How can freedom of speech flourish when sensitivities are so high, and public patience so low, when dissent is considered dangerous, any critique is considered to be a challenge, and all opposition is viewed as an existential threat that must be crushed? How credible are the preachy platitudes about democracy coming from people who are not its best exemplar?

An MP – who paradoxically represents the ruling coalition as well as its opposition in the parliament – recently played the proverbial role of the judge, jury and prosecutor.

Jatiya Party Lawmaker AKM Salim Osman yesterday came up with another story over the humiliation of headmaster Shyamal Kanti Bhakta. He said the teacher was a psycho (taarchera) and had squatted holding his earlobes in public “willingly to save himself".

An education ministry probe committee found no evidence that Shyamal Kanti Bhakta had hurt anyone's religious sentiment though, on this allegation, the Narayanganj headmaster was publicly humiliated on a local lawmaker's instruction.