On September 30, the controversial news website The Grayzone breathlessly broke a story headlined: Leaked files expose covert US government plot to ‘destabilize Bangladesh’s politics.’
The Dhaka Tribune can now reveal that the IRI report which was the source material for the story and which formed the basis for its most explosive claims has been doctored and that the damaging language which appears in the PDF linked to by The Grayzone in their article did not appear in the original IRI document.
‘An army of activists’
The Grayzone article claimed that: “Leaked docs reveal that prior to the toppling of Bangladeshi PM Sheikh Hasina, the US govt-funded International Republican Institute trained an army of activists including rappers and 'LGBTQI people,' even hosting 'transgender dance performances,' to achieve a national 'power shift.' Institute staff said the activists 'would cooperate with IRI to destabilize Bangladesh’s politics.'”
For those familiar with Bangladesh, the notion that the International Republican Institute were training “LGBTI people as US regime change shock troops” and that funding transgender dance performances could somehow be linked to Hasina’s downfall, as claimed by the article, was so outlandish as to raise immediate alarm bells.
Indeed the entire article appeared little more than a clumsy piece of agitprop that no knowledgeable analyst of politics in Bangladesh could possibly take seriously, and shows no evidence that the authors have spoken to anyone in Bangladesh or have even passing familiarity with the country.
Shahab Enam Khan, a professor of international relations at Jahangirnagar University and a specialist on political processes in transitional countries, told Dhaka Tribune: "I am surprised to see a report that I believe raises concerns about its credibility. The so-called leaked documents could be manipulated to discredit the student movement in Bangladesh and undermine the interim government. The IRI is mandated to work with political parties and various stakeholders based on US political principles to strengthen democracy and electoral processes. It caters its programs based on pragmatic necessities of a democratic society. It has a global reach and maintains transparency in terms of its activities."
However, the piece has been shared widely by those who have a vested interest in undermining the uprising and the interim government currently in place, and portraying both the movement and the government as controlled by the US.
The point is a key one. If the movement to unseat Hasina can be presented as a US-led coup and not a popular uprising that reflected the will of the Bangladeshi people, this provides support both to the enemies of Bangladesh – who wish to portray the current government as a puppet regime installed by the US – as well as those of the US – who wish to use the uprising to accuse the US of once again being in the regime change business.
Source material
The Grayzone article is based entirely and solely on a single IRI report, a final report on its Promoting Accountability, Inclusivity and Resiliency Support Program (PAIRS), which ran in Bangladesh from March 1, 2019 to December 31, 2020.
The document which forms the basis of the expose is a report on what appears to be a simple democracy promotion project, similar to those run by IRI in many countries around the world, which, it should be noted, concluded in 2020, fully three and a half years before Hasina was unseated.
As stated in its executive summary, the goal of the project was “[t]o enhance the political participation of Bangladesh citizens and amplify anti-authoritarianism voices, IRI implemented a broad-based social empowerment project that fostered and expanded citizen-centered, local and non-traditional forums for political engagement.”
There was nothing in the IRI report that was even remotely controversial or indicative of any kind of plot against the government of the day with the exception of a single sentence fragment that stated that the IRI had “identified over 170 democratic activists who would cooperate with IRI to destabilize Bangladesh’s politics.”
The entire Grayzone article hinges on this one explosive sentence. However, it is noteworthy that none of the rest of the 20 page report corresponds to or corroborates this one claim, and there is nothing elsewhere in the report that suggests any intent to “destabilize” Bangladesh.
Doctored language
Dhaka Tribune can now reveal that the offending sentence at the heart of the Grayzone expose was doctored and did not appear in the original report prepared by IRI.
An IRI spokesperson has confirmed that the following sentence did not appear in the original IRI report:
“IRI staff conducted 48 group interviews and 13 individual interviews with 304 key informants representing both traditional and non-traditional civic actors and identified 170 activists who would cooperate with IRI to destabilize Bangladesh’s politics.”
The correct/original sentence in the report reads:
“IRI staff conducted 48 group interviews and 13 individual interviews with 304 key informants representing both traditional and non-traditional civic actors.”
Without this one sentence fragment the Grayzone report falls apart and is revealed for the hit job against the July uprising that it is.
The rest of the article reads like a colour-by-numbers propaganda piece against the interim government, whitewashing the atrocities committed by the deposed Hasina regime and dismissing any level of agency among the Bangladeshi people for her removal, clearly written by two journalists with next to no knowledge of Bangladesh and containing no direct reporting from Bangladesh or even a direct quote from a single Bangladeshi.
It has been compiled solely based on the IRI report and secondary newspaper reports and provides a thoroughly one-sided and inaccurate view of the July uprising. The authors seem to care more about critiquing US foreign policy than understanding the democratic aspirations of the Bangladeshi people.
Now that the key document upon which the article was based has been shown to be doctored and the key claim in it proved to be false, there is nothing in the article that merits further discussion.
Social media influence
The Grayzone article further claimed that following the Awami League fleeing the country, pundits have pointed to the role of social media in whipping up anti-Awami League sentiment and causing havoc in the streets of Dhaka.
However, an investigation by Dismislab uncovered a sophisticated political bot network operating on Facebook, which involved 1,369 fake accounts posting over 21,000 coordinated comments in favour of the Awami League itself.
The research team compiled a database of around 35,000 comments, identifying over 21,000 as being posted by the bot accounts.
These accounts showed typical traits of political bots: locked or private profiles, minimal personal information, and coordinated behaviour across multiple pages.
In 2022, Meta identified a Russian CIB network where similar bot-comment descriptions were found under irrelevant posts.
The social media company also mentioned a similar Israeli network in its 2024 Adversarial Threat Report for the first quarter.
Similarly, in a Facebook post influential musician Tasrif Khan said he was offered money from Awami League men to disseminate propaganda videos on social media in favour of the government.
Not only him, several other social media influencers – Rakin Absar, RS Fahim Chowdhury and Shanti Rahman, among others – claimed that they were also offered money to promote Awami League propaganda videos on social media.
What is The Grayzone?
The Grayzone is a fringe news website founded and edited by American journalist Max Blumenthal.
The coverage of The Grayzone is known for its criticism of American foreign policy, as well as its sympathetic portrayal of the Russian, Chinese, and Syrian governments.
The Grayzone has been described as “a propaganda machine … that’s earned a reputation for spreading disinformation, promoting authoritarian regimes, and denying the reality of human rights abuses and genocide.”
The Grayzone did not respond to Dhaka Tribune’s request for comment.