Bangladesh Ranked 84th In Global Hunger Index: Food Supply Chain Disrupted By Ukraine War

SALEEM SAMAD

Bangladesh ranked 84th, out of 121 assessed countries on the 2022 Global Hunger Index (GHI). With an overall score of 19.6 (2022), the level of hunger in Bangladesh has been categorised as “moderate”.

On the eve of World Food Day (October 16), the launch of the 2022 GHI amid global crises and the war in Ukraine is putting global food security in peril, and the worst impacts are being felt by the very poorest.

Among South Asia, India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan are among the worst-performing countries in the region.

The GHI that tracks and measures hunger across the world says that malnutrition among children under five years in Bangladesh has slightly improved.

The country has gradually improved its ranking from 33.9 (2000), 31.3 (2007), 26.3 (2014) and 19.6 in 2022.

The report that has used the fifth National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5) and FAO (Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations) Food Security Indicators as its sources for Bangladesh has highlighted that child wasting (low-weight-for-height) rate in Bangladesh, at 9.8 per cent, is satisfactory but still lots of effort needed to touch the target of “Zero Hunger” of Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) by 2030.

Despite Bangladesh being a moderate hungry country, but has fared well in undernourishment, child wasting and child stunting.

There are several reasons for the disruption, Bangladesh and other countries have failed its reach food autarky.

Some 50 nations that rely on Russia and Ukraine for the bulk of their wheat imports — including Bangladesh, Egypt, Iran, and Turkey — have been scrambling to find alternative suppliers, according to the GHI 2022 Report.

Spiralling food prices and global supply chain disruptions precipitated by the Ukraine war, the COVID-19 pandemic, climate change, and regional conflicts have worsened hunger for millions of people, requiring humanitarian and resilience-building responses to be urgently scaled up.

Incidentally, Bangladesh imports wheat from both Ukraine and Russia. Bangladesh’s food import is the lowest among countries having food shortages. Eritrea tops the list of dependencies on the external food supply in Ukraine and Russia.

The report mentions that there is another prime reason for the increase in food grain requirement in Bangladesh because of hosting more than one million Rohingya refugees since 2017.

Bangladesh took efforts in amplifying longstanding structural deficiencies in the global food system, which is inadequate for sustainably ending poverty and hunger as envisaged by the United Nations’ 2030 Agenda.

Within a global food system that has fallen short of sustainably ending poverty and hunger, citizens are finding innovative ways to improve food systems governance at the local level, holding decision-makers accountable for addressing food and nutrition insecurity and hunger.

The good news is the recent trend toward decentralising government functions has given local governments greater autonomy and authority, including over key elements of food systems.

The situation is likely to worsen in the face of the current barrage of overlapping global crises — conflict, climate change, and the economic fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic — all of which are powerful drivers of hunger.

These crises come on top of underlying factors such as poverty, inequality, inadequate governance, poor infrastructure, and low agricultural productivity that contribute to chronic hunger and vulnerability.

Globally and in many countries and regions, current food systems are inadequate for the task of addressing these challenges and ending hunger.

Hunger cannot be eradicated unless global leaders join hands to tackle the structural drivers that cause it: war, climate change, and recession.

First published in The News Times, 15 October 2022

Vaccines are the key to sustainability

Without increasing vaccinations, we cannot restore economic stability

SALEEM SAMAD

Print and electronic media, coupled with social media, have unfortunately contributed to creating disinformation and fake news on the ongoing pandemic crisis, medical treatment, and vaccines.

Researchers on media monitoring on fake news argue that media has often fallen prey to misinformation and rumours about coronavirus and vaccines, especially when the newsroom gatekeepers failed to fact-check within the stipulated deadline.

In this tsunami-like pandemic from east to west, north to south in early 2020, the doctors, physicians, and even virologists and epidemiologists -- who were indeed the prime source for newsroom scribes -- initially gave confusing and contradictory sermons coated with medical jargon, which regrettably incited fake news, based on disinformation.

Despite hosts of myths being busted by the World Health Organization (WHO), both the frontline health care doctors and journalists kept their ears, eyes, and minds shut to myth-busters, like the three wise monkeys in folklore.

Sermons like hot water baths, drinking tea or hot water with traditional spices, eating garlic or peppers in food, application of hydroxychloroquine or malarial drugs, vitamin and mineral supplements, administration of antibiotics, exposure to the sun, and hosts of other remedies failed to prevent the deadly infection.

Leading epidemiologist Dr Mushtuq Husain explained that coronavirus is caused by a deadly virus, and is not a bacteria. There are several scientific studies to prove that vaccines do not compromise natural immunity, he also remarked.

Meanwhile, WHO reiterates that everybody should wear masks, especially in crowds indoors, but the United States Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says vaccinated people don’t need to wear masks to protect themselves from the virus.

The scientific statement was also validated by John Hopkins University, Oxford University, and Delhi-based CSIR-Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology, where researchers are spending sleepless nights to conclude that the efficacy and immunity of vaccinated people are protected even from new variants.

Virus experts and epidemiologists also offer mixed advice, but largely agree on one point: Whether or not a fully vaccinated person needs to wear a mask.

Well, mask mandates are intended to protect the unvaccinated -- people who are vaccinated are already well-protected by vaccines, and infection by new variants is still very rare.

It was logically argued that since a person cannot tell who is vaccinated and who is not, the best would be to advise all to wear a mask, which can help stop the spread of the virus by people who are infected, especially those who don’t have any symptoms.

Bangladesh was initially bogged down in the vaccine divide while procuring vaccines. Finally, the government has been able to negotiate with countries and pharmaceutical industries for a reasonable quantity of vaccines.

Despite the emergence of vaccines, the experts have strongly argued that the coronavirus is here to stay for a long period; the world has to embrace the new normal. On the other hand, experts conclude that vaccines are the key to restoring economic stability.

Leading economists in the country advise that accelerating the vaccine’s distribution will be necessary before the economy sees any long-lasting improvement. They strongly disagree that countering the lockdown in a pandemic with a stimulus is the wrong approach to economic recovery.

“We have to get enough vaccinations to enable people to feel comfortable in social settings. That’s the key to getting back to normal; then only would we have a great 2021,” observed top economist Dr Hossain Zillur, who has recently conducted an intensive study on the pandemic and its impact on disadvantaged populations.

First published in the Dhaka Tribune, 6 July 2021

Saleem Samad is an independent journalist, media rights defender, recipient of Ashoka Fellowship and Hellman-Hammett Award. He could be reached at saleemsamad@hotmail.com; Twitter @saleemsamad

Madness, mayhem, and manipulation

It is a grim outlook for a new year, but it is not completely hopeless

SALEEM SAMAD

Should the citizens of the global village expect anything in 2021?

Does it not seem that it will be another series of new episodes, like last year, beset by the madness, mayhem, manipulation, and tyranny that dominated 2020.

For most, the future will be knitted from experience gathered from a year of facing the coronavirus pandemic.

While the regimes were busy doing damage control, everything seemed to have gone haywire; they were unable to control the virus outbreak, or the frustrations of the people. The governments, both in developed and developing countries, gradually took charge of the crisis.

The world leaders were left defenseless in the face of government bureaucrats and elected officials who dance to the tune of their corporate overlords and do what they want, when they want, with whomever they want, all at taxpayer expense.

Now that the people have slowly begun to trust scientists, pharmaceutical producers, United Nations bodies, development economists, health care experts and services, and development partners, the governments with advisers and politicians need to get back on the drawing board to redo the plans on how to live with the Covid-19 virus.

In the broad political spectrum, politics and politicians must come forward with sustainable solutions to the new dimensions of global crises, which is impacted by the pandemic.

Such rethinking has surfaced when the nations’ history, politics, and politicians add problems due to attempting quick-fix solutions, which are not sustainable.

Let the politicians and bureaucrats understand that people will not digest any kind of hypocrisy, double standards, or delusional belief. Nonetheless, the politicians and bureaucrats initially had hiccups when the pandemic was ravaging the economy. There is also no denying that the government wasted crucial time, funds, and effort to get things back on track.

Citizens of developing countries have tolerated injustice and abuse which befell upon them due to the government machinery such as police harassment and brutality, corruption, criminalization of politics, robberies from infrastructure development projects, forcible occupations and invasions of homes and properties of the weak and the minorities by politically-backed hooligans, state security surveillance, unfair taxation -- and the list grows on and on.

Global citizens have been utterly helpless in the face of government injustice meted out, both at home and abroad. Indeed, the systemic violence being perpetrated by the state and non-state actors demoralises any nation-state, writes John W Whitehead, founder and president of The Rutherford Institute.

Until we can own that truth, until we can forge our path back to a world in which freedom means something again, we are going to be stuck in this wormhole of populist anger, petty politics, and destruction that is pitting us against each other.

First published in the Dhaka Tribune, 12 January 2021

Saleem Samad is an independent journalist, media rights defender, recipient of Ashoka Fellowship and Hellman-Hammett Award. He can be reached at saleemsamad@hotmail.com; Twitter @saleemsamad

'Pandemic' word of the year 2020

SALEEM SAMAD

The word ‘pandemic’ has become a part of all our lives now

The task to decide a single word or words in the year 2020, roiled by a public health crisis, an economic downturn, racial injustice, climate disaster, political division, and rampant disinformation -- was a challenge.

For the editors at Dictionary.com, the choice was overwhelmingly focused. From our perspective as documenters of the English language, one word kept running through the profound and manifold ways our lives have been upended -- and our language so rapidly transformed -- in this unprecedented year.

The editors, based on online searches, concluded that the “2020 Word Of The Year” was “pandemic” and defined it as “a disease prevalent throughout an entire country, continent, or the whole world.” The year 2020 was indeed painful. And yet, the loss of life and livelihood caused by Covid-19 pandemic defies definition.

Nearly 80 million confirmed cases, the pandemic has claimed over 1.75 million lives across the globe and is still rising to new peaks with the fresh outbreak dubbed as Covid-20.

No doubt the pandemic has severely dented social and economic life on a historic scale and scope, globally impacting every sector of society -- not to mention its emotional and psychological toll.

All other events for most of 2020, from the protests for racial justice to a heated US presidential election, were shaped by the pandemic. Despite the hardships, the pandemic also inspired the best of humanity: Resilience and resourcefulness in the face of struggle.

Languages evolve and adapt to new realities and circumstances. This deadly coronavirus outbreak has been reflected in our language, notably in the word pandemic itself. As the world was shaken from the pandemic, the searches for the word “pandemic” skyrocketed 13,575% on Dictionary.com compared to 2019.

It appeared to have jumped out of history textbooks, and joined a cluster of other terms that users searched for in massive numbers, whether to learn an unfamiliar word used during a government briefing or to process the swirl of media headlines: Asymptomatic, CDC, coronavirus, furlough, nonessential, quarantine, and sanitizer, to name a few.

"The pandemic, despite causing havoc, agony, and trauma among millions worldwide, surprisingly has united the world of vocabulary into one global village, eagerly waiting for the vaccine and an eventual solution for the pandemic."

As the pandemic upended life in 2020, it also dramatically reshaped our language, requiring a whole new vocabulary for talking about our new reality.

Among all searches, the volume for pandemic sustained the highest levels on-site over the course of 2020, averaging a 1000% increase, month over month, relative to previous years. Because of its ubiquity as the defining context of 2020, it remained in the top 10% of all lookups for much of the year.

Glossary and vocabulary researchers, based on a prediction by epidemiologists to virologists agree that the pandemic defined in 2020 will dominate the years to come. It is a consequential word for a consequential year.

In the spring, the pandemic introduced a host of new and newly prominent words that, normally, only public health professionals knew and used.

Expanding the glossary for daily life included: Air bubble; antibody tests; antigen test; antimalarial drugs; asymptomatic; conspiracy theory; contact tracing; corona-cure; Covid-dedicated hospitals; Covid-19; Covidiot; debunk fake news; diagnostic tests; disinformation; distance learning; endemic; epidemic; epidemiologist; face masks; fake health remedies; fake health tips; flatten the curve; frontliner; hand sanitizer; handwashing; health facilities; healthcare; herd immunity; hydroxychloroquine; infodemic; isolation; lockdown; mutation; N95; novel coronavirus; PCR test; PPE; public health; quaranteam; quarantine; second wave; social distancing; strain; superspreader; take-out; vaccine; ventilator; virologist; virtual court; webinar; work remotely; Zoom; so on and so forth.

The resilience and resourcefulness people confronted the pandemic with also manifested itself in tremendous linguistic creativity. Throughout 2020, the editorial teams of various dictionaries have been tracking a growing body of so-called “corona coinages” that have given expression -- and have offered some relief from tragedy, some connection in isolation -- to the lived experience of a surreal year.

First published in the Dhaka Tribune on 29 December 2020

Saleem Samad is an independent journalist, media rights defender, recipient of Ashoka Fellowship and Hellman-Hammett Award. He could be reached at saleemsamad@hotmail.com; Twitter @saleemsamad

Will a vaccine save the economy?

SALEEM SAMAD

Development Economist Dr Atiur Rahman sharing his mind said that once the availability of the coronavirus vaccine becomes a reality, the world economy will recuperate and Bangladesh will also make a dramatic turn-around.

However, a challenge remains of generating new employment and regenerating the labour market. The challenge could be bridled with a long and short term economic preparation, by an energetic team of planners and social managers selected.

The government has to develop a recovery plan of action to generate jobs and employment in both formal and non-formal sectors, says Atiur Rahman, a former governor of Bangladesh Bank.

Atiur says the expectation from the discovery and availability of the coronavirus vaccine has increased exponentially.

Meanwhile, over 100 influential global leaders have joined Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus after he launched an international campaign to make the Covid-19 vaccine a global common good.

The campaign on behalf of Nobel laureates and organizations of Nobel laureates, civil society leaders, and world moral leaders urged all the global leaders, international organizations, and governments to adopt legal measures and declare Covid-19 vaccine as a part of the global domain.

What the founder of the “bank for the poor” meant was that the vaccine should be available at a cheaper price for the developing countries, but not for the West only.

As the Covid-19 pandemic continues to wreak havoc across mother earth, there is an explosion of research activities and clinical trials to find cures and vaccines, says Prof Yunus.

The platform urged the World Health Organization (WHO) to design a World Action Plan on the Covid-19 vaccine and appealed to set up an international committee responsible for monitoring the vaccine research.

The research for a vaccine is a long process. The estimated time for the development of a Covid-19 vaccine is about 18 months or so.

Prof Yunus’s campaign has received pro-active responses from more than 25 Nobel laureates, scores of former presidents, former PMs, creative artists, social justice activists, business leaders, leaders of international organizations, academics, and hosts of political and faith leaders from all the continents.

Obviously, private sector research laboratories engaged in the development of vaccines will be expecting a return on their investments. The research results should be in the public domain, making it available to any pharmaceuticals that pledge to produce vaccines under strict international regulatory supervision.

Prof Yunus believes that if the vaccines are free from patent rights, the price will be affordable in the third world. Most of the developing countries’ hospitals are overwhelmed providing health care to coronavirus patients on their shoe-string budget.

The pandemic exposes the strengths and weaknesses of health care systems in different countries, as well as the obstacles and inequalities of access to health care.

Therefore, the campaign understands the cash-strapped developing countries will not be able to buy the vaccine in bulk. The global leaders demand that the availability of vaccines is a right and there must be free universal access to the vaccine for all.

Governments, foundations, international financial organizations like the WB, and the regional development banks have been urged to develop a strategy on how to make the vaccine available free of cost to inhabitants from all walks of life, be they from urban or rural areas, men or women, or living in rich or poor countries.

The campaign underpins the moral responsibility of the global leaders to develop an unambiguous procedure to determine what would be a fair level of this return in exchange for putting the vaccine in the public domain.

First published in the Dhaka Tribune, 20 July 2020

Saleem Samad is an independent journalist, media rights defender, and recipient of Ashoka Fellowship and Hellman-Hammett Award. He can be reached at saleemsamad@hotmail.com

Pandemic has exposed deep-seated weaknesses in Bangladesh

Photo: Reuters

SALEEM SAMAD

A senior staff member along with many others of a grocery chain outlet in Dhaka were hailed as “corona warriors” by a leading English newspaper. The daily did not hesitate to describe that “our humanity, empathy, and responsibility is being tested by the coronavirus pandemic.”

Shila Aktar, a customer relationship officer at a grocery outlet had a fever, but other signs of coronavirus were absent. With fever, she went from one government hospital to another -- over four consecutive days.

She tried day and night to access the dedicated helpline. Also, she desperately tried online registration with no luck.

On the third day, she had an outrageous experience at a government-dedicated Mughda Hospital for Covid-19 patients. The Ansar Battalion sold Tk20 tickets at the exorbitant price of Tk2,000 to 3,000 in connivance with the hospital staff.

Hearing her ordeal, a journalist wrote an angry post on Facebook. Promptly, the lawmaker Saber Hossain Chowdhury responded pro-actively. The following day, the guards were removed and an additional booth to collect 150 additional samples a day was opened adjacent to the hospital.

On the fifth day, despite feeling weak, she stood in a queue from 6am in a make-shift booth in Bashabo, in the city. Finally, her sample was taken.

The issue did not end there. Now the waiting period began to get her virus test report. After four days she received a heartbreaking message online and also phone SMS that she was positive. 

“Dear Shila Aktar, your test for coronavirus is positive. Please stay at home. Be positive.”

The test for the coronavirus is a nightmare for millions in the country. Well, the government and private resources have been inadequate, coupled with widespread corruption in medical supplies and a lack of transparency in health care management.

As the crisis in Wuhan enlarged last winter, the “learned” heath minister Zahid Malek assured the nation that the country is fully prepared to overcome the pandemic.

When the virus finally struck on March 7, there were only a few ventilators in the country. The country had few virus testing labs, and no dedicated hospitals for infected patients when the first virus was detected in early March.

Despite media warnings, based on input from infectious disease experts, the airport authorities and immigration departments were lax in checking the entry of thousands of people, and also didn’t follow the quarantine protocols.

Well, the government never used the word “lockdown” or “curfew” and the police and civil administration all over the country failed to keep the people at home, maintain social distancing, wear masks, or practise basic hygiene.

The worst-case scenario was that the doctors, nurses, and health care staff often did not have enough PPE, including gloves and masks and safety materials.

Some state hospital senior doctors who have taken to social media to criticize the poor quality of medical supplies were punished. Even those who complained of poor living facilities in designated hotels were also punished.

Caught in a catch-22 situation, between lives and livelihoods, after 66 days, the government partially opened offices, factories (including export industries), shops, public transport, domestic flights, and restaurants. Several media reports say all the establishments flouted health guidelines with impunity.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has been rated among the top 10 women leaders for the commendable job in coronavirus management by the prestigious Forbes magazine. She recently wrote in the British newspaper, The Guardian, that Bangladesh is unlikely to be the only country struggling with health, economic, and climate emergencies this year.

Most governments have proved dangerously unprepared for the crisis, which has exposed deep-seated weaknesses in public-health and social-security systems in rich and poor countries alike.

First published in the Dhaka Tribune, 16 June 2020

Saleem Samad is an independent journalist, media rights defender, recipient of Ashoka Fellowship and Hellman-Hammett Award. He could be reached at saleemsamad@hotmail.com. Twitter @saleemsamad

Bangladesh: Alarming crackdown on freedom of expression during coronavirus pandemic

ARTICLE 19 is alarmed by the Bangladesh Government’s crackdown on freedom of expression since the coronavirus pandemic began.

In particular, there has been an upsurge in attacks on media critical of the government’s response to the coronavirus pandemic in Bangladesh. The Government is increasingly using the deeply flawed Digital Security Act 2018 to harass, charge and arrest journalists. There have also been restrictions on dissent by the public: medical professionals have been told not to talk to the media; social media is being monitored; and government employees have been told not to like, share or comment on social media posts that are critical of the Bangladeshi government.

While the crackdown on freedom of expression has escalated during the pandemic, it also fits in a wider pattern of serious restrictions of critical voices in Bangladesh, where there are currently dozens of journalists, bloggers and activists in prison for simply expressing their opinion.

“It is shocking that during the coronavirus pandemic the government is using the Digital Security Act to prevent journalists from doing their job. This act criminalises freedom of expression and is characterised by vague definitions, broad provisions and sweeping powers,” said Faruq Faisel, Regional Director of ARTICLE 19.

“Both journalists and members of the public must be allowed to express criticism of the Government’s response to the coronavirus pandemic without fear of arrest.

“The government should immediately release all journalists and ensure that the rights to freedom of expression and access to information are respected in Bangladesh.”

Surge in journalist arrests during coronavirus pandemic

Since the coronavirus pandemic hit Bangladesh, there has been a surge in arrests of journalists, activists and others who criticised the Bangladesh Government for its lack of preparedness and poor response to the pandemic. Since the start of the pandemic, 16 journalists have been arrested.

Many have been charged under the 2018 Digital Security Act. It is becoming increasingly difficult for journalists and bloggers to report about the crisis. As well as the arrests outlined below, in April, journalists’ movements were restricted to allegedly stop the spread of coronavirus.

On 6 May, 11 people – including a cartoonist, two journalists and a writer- were charged under the Digital Security Act with “spreading rumours and carrying out anti-government activities”. They were alleged to have posted about, “the coronavirus pandemic to negatively affect the nation’s image and to create confusion among the public through the social media and cause the law and order situation to deteriorate”. Four were remanded in prison; the others are bloggers and journalists who live outside Bangladesh.

The four men in detention are:

• Ahmed Kabir Kishore: he had his phones and computer confiscated after posting a series of critical satires about alleged corruption in the government’s coronavirus response.
• Mushtaq Ahmed: he published an article on the shortage of personal protective equipment for doctors.
• Tasneem Khalil, the editor of Netra News: he published a leaked UN memo estimating that two million Bangladeshis could die unless immediate steps were taken to curtail the virus.
• Didarul Bhuiyan, an activist with the Humanitarian assistance monitoring committee set up to monitor the government’s humanitarian activities in response to the pandemic. He published a report revealing that the most marginalised groups had received the least amount of government support.

In the same week, three journalists from Dainik Grameen Darpan in Narsingdi have also been arrested: news editor Ramzan Ali Pramanik, staff correspondent Shanta Banik, and online news portal Narsingdi Pratidin publisher and editor Shaon Khondoker Shahin. They were arrested after reporting about the death in custody of a man who broke the lockdown rules.

The Forum for Freedom of Expression, Bangladesh (FExB) reported that in April, “nearly two dozen journalists were attacked, intimidated, harassed, or arrested for reporting on pilferage, corruption, and lack of accountability in food aid meant for poor people who are facing extreme hardship during the lockdown”.

Coronavirus and freedom of expression

As well as arrests come as the government is cracking down on any critical voices on the government’s coronavirus response. Human Rights Watch reported that on 7 May, the government issued a circular prohibiting its employees from liking, sharing or commenting on any posts that are critical of the Bangladesh government.

The elite unit of the police, the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) is monitoring social media and had by 10 April reportedly arrested 10 people for spreading false information about coronavirus.

Coronavirus and freedom of information

Public access to information during the coronavirus pandemic should be a priority to ensure people know how to protect themselves, what to do in case of emergencies and what regulations are in place. ARTICLE 19  in a new report, Ensuring the Public’s Right to Know in the COVID-19 Pandemic, highlighted governments’ obligations on access to information and public health under human rights law.

Reliable, accurate, and accessible information about the pandemic is essential to reducing the risk of transmission of the virus and to protecting the population against dangerous disinformation.

Amid growing criticism of the response to the coronavirus pandemic, medical personnel have been told not to speak to the media. The pandemic should absolutely not be used to silence whistleblowers, who reveal gaps in public health planning and implementation. They should be fully protected from retribution. Authorities can only use sanctions against those who use the pandemic to conduct illegal or unsafe practices and threaten or harm whistleblowers.

Governments should be transparent about the crisis and make all actions they are taking publicly available. Journalists must be able to criticise the authorities and scrutinise their response to the crisis. In addition, journalists play an important role in informing the public. They can identify new hotspots of the virus, provide information on protective measures, and expose falsehoods.

The 2018 Digital Security Act

The Digital Security Act was passed by the Parliament of Bangladesh to ensure digital security and to help prevent crimes committed on digital platforms. It replaced the widely criticised Information and Technology Act, which was frequently used to curtail freedom of expression. But the Digital Security Act is even more repressive than the legislation it replaced.

We have documented that this year alone, a total of 60 cases have been filed against more than 100 people, including 22 journalists. This is a significant increase compared to 2019 when 63 cases were filed under this law across the country and 2018 (34 cases).

ARTICLE 19 has warned that the act is deeply flawed given its lack of clarity and overly broad definitions. It grants a carte blanche to the Bangladesh Government to make rules around collection and preservation of data and suppress any critical voices. It lacks clear definitions, prohibits criticism of the government and criminalises freedom of expression. It further gives the Digital Security Agency the power to block or remove online information.

Bangladeshi journalists, and national and international human rights organisations have also criticised the act. Amnesty International called the Digital Security Act “an attack on freedom of expression that is even more repressive than the legislation it has replaced”. Human Rights Watch said it “utterly undermines any claim that the government of Bangladesh respects freedom of speech”.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, the European Union and the United States have all criticised the act for violating Bangladesh’s international human rights law.

International Human Rights Law

Bangladesh is obliged to ensure the right to freedom of expression, as enshrined in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The rights of freedom of expression and access to information may be restricted, but restrictions must be provided by law, pursue a legitimate aim, and be necessary and proportionate. Responding to a public health crisis is one of those legitimate aims but that does not give countries authority to waiving freedom of expression rights in total.

Recommendations

The Bangladesh Government must implement the following recommendations without delay:

• Amend the Digital Security Act 2018 and make sure it is in line with international human rights law and standards.
• Release all journalists arrested under the Digital Security Act and end the harassment of those reporting on coronavirus.
• Guarantee freedom of expression to media and social media platforms.

Article 19 posted the media statement on 19 May 2020

Asian countries flatten coronavirus curve

Photo: Reuters

Asian models that actually combated Covid-19
SALEEM SAMAD

Globally nations are convinced that washing hands with soap, wearing a mask, maintaining social distance, and staying home are prime health safety tips to fight the coronavirus pandemic.

The scenario in Taiwan, however, is similar but strikingly different from most countries in Asia, Africa, America, and Europe struggling to combat the Covid-19 crisis.

In a new coronavirus twist, South Korea, Singapore, Vietnam, and Hong Kong are examples of containment that have been hailed for using those lessons learned from combating the new coronavirus, officially Covid-19 and a relative of SARS.

By the time the virus began to spill over China’s frontiers in January, many health think-tanks believed that territories having proximity would take the major brunt for a large-scale outbreak.

Singapore, Taiwan, and Hong Kong territories are closely interconnected with mainland China, unilaterally imposed travel restrictions on nationals returning from China, contravening the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) insistence that a travel ban was not necessary.

The precaution, nevertheless, came at a significant economic cost to these international hubs, which all rely on mainland China as their biggest trading partner and source of tourists too.

Amid these grim trends, South Korea has emerged as a sign of hope and a model to imitate as coronavirus cases have dropped sharply to a single digit. 

The South Korean president hoped that containment progress gave hope that the coronavirus outbreak is “surmountable” in other parts of the world.

Well, after after the deadly SARS epidemic in 2003, Taiwan established a Central Command Centre for Epidemics. The country had introduced national drills in educational institutions, government establishments, and factories for preparedness on bio-safety.

The Command Centre has quickly compiled a list of 124 “action items,” including border controls, school and work policies, public communication plans and resource assessments of hospitals, according to an article in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

The 210 countries typically struggling with the coronavirus pandemic have gambled on a containment strategy. It has socked hundreds of countries that have imposed strict shutdowns and stay-home policies to hear that Taiwan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Vietnam residents venture outside only by necessity while national emergency remains enforced.

Unlike wealthier Asian neigbours, Vietnam does not have the capabilities to conduct mass testing, but surprisingly the country has zero fatalities with no new cases in the last several days. The status of coronavirus cases was 268 and 202 recovered as of April 20.

Hong Kong, an autonomous state of China promptly imposed border control from early February and made quarantine in hospitals mandatory for those returning from mainland China.

Hong Kong’s population of 7.5 million had had just 1,026 confirmed cases of Covid-19 infection, recovery of 602 and four deaths as of April 20, according to a new study published in the health journal Lancet.

A study by Harvard University’s Centre for Communicable Disease Dynamics estimates Singapore detected almost three times more cases than the global average due to its strong disease surveillance and fastidious contact tracing.

In Singapore, amid the coronavirus outbreak, quarantine, and isolation protocols were strictly enforced. 

The government has deployed plainclothes police officers to track persons in quarantine and used government-issued mobile phones to keep tabs on them.

The challenges remain for Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore of a growing number of recovered Covid-19 patients relapsing especially in South Korea, raising fresh concerns among scientists and health authorities after the countries successfully flattened the curve. 

First published in The Dhaka Tribune on 20 April 2020

Saleem Samad is an independent journalist, media rights defender, recipient of Ashoka Fellow (USA) and Hellman-Hammett Award. Twitter @saleemsamad; he can be reached at saleemsamad@hotmail.com

This dystopia Lockdown is stranger than fiction

SALEEM SAMAD

The current lockdown is a scenario straight out of movies and paperback thrillers.

When Peter May’s manuscript was pitched -- with a bizarre scenario of a global pandemic -- it was refused by several publishers for being too unrealistic. Now it is scheduled to hit the bookstore on April 30.

The dystopian novel has turned into reality. His current publisher Quercus Books hopes that familiarity with a pandemic will appeal to a wide audience.

Well, the novel did not mention Wuhan in China. Instead, he chose London as an epicentre of a global pandemic that forced authorities to compel a lockdown to save lives.

Obviously, the novelist abandoned the project and eventually forgot that he had written it, until a fan contacted him on Twitter suggesting he should write something for the age of the coronavirus, refreshing his memory and prompting him to retrieve the file from a Dropbox folder.

When he read the manuscript for the first time since he wrote the book 15 years ago, he was shocked at how accurate it was.

The story, in brief, says London city is in lockdown. Violence and civil disorder simmer and authorities have no alternative but to declare martial law. No one is safe from the deadly virus. The British prime minister himself is dead. Health and emergency services are overwhelmed. 

Armed vigilantes block a neighbour’s driveway with a tree to force them into home quarantine.

However, the story was not based on the imagination of the Scottish screenwriter and novelist. He had painstakingly browsed hundreds of pages of British and the United States pandemic preparedness documents from 2002 to make it as realistic as possible.

The much talked about book Lockdown was finally published 15 years later; that’s our reality due to coronavirus, which has so far infected more than 1 million people globally.

Available in paperback, the 416- page crime thriller titled Lockdown predicted in 2005 a world in quarantine, which has finally seen the light of the day.

The current coronavirus pandemic has severely squeezed the value chain of the book distributors to reach the bookstores globally. However, the publication is only available through Amazon UK on Kindle format ($4.99) for now. It also will be available in paperback ($13.58) and audio-book from April 30.

The 69-year-old Peter May was born and raised in Scotland, United Kingdom. He was an award-winning journalist at the age of 21 and a published novelist at 26. When his first book was adapted as a major drama series for the BBC, he quit journalism and became one of Scotland’s most successful television dramatists.

He created three prime-time drama series, presided over two of the highest-rated serials in his homeland as script editor and producer, and worked on more than 1,000 episodes of ratings-topping drama before deciding to leave television to return to his first love, writing novels. He has won several literature awards.

“At the time I wrote the book, scientists were predicting that bird flu was going to be the next major world pandemic,” May told the American TV channel CNN.

“The everyday details of how you get through life, the way the lockdown works, people being forbidden to leave their homes. It’s all scarily accurate,” he quipped.

Well, the invisible enemies of bird flu and coronavirus are very different, but the lockdown scenario hits close to home for millions of people currently self-isolating to prevent the virus from spreading.

First published in the Dhaka Tribune on 13 April 2020

Saleem Samad is an independent journalist, media rights defender, recipient of Ashoka Fellow (USA) and Hellman-Hammett Award. Twitter: @saleemsamad. Reach him at saleemsamad@hotmail.com