1 of 2 | Protesters set fire to the Prothom Alo offices in Dhaka, Bangladesh, to protest the death of youth protest leader Sharif Osman Hadi’s death Thursday. Demonstrations broke out after Hadi died two weeks after being shot in the head. Photo by Monirul Alam/EPA
Two newspaper offices were burned and journalists struggled to escape during protests in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Thursday.
The protests were in response to the shooting death of Sharif Osman Hadi, 32, who was a leader of the country’s youth movement and who planned to run for parliament as an independent in the Feb. 12 elections. He had been shot in the head and was flown to a Singapore hospital. He was there for two weeks in critical condition before he died on Thursday.
Bangladesh recently convicted and sentenced to death its most recent prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, who is in hiding in India. Hadi was a leader of the protests that led to her ouster.
Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus, who is running the country in the interim, condemned the violence and vowed “full justice.”
“Attacks on journalists are attacks on truth itself,” the government said in a statement.
Protesters stormed the offices of two daily newspapers in Dhaka, the English-language The Daily Star and the Bengali-language Prothom Alo, and set them on fire. They also targeted the homes of politicians in different cities.
“It is one of the darkest days for independent journalism in Bangladesh,” The Daily Star said in a statement. It couldn’t publish its print edition Friday for the first time in 35 years and will be “inoperable for a while,” consulting editor Kamal Ahmed told the BBC.
“There’s too much smoke. I’m inside. You are killing me,” journalist Zyma Islam posted on Facebook, The New York Times reported. She was in the newsroom of The Daily Star on Thursday night when the fire was started.
She and her co-workers escaped. At Prothom Alo, employees had to be rescued by firefighters from the roof of the building.
It’s not clear why protesters targeted the newspapers, but both papers have been critical of the Yunus administration, which may have angered the protesters, the BBC reported.
Hadi’s friends blame India for his death and have said that his attackers are hiding there. They said they would march to the Indian High Commission if the suspects were not returned for trial. Bangladesh’s government summoned India’s high commissioner in Dhaka to request help in finding Hadi’s alleged attackers.
In response, India summoned Bangladesh’s high commissioner in New Delhi. India’s foreign ministry said, “India completely rejects the false narrative sought to be created by extremist elements.”
Youth leaders have spoken out against the violence. Mahfuj Alam stood outside The Daily Star building Thursday, calling for peace.
“Sharif Osman bin Hadi stands for democratic politics and for the kind of politics that builds structure, the kind of politics that builds institutions,” The Times reported he said. “Law and order should be maintained.”
