The arson attacks targeting Prothom Alo and The Daily Star on 18 December last year have marked a significant turning point for journalism in Bangladesh.
As the country continues its political transition, reporters are finding that public hostility has replaced institutional repression as the primary threat to their work, according to a report by Al Jazeera.
During the midnight attacks, mobs set fire to one of Prothom Alo’s office buildings and targeted the premises of The Daily Star, the nation’s leading English-language daily.
Galib Ashraf, a senior reporter at Prothom Alo, witnessed the flames from a nearby building while crowds outside accused the news organizations of betrayal.
Protesters labeled the outlets as enablers of the former Sheikh Hasina administration and lapdogs of Delhi, allegations that both newspapers have strongly denied.
Press freedom groups have categorized these assaults as some of the most severe against media institutions in the country’s recent history.
From predictable repression to popular violence
Under the previous rule of Sheikh Hasina, journalists faced intense pressure, but the risks were generally predictable. Nazmul Ahsan, the executive editor of Netra News, noted that the former government acted as a rational actor with clear red lines.
Journalists knew that investigating the prime minister’s family or criticizing her would lead to consequences like surveillance, imprisonment, or the withdrawal of government advertising.
Since the fall of the Hasina government in 2024 and the subsequent arrival of the interim government led by Muhammad Yunus, the nature of these risks has shifted.
Ahsan describes this new era as a move toward popular violence, where both organized and unorganized mobs dictate what is acceptable to report. The unpredictability of these groups makes it significantly harder for newsrooms to calculate risks or implement safety measures.
A landscape of fragmented power and state inaction
The post-Hasina environment is characterized by a fragmented power structure involving a variety of new stakeholders.
Veteran journalist M Abul Kalam Azad observed that the media landscape is now influenced by student leaders from the 2024 movement, established political parties like the BNP and Jamaat-e-Islami, and rising right-wing Islamist forces.
Azad argued that instead of flourishing after the political shift, the media ecosystem has become more fragile.
A major point of concern for journalists was the perceived lack of state intervention during the December violence. Despite reports that mobs had announced their intentions to gather outside the newspaper offices, security forces did not intervene to stop vandalism.
One journalist from Prothom Alo recounted calling a senior government official for help while their building was being torched. Although the official claimed to have alerted law enforcement, police reportedly arrived 40 minutes late and acted only as silent spectators.
There are also allegations from within the industry that certain government elements may have intentionally prevented a security response.
Editorial caution and the public trust deficit
The threat of physical violence has fundamentally changed how journalists conduct themselves in public. Tanjila Tasnim, a reporter for The Daily Star, revealed that many journalists no longer use their press cards in public for fear of being targeted.
Similarly, Galib Ashraf described an incident at Dhaka University where he was harassed simply for identifying himself as a journalist from Prothom Alo.
This atmosphere of fear has led to increased self-censorship and more rigid editorial standards.
Asaduz Zaman of The Daily Star noted that reporters now require documentary proof for facts that previously might have relied on corroborating sources, particularly when reporting on powerful institutions or religious issues.
This caution is rooted in a significant deficit of public trust. Many citizens believe legacy media failed to accurately report on human rights abuses during the Hasina era. Rising Islamist sentiment has led to mainstream media being branded as anti-Islamic for covering topics such as radicalization.
As one local editor noted, violence is increasingly being treated as a form of media criticism, leaving journalists to operate with extreme caution.
