Acclaimed filmmaker and former Cultural Affairs Adviser Mostafa Sarwar Farooki has called on lawmakers to criminalise the denial of crimes against humanity as well as activities that generate support or consent for such crimes and what he described as “fascism.”

In a strongly worded Facebook post, Farooki urged members of Parliament to enact legislation identifying such denial and advocacy as punishable offences.

“An appeal to members of Parliament: A law should be passed making it a punishable offence to engage in activities that generate support for or consent to crimes against humanity and fascism, or to deny crimes against humanity,” he said.

Farooki, who served as cultural affairs adviser in the interim government led by Muhammad Yunus following the fall of Sheikh Hasina in August 2024, has emerged as a vocal critic of attempts to politically rehabilitate the Awami League without going through any genuine reconciliation process.

Recalling how BNP leaders described Hasina and her government while the Awami League was in power, Farooki said BNP's then acting chairman Tarique Rahman frequently called Hasina “wrong-headed,” while former prime minister Khaleda Zia accused the Awami League of having “sold the country.”

Farooki said his father had agreed with those assessments, while he himself had once thought the BNP leaders were exaggerating.

“If Abba were alive today, I would go to him and say, ‘Abba, perhaps they actually understated it a little,’” Farooki said.

He accused the former Awami League government of responsibility for thousands of enforced disappearances and killings during its 16 years in power, bank looting and the killings during the July 2024 uprising, before Hasina fled to India in the face of the mass movement.

Farooki then turned to the conduct of Awami League supporters since the government's fall, accusing them of continuing to issue violent threats rather than showing remorse.

He characterised their message since leaving power as: “We’re making lists. We’ll kill this many people. We’ll kill him, we’ll kill that person. We’ll beat them to death. We’ll grind them into the ground.”

Farooki alleged that such threats had not remained merely rhetorical, invoking the killing of Inqilab Moncho leader Sharif Osman bin Hadi.

“Remember Hadi? Or have you forgotten Hadi? Didn’t they have Hadi killed?” he said.

Hadi, a prominent figure in the July uprising and an advocate of banning the Awami League, was shot in the head while campaigning in Dhaka's Bijoynagar on December 12, 2025. He died while undergoing treatment at Singapore General Hospital six days later.

Farooki ridiculed the idea that the Awami League could expect a popular political comeback without reckoning with its record or the conduct of its supporters after the uprising.

“They expect that, because of these promises, the people of Bangladesh will go to the airport with garlands to welcome them,” he said.

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