Censorship has struck! What am I supposed to do?! work?! Write emails?! Letters?! NO YOUTUBE?!
That's right, I have now been in Bangladesh for the creation of a national holiday (tragic, but historic nonetheless) and now the official censorship of one of the most visited sites in the world!
Yesterday I was trying to look up some videos on performance poetry for class, but youtube was unavailable. I attempted other URLS and had no issues, and soon our tech department sent this email:
"According to the initial reports from Grameen (verified by several other ISPs), there seems to be a link outage between the submarine cable service (obtained by the Bangladesh Telecom Co. Ltd and distributed to the ISPs) with the Pacific region servers that host YouTube. At this time it appears to be a nationwide issue."
Bummer. However today we got a more disturbing update. Apparently there was a "sensitive" audio recording that was circulating the internet in which Bangladeshi Army officials could be heard shouting at Prime Minister Hasina. It was reportedly recorded while Hasina was in negotiations with the BDR men over February 25-6, a time when army officials were eager for revenge.
The Daily Star explained it this way:
"A senior government official told AFP the site has been blocked after it hosted 'contents subversive to the state... The government can block any site that contains anti-state or subversive contents, which may cause unrest. We took the measure temporarily. It will be lifted soon,' he said, speaking on condition of anonymity."
Unfortunately I haven't been able to locate a transcript of the recording, but I am curious about how heated the exchange really got, and what was being claimed at the time.
Bangladesh is a country that thrives on rumor, and this won't help Hasina's attempts to quell negative rumors about her involvement in the BDR massacre. Although Hasina met with the BDR on Feb 24, she neglected to go on the 25th, when the shooting went down.
The people of Bangladesh are extremely suspicious of power and authority (aside from religious based authority), and have cast suspicion on the BNP, Awami League, India, Pakistan and Myanmar (Burma). I had the privilege to speaking with a former Bangladeshi minister and ambassador to Malaysia about this issue. He was fairly convinced that the Awami League's victory in December had been "subtly rigged" because the AL is less nationalistic and more open to working with India. He seemed to be under the impression that Bangladesh was a territory that other countries really desired (this is hard to believe given the lack of natural resources and land). His perspective most likely originates in the struggle for independence, but it seemed nonetheless ridiculous to suspect an outside force of trying to weaken the paramilitary organization. While there were weapons used in the massacre that could not be of Bangladeshi origin, a Bangladeshi organization could have easily smuggled them into the country (this is my guess). Further although the attack could have lead to a momentary lack of border defense, the Army is never far away in a country the size of Wisconsin.
A couple of FBI agents have landed in Dhaka in order to determine how much they can assist Operation Rebel Hunt.
In brighter news, Hasina has introduced legislation that will make it easier for women to hold office in Bangladesh, and announced a policy of gender equality. Of course this won't happen immediately (or maybe ever), but it's a step in the right direction.
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