Farooki says section of ‘civil society, cultural figures’ normalising Awami League despite crimes against humanity

Filmmaker Mostafa Sarwar Farooki has accused sections of Bangladesh’s civil society and cultural establishment of helping create space for the Awami League and its sympathisers, saying the party has shown no remorse for its role in the violence surrounding the July 2024 uprising.

Farooki, who served as cultural affairs adviser in the post-revolution interim government, made the remarks in a post on his Facebook page.

He alleged that some civil society figures had advocated the “rehabilitation” of Awami League members despite what he described as their responsibility for the “July massacre,” while television outlets had provided platforms to people who “manufactured consent” for the former government.

Farooki was particularly critical of arguments equating Sheikh Hasina’s political activities from India with BNP leader Tarique Rahman’s years in London.

“As though Tarique Rahman had committed the July massacre, subjected thousands of people to enforced disappearance and killing, and then fled to London after being chased out by the people,” he wrote.

Farooki also apportioned responsibility to supporters of the July uprising, saying competing factions had sometimes encouraged such voices as part of their own struggles for political advantage.

He said both the interim administration and the current BNP government had failed to hold what he called the “intellectual perpetrators” of the previous political order accountable.

“The real strength of fascism lies in those who manufacture consent for it,” Farooki wrote, arguing that the absence of any formal mechanism to scrutinise such actors had allowed them to continue influencing public discourse.

He also criticised cultural figures who, he said, remained silent about the July violence but publicly paid tribute on August 15, the anniversary of the assassination of Bangladesh’s founding president Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.

Farooki reserved some of his strongest criticism for sections of the BNP government, accusing them of allowing the Awami League and the Centre for Research and Information (CRI), a research organisation closely associated with the former ruling party, to retain influence over Bangladesh’s media and cultural spheres.

“You cannot run a post-revolutionary government based on an independent foreign policy while allowing BAKSAL and CRI to define your media and cultural canon,” he wrote.

Addressing Prime Minister Tarique Rahman directly, Farooki urged him to investigate who within his government was providing space for what he described as the former regime’s “soft power.”

He asked whether government officials were aware of discussions and plans allegedly taking place in WhatsApp groups he referred to as the “Cultural League” and “Media League,” and whether people inside the administration were knowingly empowering those networks.

Farooki said he was not advocating political vengeance, but called for trials over alleged crimes against humanity and “censure” for what he termed “intellectual crimes.”

“I am not asking you to resort to vengeance,” he wrote. “I am asking for accountability for crimes against humanity and for censure of intellectual wrongdoing. I am asking that these people not be empowered or celebrated.”

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