Dear Readers,
It is more than a month since Arifur Rahman’s arrest. 30 days is a long time. Mohammad Arifur Rahman, the Prothom Alo cartoonist, has spent the better part of Ramadan in prison and has spent Eid away from his family. Anyone away from the loved ones can empathise and draw comparisons to their own experiences – but to be right in the centre of our Green Delta and not to be with one’s family on the Eid day? Even among his critics, surely that should elicit some sympathy.
Earlier this year, Bangladesh experienced an extra-constitutional change in government. The Economist called it a coup that dares not speak its name. Initially, this de facto coup brought respite from a months-old stalemate between the country’s rival political parties. But soon, the technocratic regime that was installed by the army started arresting top politicians on corruption charges. The regime declared cleaning up corruption as its main priority. I discussed the impact of this anti-corruption drive on the economy in the last post. This post is not about economics. No, this is about raising questions, questions that should be raised by people far more qualified than the bloggers who have been raising them this week.
The legacy of corruption left behind the politicians is the reason why we are in such a mess today. Corruption is the fundamental evil that we have to eliminate if we want to become a prosperous nation with durable democracy. — I’m sure you’ve heard something similar many times in the recent months. I think sentences like these are dangerously simplistic and quite possibly misleading.
Arifur Rahman, a 23-year old cartoonist, was jailed by the de facto military regime in Bangladesh. His crime? Offending religious sensitivites. Rumi gives the background. Dhaka gives more details. Here is a history of the Islamist assault on freedom of thought in Bangladesh.
Originally posted at A-A-A.
