Panelists at the dissemination event of a “Media Monitoring Report” for March titled “Striking Cases Impacting Digital and Civic Space and Gender Disinformation in Bangladesh” discussed the state of digital rights, press freedom and civic space in the country’s evolving political landscape and raised fundamental questions about the effectiveness of current monitoring mechanisms, the reliability of human rights documentation and the widening gap between democratic aspirations and ground realities.
The report, a six-month monitoring and documentation effort from October 2024 to March 2025, was presented at a dissemination event arranged at Hotel La Vinci, Karwan Bazar, Dhaka, on Saturday.
The report was jointly implemented by Voices for Interactive Choice and Empowerment (VOICE) and The Daily Ittefaq with support from the European Union, Free Press Unlimited and ARTICLE 19.
Panelists at the dissemination event included Ahmed Swapan Mahmud, executive director, VOICE; Udisa Islam, city editor, Bangla Tribune; Reazur Rahman Lenin, independent researcher and human rights activist; Mahpara Alam, researcher, fellow, One Future Network, South Asia; and SM Monjur Rashid, senior advisor, communications and social protection policy support, UNDP.
Musharrat Mahera, deputy director, VOICE, presented the report through a presentation.
Panelists’ discussion
Panelists argued that while digital platforms have become more accessible and open they have simultaneously become tools for harassment, disinformation and the systematic targeting of vulnerable groups.
The stakeholders’ observations point to a society where the promise of post-July reforms has been overshadowed by organized pressure group activities, declining women’s political participation and a policy-making process that excludes civil society voices.
The discussions underscore a crisis of accountability across multiple sectors - ranging from human rights organizations propagating misinformation to media owners failing to ensure journalist welfare and from government institutions allegedly enabling violence to civil society struggling to maintain its oversight role.
Ahmed Swapan Mahmud, executive director, VOICE, addressed the changing role of women in political movements post-uprising.
“During the July uprising, women acted as shields, women were on the front lines, but after August 8 we saw they went backward. They went to the back foot. Why aren’t they in front? Surely there’s a sociological, psychological reason for this,” he noted.
He attributed this regression to targeted disinformation: “The political space for women has become limited. This shouldn’t have happened. Because massive disinformation was spread about these women who were on the front lines, the students - this is a challenge for society.”
Mahmud raised concerns about state involvement in violence, saying: “So these shrines that were broken, Sufi shrines as they’re called - this is a thousand-year tradition, there are shrines hundreds of years old, you broke them down. You have CCTV, one case was caught - so if we say this is state-sponsored violence, if the state didn’t want this violence wouldn’t happen. The state wants it, so violence is happening.”
He expressed frustration about policy-making processes: “You know well, many laws are being made - our data personal data protection, our CSA happened, challenges within CSA, we’ve been saying this continuously. Now DPA is happening, AI draft policy is happening, AI policy is happening, many policies are happening. We don’t know where our participation is. We don’t know these policies will affect us, the laws will affect us yet we don’t know, we have no participation.”
Udisa Islam, city editor, Bangla Tribune focused on the media industry’s structural challenges particularly regarding journalist welfare and professional standards.
“We have a very high-quality wage board but whether anyone follows it - monitoring this raises questions. Since you’re calling this a campaign, there’s a wage structure in place but whether owners implement it needs monitoring and whether owners influence that monitoring requires accountability,” she observed.
She criticized the lack of professional development in journalism, saying: “With so many institutions being established, owners establishing institutions, there’s no training arrangement of any kind for journalists. If someone can’t do anything else they do journalism.”
Udisa emphasized the need for systemic change and said: “So the structure needs to be broken and what started in July - the reform - that’s what should actually happen. We want to see what actually happened after 10 months - this report will tell us.”
Reazur Rahman Lenin, independent researcher and human rights activist, questioned the comprehensiveness of documented incidents and criticized the reliability of human rights organizations’ data.
“Are these 80 incidents actually limited? The reports from three organizations - Ain o Salish Kendra, BLAST and Odhikar - where their reports over the past 10 months can’t be replicated. Because they too end up living in this world of misinformation that we all inhabit,” he said.
He highlighted specific misinformation circulating among rights organizations: “One piece of misinformation among them is that since August 5th, not a single rape has occurred. Since August 5th, only 10 people have died through torture and oppression in police custody. This information is wrong. These are present in Odhikar as well and in Ain o Salish too.”
Lenin expressed concern about the effectiveness of human rights work, said: “Now it’s clear that human rights activists aren’t properly fulfilling their duties and responsibilities either. And I believe this isn’t limited to just 80 incidents.”
Mahpara Alam, researcher, fellow, One Future Network, South Asia highlighted gender-specific patterns in digital harassment.
“When any derogatory remarks are made about our women or about any other gender besides men we see that there’s immediately a media trial through Facebook and very interestingly, these contents follow a specific pattern - defamation and such things are used,” she observed.
She noted the particular vulnerability of women activists and journalists, saying: “Especially when it’s an activist or journalist, we see that the way these issues come up about them might have been different if it were a man. I’m not saying it wouldn’t happen but this specific trend wouldn’t be followed.”
For solutions, Mahpara emphasized the importance of digital literacy.
She said: “One solution, if I speak from an overall social perspective, is that since digital platforms have become much more open now, whether our community is actually capable of using the good aspects or accepting the good - this seems like a very big factor to me. In that case, digital literacy campaigns in schools and colleges including this topic in various textbooks seems very important to me.”
Speaking about the limitations of their monitoring efforts, Musharrat Mahera, deputy director, VOICE acknowledged several challenges in their methodology.
“We want to mention some limitations in our media monitoring. The main issue is that legal verification wasn’t really possible. Following up with police and courts after monitoring any case to see what kind of further progress was made - this wasn’t within our project scope so we couldn’t do it,” she explained.
She further noted the scope limitations.
She noted: “Additionally, while we looked at leading national media outlets we couldn’t examine local media in the same way we did with national ones. We also couldn’t do direct verification and for gender disinformation, we had to rely entirely on Facebook groups since these weren’t reported in the media in that way.”
Report background
The report argued that over the past decade, Bangladesh’s civic and digital spaces have experienced a steady contraction due to increasingly restrictive legislation and state surveillance.
The digital landscape has shown a disturbing evolution of state control particularly after the ICT Act of 2006, the Digital Security Act (DSA) of 2018 and the Cyber Security Act (2023) which paved the way for widespread surveillance and legal mechanisms enabling intelligence agencies to intercept communications and invade privacy, it said.
According to the report, the July uprising initially sparked hopes for a more open and democratic civic space in Bangladesh.
Widespread public frustration with authoritarian governance led citizens to demand justice, transparency, democratic participation and fundamental freedoms, it added.
However, despite early signs of progress these gains were short-lived, it said.
The monitoring period revealed numerous incidents of killing, harassment, physical assault, abduction, arbitrary detention, violence against women journalists, vexatious lawsuits, media censorship, state resistance against freedom of assembly and targeted gender disinformation campaigns, it added.
These actions are seen as contradicting the anti-discriminatory spirit of the July uprising aiming to silence dissent and penalize independent voices.
Incidents affecting Digital and Civic space (DCS)
The “Media Monitoring Report” documents numerous incidents impacting digital and civic space and involving gender disinformation in Bangladesh between October 2024 and March 2025.
These cases highlight a concerning trend of shrinking freedoms and targeted attacks against journalists, activists and the public.
During this period, several journalists faced severe threats and attacks. Swapan Bhadra, a 55-year-old journalist and press club vice president was hacked to death in Mymensingh on October 12, 2024 according to The Business Standard.
Pradip Chowdhury, president of the Khagrachhari Journalist Union was arbitrarily detained on August 5 amidst political tensions in Khagrachhari, as reported by Dhaka Tribune.
In Jamalpur, Shahidul Islam Nirob, a district correspondent for The Daily Star suffered bodily injury and assault while covering an event in November last year.
The government also made a sweeping move to revoke the press accreditation of 167 journalists including editors, reporters and TV executives on October 29 and November 7, 2024, an “enforcement mechanism” reported by The Daily Star.
Md Raju Sheikh, a Narail-based journalist received death threats over an investigative report on January 25 which Prothom Alo covered.
Jahangir Mahmud, a correspondent for the Daily Kalbela experienced a threat, harassment and intimidation and bodily injury and assault when his house was attacked in Rupganj, Narayanganj on November 16, 2024 as per bdnews24.com.
Abul Hossain Ripon, Sonagazi correspondent for Desh Rupantor was granted bail on November 18, 2024 in an alleged vexatious case linked to an anti-discrimination student movement, reported by Desh Rupantor.
In Brahmanbaria, journalist Abdullah Al Mahmud was subjected to assault and bodily injury on February 21 during an event he was covering, according to The Daily Star.
Beyond journalists, other forms of suppression were observed in the report.
The Lalon Festival in Narayanganj was disrupted by threats from a mob in November last year, an incident of “limiting cultural expression” reported by bdnews24.com.
A women’s football match in Joypurhat was disrupted by protests, categorized as “harassment and intimidation” by The Daily Star.
Poet and essayist Sohel Hasan Galib was arrested on February 13, 2024 over allegations of “hurting religious sentiment”, an instance of “limiting cultural expression” reported by New Age.
Rakhal Raha, a member of the National Curriculum and Textbook Board (NCTB) was sued under the Cyber Security Act for allegedly hurting religious sentiments in a “CSA case against public” highlighted by The Daily Observer.
Senior journalist Munni Saha faced mob intimidation and temporary detainment on November 30, 2024, an act of “violence against woman journalist” captured on The Daily Ittefaq’s YouTube channel.
Sujan Mahmud, a local journalist was assaulted and sustained bodily injury on January 3, 2024 following a report on a political leader, as reported by The Daily Star.
A protest for teacher appointments was dispersed by police with force, categorized as “restricting freedom of assembly” by Dhaka Tribune.
Jewel Marak, a DBC reporter and journalist from the Garo community was beaten and assaulted, an attack against a journalist and indigenous rights activist amidst a controversy over “Adivasi” graffiti in textbooks, according to Dhaka Tribune.
The Dhaka Metropolitan Police banned protests near key government areas, further “restricting freedom of assembly” reported by bdnews24.com.
Nahid Hasan, a columnist and trustee was sued for “hurting religious sentiments” in Kurigram, a “CSA case against public” covered by The Daily Star.
Tragically, Shila, a transgender activist was brutally murdered in Rangamati on February 2, 2025, a “killing (murder of rights activist)” reported by Bangla Tribune, The Business Standard, Erasing 76 Crimes and Share-Net Bangladesh.
Finally, on March 17, 2025 a female journalist was gang-raped in Dhaka’s Pallabi, an incident of “violence against woman journalist” reported by bdnews24.com.
Cases of Gender Disinformation (GD)
The report also highlights insidious cases of gender disinformation.
Nusrat Tabassum, an anti-discrimination activist was targeted by false propaganda including a fabricated “leaked” video, an online harassment and smear campaign documented by Rumor Scanner.
A deep fake scandal emerged involving the daughter of Press Secretary Shafiqul Alam which Fact Watch reported as an AI-generated image manipulation and character assassination.
Similarly, false AI-generated images targeted Syeda Rizwana Hasan, the Forest and Environment Advisor and renowned actress Mehazabien Chowdhury, as reported by Fact Watch.
A false circular claimed Puja Cherry, a popular actress and human rights activist was an advisor to the “Chhatra Shibir Women Wing”, a piece of disinformation reported by Somoy Entertainment.
Lastly, online disinformation falsely linked Dr Tasnim Zara, joint-convenor of Jatiya Nagorik Committee with Bangladesh Islami Chhatra Shibir which she strongly refuted as baseless and misleading, according to Bangla Tribune.
Evolving legal frameworks and implications
According to the report, Bangladesh’s legal framework intended for safeguarding digital and civic spaces and addressing gender-based disinformation is described as fragmented, overlapping and ambiguous, undermining fundamental rights.
The recently approved Cyber Safety Ordinance 2024 has raised significant alarm among legal experts, journalists and rights groups.
While it incorporates some positive elements from the previous Cyber Security Act 2023 and the Digital Security Act 2018 it criminalizes acts like “hurting religious sentiments” and allows for searches and arrests without warrants.
Section 26 of the new ordinance continues to criminalize publications that “intend to spread hate” among religious and ethnic communities, interpreted and misused in practice to target religious and ethnic minorities, freethinkers, writers, artists, journalists and political opponents creating a chilling effect on public discourse.
The ordinance also proposes the establishment of a National Cybersecurity Council and a National Cybersecurity Agency which are perceived to grant broad powers to authorities without adequate checks and balances risking politicization and suppressing diverse opinions.
Legal experts have noted the failure of these laws to define or address cyberbullying, sexual harassment online and other hate crimes leading to limited protections for vulnerable groups and survivors of gender-sensitive frameworks.
Overall, the existing legal tools are seen as having significant gaps in clarity, coordination and enforcement for protecting digital and civic rights and gender justice.
