on her opponents. More than 300 people died in just a few weeks.
The quick move to choose Yunus came after Hasina’s resignation created a power vacuum and left the future unclear for Bangladesh, which has a history of military rule, messy politics and myriad crises.
The military wields significant influence in a country that has seen more than 20 coups or coup attempts since its independence from Pakistan in 1971. Military chief Gen. Waker-uz-Zaman said Monday he had taken temporary control while a new government is formed.
Many fear that Hasina’s departure could trigger even more instability in the densely populated nation of some 170 million people, which is already dealing with high unemployment, corruption and climate change.
Hasina, 76, was elected to a fourth consecutive term in January, an election boycotted by her main opponents. Thousands of opposition members were jailed before the vote, and the United States and the United Kingdom denounced the result as not credible.
People shake hands with army personnel as they celebrate the resignation of Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in Dhaka, Aug. 5, 2024.
The night before long-time leader Sheikh Hasina abruptly fled Bangladesh amid deadly protests, her army chief held a meeting with his generals and decided that troops would not open fire on civilians to enforce a curfew, two serving army officers with knowledge of the discussions told Reuters.—
Gen. Waker-Uz-Zaman then reached out to Hasina’s office, conveying to the prime minister that his soldiers would be unable to implement the lockdown she had called for, according to an Indian official briefed on the matter.
The message was clear, the official said: Hasina no longer had the army’s support.
Details of the online meeting between military top brass and the message to Hasina that she had lost their backing have not previously been reported.
They help to explain how Hasina’s 15-year rule, during which she brooked little dissent, came to such a chaotic and sudden end on Monday, when she fled from Bangladesh to India.
FILE – Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina shows her ballot paper as she casts her vote in Dhaka, Jan. 7, 2024.
The nationwide curfew had been imposed after at least 91 people were killed and hundreds injured in nationwide clashes on Sunday, the deadliest day since student-led protests against Hasina began in July.
Army spokesman Lt. Col. Sami Ud Dowla Chowdhury confirmed the Sunday evening discussions, which he described as a regular meeting to take updates after any disturbance.
He did not provide details when presented with additional questions about decision-making at that meeting.
Hasina could not be reached and her son and advisor, Sajeeb Wazed, did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
Reuters spoke to ten people familiar with the events of the past week, including four serving army officers and two other informed sources in Bangladesh, to piece together the final 48 hours of Hasina’s reign. Many of them spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter.
Hasina, who has ruled Bangladesh for 20 of the last 30 years, was elected to a fourth term leading the country of 170 million in January, after arresting thousands of opposition leaders and workers. That election was boycotted by her main rivals.
Her iron-fisted grasp on power has been challenged since summer by protests triggered by a court ruling to reserve government jobs – heavily coveted amid high youth unemployment – for certain segments of the population. The decision was overturned but the demonstrations had quickly morphed into a movement to oust Hasina.
Photo Gallery:In photos: Bangladesh prime minister resigns amid violent protests
Zaman has not publicly explained his decision to withdraw support from Hasina. But the scale of the protests and a death toll of at least 241 made supporting Hasina at all costs untenable, three former senior Bangladesh army officers told Reuters.
“There was a lot of uneasiness within the troops,” said retired Brig. Gen. M. Sakhawat Hossain. “That is what probably (put) pressure on the chief of army staff, because the troops are out and they are seeing what is happening.”
Zaman, who is related to Hasina by marriage, had showed signs of wavering in his support for the prime minister on Saturday, when he sat on an ornate wooden chair and addressed hundreds of uniformed officers in a town hall meeting. The military later made some details of that discussion public.
The general declared that lives had to be protected and called on his officers to show patience, said army spokesman Chowdhury.
It was the first indication that Bangladesh’s army would not forcefully suppress the violent demonstrations, leaving Hasina vulnerable.
Retired senior soldiers such as Brig. Gen. Mohammad Shahedul Anam Khan were among those who defied the curfew on Monday and took to the streets.
“We were not stopped by the army,” said Khan, a former infantry soldier. “The army has done what he had promised the army would do.”
‘Short notice’
On Monday, the first full day of the indefinite nationwide curfew, Hasina was holed up inside the Ganabhaban, or “People’s Palace,” a heavily-guarded complex in the capital Dhaka that serves as her official residence.
Outside, on the streets of the sprawling city, crowds gathered. Tens of thousands of people had answered protest leaders’ call for a march to oust the leader, streaming into the heart of the city.
With the situation spiraling out of her control, the 76-year-old leader decided to flee the country on Monday morning, according to the Indian official and two Bangladesh nationals familiar with the matter.
People celebrate the resignation of Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Aug. 5, 2024.
Hasina and her sister, who lives in London but was in Dhaka at the time, discussed the matter and flew out together, according to a Bangladesh source. They left for India around lunch, local time.
Indian foreign minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar told parliament on Tuesday that New Delhi had urged “various political forces with whom we were in touch” to resolve the situation via dialog throughout July.
But as crowds gathered in Dhaka on Monday ignoring the curfew, Hasina decided to resign “after a meeting with leaders of the security establishment,” he added. “At very short notice, she requested approval to come for the moment to India.”
A second Indian official said it was “diplomatically” conveyed to Hasina that her stay had to be temporary for fear of negatively impacting Delhi’s ties with the next government in Dhaka. India’s Ministry of External Affairs did not immediately return a request for comment.
Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, whom the protesting students want to lead the interim government after Hasina’s ouster, told The New Indian Express newspaper that India had “good ties with the wrong people… Please revisit your foreign policy.”
Yunus wasn’t immediately available for an interview.
Late in the afternoon on Monday, a Bangladesh Air Force C130 transport aircraft landed at Hindon air base outside Delhi, with Hasina on board. There, she was met by Ajit Doval, India’s powerful national security advisor, according to the Indian security official.
Delhi had fought to carve Bangladesh out of East Pakistan in 1971. After Hasina’s father was assassinated in 1975, Hasina took refuge in India for years and built deep links with her neighbor’s political elite.
Returning to Bangladesh, she gained power in 1996, and was seen as more sensitive to India’s security concerns than her political rivals. The Hindu-majority nation also regarded her secular stance as favorable for the 13 million Hindus in Bangladesh.
But back in Bangladesh, resentment still lingered even among retired soldiers that Hasina had been allowed to leave.
“Personally, I feel that she should not have been given a safe passage,” said Khan, the veteran. “That was a folly.”
Marianna Spring Disinformation and social media correspondent Courtesy BBC
X can feel like two parallel universes at times.
There’s the version where the president of the United States chooses the platform to announce he won’t be running for re-election. That’s the one where the worldwide authority on a particular subject uses X to offer their expert take on unfolding events.
And then there’s the version where false claims, hate and conspiracy theories, including many posts relating to the recent riots and protests across the UK, are recommended to millions who have made absolutely no attempt to seek them out.
At the centre of it all is X’s owner Elon Musk, one of the world’s richest people. But this isn’t just a story about the monetisation strategy and algorithms employed by X under his tenure and how they are boosting divisive content.
It is increasingly also a story about how Mr Musk himself is choosing to wade in, overtly, to opine on unrest in the UK.
And nobody is quite sure what his game plan is.
Stirring the pot
Mr Musk bought what was then called Twitter in 2022. In November 2023, the site reinstated the account of the previously banned far-right activist and convicted criminal, Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, known as Tommy Robinson.
Then this week, Mr Musk responded to a post from Yaxley-Lennon with two exclamation marks – in other words, stirring the pot.
Yaxley-Lennon had taken aim at UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer for his words after riots broke out following the murder of three girls in Southport. Yaxley-Lennon had accused the Prime Minister of labelling everyone upset about the murders as thugs”. Mr Starmer’s speech had specifically referred to thugs as being those throwing bricks at police officers.
Yaxley-Lennon had also been critical of the prime minister’s comments about increasing policing powers in response to the riots.
Mr Musk then later went on to suggest, in response to a video of rioting, that civil war is inevitable”. The prime minister’s spokesperson said there was no justification” for this claim.
Mr Musk doubled down again – responding to the prime minister’s post about attacks on Muslim communities by asking: “Shouldn’t you be concerned about attacks on *all* communities?” And Mr Musk repeated the remark in a tweet of his own, making allegations about violence from anti-racist and Muslim counter-protesters and accusing the police of a one-sided” approach.
It’s not as if X didn’t already contain plenty of content around events in Southport before Mr Musk’s interventions.
False claims that the person responsible for the killings in Southport was a Muslim refugee who arrived in the UK by boat in 2023 spread like wildfire across X. They then spilled out on to other social media platforms and were also posted on some Telegram channels – but much of the most frenzied, amplified conversation was happening on X.
The claims were shared by pseudo-news accounts, profiles with a track record of promoting evidence-free conspiracy theories about everything from the pandemic and vaccines to wars – and then also by prominent political commentators, politicians and influencers.
The profiles reaching the most users with these ideas had often purchased blue ticks meaning their posts were granted more prominence on the platform.
Mr Musk, with his own blue tick and 193 million followers, has been interacting with some profiles sharing divisive content and, in doing so, amplifying their message.
‘Radicalising himself’
There’s not currently a definitive answer as to what is driving Mr Musk.
His presence as an active player on his own platform is certainly keeping X talked about.
For all the furore around his ownership of X, last month the site said it had 251 million global daily active users in the second quarter of this year, an increase of 1.6% from the same period of the previous year. Of course, this can be attributed to a range of factors – like what’s happening in the world. While these figures represented a drop in growth, X is still a focal point for digital conversations.
For all the warnings that X would cease to exist under Elon Musk, a variety of different users are continuing to post – including many world leaders and prominent political figures of all stripes.
It may also have something to do with Mr Musk’s views on threats of regulation – and in the UK specifically, the Online Safety Act, which was passed under the previous government.
When this comes into full effect in 2025 it will require social media firms to remove illegal content, including where it is “racially or religiously aggravated”. Mr Musk has repeatedly been vocal about his concerns that attempts by governments to regulate social media sites – like his own – risk infringing freedom of speech.
Others wonder if he has simply spent too much time on X. Sander van der Linden, a professor of social psychology at the University of Cambridge, has suggested, external that Mr Musk may be radicalising himself on his own platform”.
Of course, the reasons for the protests and riots in the UK clearly extend far beyond social media.
It’s also the case that the Twitter of old, the pre-Musk version, was far from perfect.
There were accusations of bias and suggestions its moderation policies curbed freedom of expression for particular types of accounts. It also had trolls aplenty. But on paper, its policies and approach were different – and, simply from analysing my own feed before and after the takeover, it was different.
Straight after the takeover, Mr Musk stated the importance of fairness to all sides – including in terms of what then-Twitter allowed to be shared on the site. He has made clear that freedom of expression is a central priority at X – and as a private citizen, like any user, he’s entitled to share his opinion about politics or other topics.
It is a recent development on Mr Musk’s part, though, to decide so clearly to back specific political positions and candidates.
Take, for example, the way he endorsed Donald Trump after the assassination attempt, or the content he shares that is critical of Trump’s opponent Kamala Harris. He’s shared some posts that are very hostile to some liberal views.
Now he has decided to voice opinions on some of the most sensitive issues in British life, too.
What has evolved is a complex dynamic. As owner, Elon Musk oversees decisions made by X that have affected what content is permitted and actively recommended to users. At the same time, his account is thought to be the world’s most followed and itself plays a significant role in shaping the tone of some of X’s most promoted and contentious content.
I’ve repeatedly approached the social media company in relation to the rioting in the UK, including multiple interview requests for Mr Musk. I even posted on X asking him. He has not responded to any of my interview requests.
Mr Musk has highlighted his concerns that the media doesn’t hold power to account any more. And yet most of the time, when I want to ask questions of both him and of X – there is no response from the social media company. X continues to share in its publicly available guidelines that its priority is protecting and defending the user’s voice.
So instead, I have to settle with imagining what I’d say to him if he finally did agree to speak.
I think one of the first things I’d ask would be: What’s your game plan?”
President Ranil Wickremesinghe has stated that while others only talk about corruption, he has introduced numerous legislations to prevent it.
Addressing a meeting with the heads of media organisations today, he said that the Proceeds of Crime Act will also be presented to the Cabinet next week.
Wickremasinghe further emphasised that he has never protected anyone accused of corruption, according to the President’s Media Division.
Responding to questions from the media heads, the President further said that Sri Lanka cannot change any of the benchmarks of the agreements made with the IMF or creditors, as the country would risk losing the funding.
Hence, all candidates must be truthful to voters”, President Wickremesinghe said during the meeting this morning.
I have proved my capability twice and have no competition with anyone. My focus is on advancing the country,” he said responding to another query.
