Actress Azmeri Haque Badhon was in Italy for the Venice International Film Festival, where The Difficult Bride, directed by Rubaiyat Hossain, had its world premiere on September 6. On Monday night, she went to a park in Mestre with her brother and his family. 

There, according to Badhon and videos she subsequently published, a group of Bangladeshis confronted her. Water and Coke were thrown at her. She says she was struck near the ear, her sister-in-law was shoved and her phone and glasses were knocked from her hand. 

Some of those confronting her identified themselves as Awami League or Chhatra League activists and called her a “July militant”.

Her crime was that she had publicly supported and participated in the July Revolution that brought down Sheikh Hasina.

The most revealing moment came when someone pointed out that a child was present. The objection did not produce the normal human response of lowering voices and backing away. Instead, one man can be heard insisting that Badhon had to say “Joy Bangla”. She says the group wanted her to chant “Joy Bangla, Joy Bangabandhu” while they filmed her.

Political reconciliation becomes rather difficult when one side appears to think it begins with compulsory chanting in a park.

This matters because Bangladesh is already having an argument about what should eventually happen to the Awami League. Should the party be allowed back into ordinary political life? Can its “enormous support base” simply be wished away? Can millions of voters who once backed it be permanently excluded? 

These are legitimate questions. Indeed, relevant experts have themselves raised concerns that banning the Awami League may impose disproportionate restrictions on political rights.

But reconciliation requires two parties to the transaction. It cannot mean everyone else developing amnesia while Awami League loyalists retain both their grievances and their muscle memory.

For the problem with Mestre is that Mestre is not an isolated piece of expatriate lunacy.

In August last year, Awami League supporters gathered outside the Bangladesh Consulate in New York as Mahfuj Alam, then information adviser, arrived for an event commemorating the July uprising. They waved party flags, chanted “Joy Bangla” and “Joy Bangabandhu”, hurled eggs and, according to reports, smashed a glass door of the consulate.

A few weeks later came JFK airport. NCP leaders Akhter Hossen and Tasnim Jara arrived in New York as part of the delegation accompanying Muhammad Yunus to the UN General Assembly. Awami League supporters confronted them. Akhter was pelted with eggs; Jara was subjected to sexist abuse. Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir [now President of the country] was caught in the confrontation too. Akhter later filed a complaint with the Port Authority police.

London has had its turn as well. In September 2025, Awami League activists protesting Mahfuj Alam’s appearance at SOAS threw eggs at Bangladesh High Commission vehicles and attempted to obstruct them. Then, this June, supporters gathered outside a meeting in Whitechapel attended by NCP leader Hasnat Abdullah; eggs were thrown at him as police guarded the venue.

There is, apparently, an international egg-based wing of Bangladeshi politics.

One might dismiss all this as diaspora theatre were the behaviour not so eerily reminiscent of what Bangladesh saw before Hasina’s fall. During the July Revolution itself, the UN documented attacks by Chhatra League members on student protesters, including people armed with rods, sticks and clubs, with some reportedly carrying firearms. The UN’s preliminary analysis said the attacks were neither prevented by police nor publicly discouraged by the government.

This is why demands for reconciliation so often collide with reality. The issue is not whether every Awami League voter bears responsibility for Hasina’s rule. Plainly not. Nor should membership or past support for a political party permanently deprive anyone of civil rights. Collective punishment is both unjust and politically stupid.

The question is whether the political culture that made the intimidation routine has changed. Mestre of course offers an unhelpful answer.

The thing that made the episode particularly damaging for Badhon’s assailants was Badhon herself. She refused to perform the role they had apparently written for her. She did not scream back. She did not trade insults. When her phone and glasses were knocked away, she picked up the phone and resumed filming. 

She understood something her antagonists apparently did not: in 2026, the person who keeps the camera steady usually wins the first battle.

Her composure was extraordinary. In her subsequent statement, she was visibly processing what had happened but remained controlled. And she referred to the people who had confronted her as her “Bengali brothers”.

It was almost cruel in its politeness.

They called her a militant; she called them brothers. They tried to force a slogan out of her; she collected evidence. They apparently wanted a triumphant social-media clip; she emerged with footage showing herself being confronted while remaining calm.

There is another delicious irony. Sajeeb Wazed Joy, Sheikh Hasina’s son and former ICT adviser, has also been reported in Venice in recent days. Badhon herself mentioned his presence and suggested the incident should be brought to his attention. Photographs of Joy in Venice had already circulated in Bangladeshi media before the attack.

So here was Venice hosting, within the same political universe, the son of Bangladesh’s ousted prime minister and an actress associated with the uprising that ended her rule — while men claiming allegiance to the old order allegedly behaved in a manner almost calculated to remind Bangladeshis why that order became intolerable.

One could hardly devise better political satire.

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Faisal Mahmud is the Managing Editor of Daily Waadaa