Hefazat's remarks, The Daily Star's reply

With regret and utter astonishment, we, at The Daily Star, have noticed a statement issued by Maulana Azizul Huq Islamabadi, joint secretary general of Hefazat-e-Islam Bangladesh, making baseless accusations against us of practising, what he called, 'anti-Islamic framing' in the name of journalism.

His complaints about reporting on counter-terrorism campaigns by law enforcement agencies during the previous regime were entirely untrue as The Daily Star only reported as much as stated by the authorities with proper attribution, instead of inventing any fact or fabrication.

Every other newspaper in the country had published the same version of events as those released by police or other law enforcement agencies. Our reports were no different from others. A practice we follow even today.

These unfounded allegations are nothing but an attempt to intimidate independent media, which has set an example of fearless journalism under an authoritarian rule defying all odds. The Daily Star, in its resolve to tell the truth, was banned from the Gonobhaban and state programmes attended by the head of the government. Advertising restrictions were imposed not only on government departments but extended to private companies that reduced our revenue by nearly 40%. The editor faced 84 cases lodged by Awami League party men across the country, which was unprecedented in the country's history, and he was often vilified by the then prime minister and her associates at the parliament. Yet The Daily Star did not surrender and never refrained from criticising the government or speaking the truth.

This paper and its editor never supported the narrative of the US led "War on Terror" and it exposed the duplicity of Western journalism based on "Islamophobia" and outright falsehood. This paper has been a vociferous supporter of the Palestinian cause. Through its reporting, editorial, and op-ed pieces including the editor's own columns, The Daily Star brought to light the atrocities meted out to the people of Palestine and relentlessly exposed the atrocities committed by Israelis as they committed genocide in Gaza. The Daily Star was one of the few rare news outlets to publish a special supplement on Gaza calling it genocide ("Stop this Genocide" published 12th September, 2025), which epitomises our uncompromising editorial position.

The allegations raised in the statement that we justified the role of Rab and intelligence agencies by publishing their news without verification is not based on facts. We followed the established practice of all media outlets. The Daily Star was a constant critique of atrocities by Rab and always publicised the issue of "enforced disappearances". We find it quite shocking that a responsible official of an organisation like Hefazat-e-Islam should accept social media content which are known to be one-sided, misleading, published without verification and sometimes totally fabricated.

The Daily Star was the boldest voice for democracy, press freedom and right to dissent during the 15-year fascistic rule of Sheikh Hasina. We criticised every attempt by the Awami League government to curtail rights of the opposition. Our role in opposing the Digital Security Act was unique and bold and helped embolden others to oppose it.

The Daily Star's editorial policy is to always accept fact-based opposing views including those that criticise the paper's own. We are always open to learn and make ourselves more equipped to serve our readers better. We earnestly request Hefazat-e-Islam and especially its leaders to seriously examine the contents of social media carefully before accusing independent media of "framing" others.

We should never forget, something the nation has learnt from the past regime, that without a free media truth cannot prevail and that denigrating independent media harms the nation.