Very few media outlets reported on one of the most welcome statements in recent time from anyone connected to the Caretaker Government. Which in itself is a telling detail.

Speaking the day before the International Day for the Right to Information, ACC Chairman Hasan Mashhud Chowdhury was critical of the government’s recent censorship of two economist articles in early September, as first reported by Human Rights Watch. I repeat for those of us prone to label each other as “pro/anti-CTG”: the chairman of the ACC, a retired Lt. General and a former army chief agrees with human rights campaigners (aka a ngo):

The former army chief referred to a missing article from an international magazine that had focused on Bangladesh. The article was apparently torn off by the government in what Mashhud said was an “interventionist” act….

“I wanted to read the article when I saw it in the “Contents” of a widely-circulated English weekly. I turned to the page only to find it missing. Here the state has curbed the right to information.”

He said: “It did not work as I read the article online.” Mashhud did not name the magazine.

Many readers had complained that they could not read the article “The minus-two solution” in the September 8th-14th print edition of The Economist.

Mashhud said the right to information, good governance and democracy are interlinked and compared them to “blooms of the same tree”.

“They will flourish together or die together. If you want to have the fruits you have to start from the soil.”

Source: bdnews24.com. Link

I personally would like to applaud such bold and sensible statements by someone intricately linked to the current regime. It gives me a sliver of hope - though not much - that despite all the press censorship going on at the moment, cooler heads will prevail. So once again, I’m baffled that this story was not picked up by the big newspapers. “Journalism without fear of favour” is dead!

The ACC Chairman is right to believe that the right of information and good governance goes hand in hand. Right now in Bangladesh, we seem to have partial right to information. That is, some people get to know everything. Others are kept in the dark. I give you two examples.

Firstly, you may have read earlier about the French Exhibition saga on UV. This little detail caught my eye:

But what deserves attention now is whether these artists know that they are dancing to someone else’s tune? Perhaps alarm bells should have rung when a security consultant, the petitioner in the High Court case, claimed publicly that sending ‘our artifacts abroad is an anti-State activity’? And when NSI documents appeared in the Writ Petition?

Secondly, a week ago, right before Eid and discontent brewing in the air about Eid bonuses, the good people at the head of the BGMEA had this to say:

Leaders of the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association, quoting intelligence reports, claimed that foreign funds were made available to certain NGOs for sabotaging the garment industry.

Courtesy: New Age. Link

Now I am all for de-classification of documents that do not endanger our national security. As I have tried to show, so are other people well connected with the CTG. What I cannot support is such selective de-classification in which some people get access to de-classified documents and “intelligence reports” while others have no access whatsoever. This is pure inequality in an area where the government can easily correct that inequality. Hopefully a Right to Information Act will smoothen out this information inequality.