Bangladesh Under Siege: Killers Freed, Citizens Crushed

In most functioning democracies, a police raid or a national “red alert” signals a response to genuine threats—terrorists on the move, extremist networks to be dismantled, civilians to be protected.

In Bangladesh today, those same words have been weaponized.

Under Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus’s unelected regime, “security operations” have morphed into instruments of repression—not safeguards for citizens, but shields for convicted killers and extremist militants. The message is clear: the government’s priority is not justice or public safety. It is survival.

Red Alerts for Terrorists—Raids for Protesters

When Yunus’s 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 “threats” while men with blood on their hands walk free. The state’s “protector” has become its chief predator.

Law Turned Into a Weapon

At the heart of this transformation is the abuse of Bangladesh’s 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.

This is not the rule of law. It is a rule by law—law 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 groups—whose public massacres and brutal street killings once drew international alarm—now 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 state’s 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. Bengal’s long struggle for justice, dignity, and democratic rights has always outlasted those who sought to extinguish it.

The people’s cry today is as clear as it is urgent:
Red alerts must not shield murderers. Raids must not terrorize citizens. Security must mean protection for the people, not preservation of a regime.