The Tamesis
February 2, 2026
Dhaka – Mahfuz Anam, editor and publisher of The Daily Star, said an overwhelming fear now shapes journalism in Bangladesh, that even slight deviations from the mainstream narrative could lead to attacks.
“Today we have a freer mainstream media, more investigative stories. Independent thinking is certainly more prominent than before,” Arnhem told Al Jazeera’s “The Listening Station.” But the overriding fear – that if I stray even slightly from the prevailing narrative, I might be attacked – is also there.
“To be honest with you, we sometimes think very carefully about, should I use this word or should I use that word? This idea that goes against the culture of independent media exists now.”
Looking back on the Daily Star attack, the editor said it was unlikely that those who actually set fire to the building were Daily Star readers.
“So what was their motivation?” Anan asked, adding: “I think it was orchestrated. They had political motivations, financial motivations, and the idea of destroying, to a large extent, the tradition of free journalism, journalism that supports democracy, diversity of viewpoints and dissent.”
“Our reporting, if it’s flawed, someone can speak out. We can be criticized. But for us to be burned, I think that’s most unfortunate.”
He described the night of the attack as “absolute panic”. “them [the staff] Difficulty breathing. I spoke to the newsroom on the phone and they told me, “Mahfuz Bhai, we may not meet again”. They called their parents, their wives, their friends and said maybe they would never see each other again,” Anan described.
Mahfouz Anan said that many people in Bangladesh use social media to express their views, but this freedom has also produced “a lot of fake news, hate speech, [and] Baseless accusations,” just like the rest of the world.
The use of social media to attack and discredit individuals or institutions “is also a reality in Bangladesh”, he said, adding that some political parties “have taken full advantage of this” by setting up dedicated “social media teams”.
“So if you say anything against this particular party, all of a sudden hundreds of people start abusing you,” Anan said. “If you say something nice, hundreds of people will start praising you again. Political uses of social media are very popular.”
“Anyone who follows social media that night knows there was one influencer who said, ‘Prothom Alo is down, now go attack this in the Daily Star’,” he described.
“They are trying to destroy us as an institution. By the way, all criticisms against us are not substantiated. Sometimes we are taken completely out of context. So this is a very deliberate, very powerful and, I must say, sadly effective way of continuing to discredit two powerful mainstream media outlets in Bangladesh,” Anan continued.
He talked about how politicization of the media erodes public trust.
He said journalists have become increasingly divided along political lines over the years, with some openly aligned with one party and others with another.
“So imagine when the public sees that a journalist who is supposed to tell me the truth actually belongs to a political party, the credibility of the outlet, the faith of newspaper readers or television viewers, is greatly harmed by political divisions within the journalist community,” the editor added.
Anan said that after being deprived of three credible elections, the public is now entering the fourth election with higher expectations and a strong desire to see a vote that truly reflects the will of the people.
“Whoever is elected, they will not forget the fact of Hasina’s fall. Her fall is directly related to the oppressive nature of her government and the way her government treated the media,” he said.
He told Al Jazeera that Sheikh Hasina’s governance over the past 15 years “is epitomized by one bill, the Digital Security Bill”.
“This reflects the government’s complete dominance over dissent. They have twenty penalties, fourteen of which are non-bailable. So the whole idea is to create an environment of fear. Society enters a period of total silence,” Anan said.
He detailed how the government spared no one — from cartoonists and teachers arrested in midnight raids for innocuous social media posts to systematic judicial harassment of the country’s leading editorial voices.
“Hasina opened 83 cases against me. Matiur Rahman, the editor of Prothom Alo, was accused of murder. Our advertising was stopped and our revenue dropped by about 40 to 45 per cent. None of my reporters were allowed to cover the Prime Minister’s activities and she personally attacked me in Parliament,” Anand explained.
He expressed hope that this experience would shape future governments and lead to a brighter future for free media in Bangladesh.
Mahfuz Anam’s Listen Post will be re-aired on Al Jazeera tonight at 8:30 (Bangladesh time).
