In most functioning democracies, a police raid or a national โred alertโ signals a response to genuine threatsโterrorists on the move, extremist networks to be dismantled, civilians to be protected. In Bangladesh today, those same words have been weaponised.
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Under Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunusโs unelected regime, โsecurity operationsโ have morphed into instruments of repressionโnot safeguards for citizens but shields for convicted killers and extremist militants. The message is clear: the governmentโs priority is not justice or public safety. It is survival.
Red Alerts for Terrorists, Raids for Protesters
When Yunusโs government declares a red alert, it is less about capturing terrorists than about insulating them from accountability. Acquittals, case withdrawals, and backroom deals replace due process. Meanwhile, the same state machinery unleashes violent crackdowns on civic protests, opposition movements, and even ordinary citizens daring to raise their voices.
Peaceful demonstrators are branded as โthreatsโ while men with blood on their hands walk free. The stateโs โprotectorโ has become its chief predator.
Law Turned into a Weapon
At the heart of this transformation is the abuse of Bangladeshโs Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Act. Once envisioned as a tool against cybercrime, it is now wielded to silence dissent. Opposition leaders are dragged into courts on fabricated charges. Partisan witnesses are paraded before compliant judges. Raids, arrests, and prosecutions unfold not as matters of justice but as spectacles of political revenge.
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This is not the rule of law. It is a rule by lawโlaw hollowed out and repurposed as a weapon against the very people it was meant to serve.
Protecting Militants, Persecuting Citizens
The consequences are devastating. Extremist groupsโwhose public massacres and brutal street killings once drew international alarmโnow operate with disturbing impunity. Meanwhile, citizens face arbitrary arrest, torture, and harassment for little more than demanding democracy.
It is a grotesque inversion of the stateโs purpose: protection for militants, persecution for citizens.
The Cry from the Streets
Bangladesh today lives under siege. Security forces who once stood as guardians of public safety now operate as enforcers of a paranoid regime. To dissent is to invite repression. To protest is to risk your life.
And yet, history shows that repression cannot silence a people forever. Bengalโs long struggle for justice, dignity, and democratic rights has always outlasted those who sought to extinguish it.
The peopleโs cry today is as clear as it is urgent: Red alerts must not shield murderers. Raids must not terrorise citizens. Security must mean protection for the people, not preservation of a regime.
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