Farooki urges action on

Eminent filmmaker and former Cultural Affairs Adviser of the interim government Mostofa Sarwar Farooki has called for legal measures against those he says helped “manufacture consent” for Sheikh Hasina’s former authoritarian government, arguing that the state must protect the memory of the July uprising’s victims and their families from continued denial and ridicule.

In a Facebook post on Saturday, Farooki welcomed recent remarks by Home Minister Salahuddin Ahmed on holding political parties accountable for collective crimes, but said accountability should extend beyond political actors to include public figures who legitimized or continue to defend what he described as fascism.

Farooki alleged that some senior journalists, artists, models, and other public personalities were still attempting to shield the deposed Awami League through “subtle tactics,” while mocking victims of the July uprising and the alleged human rights abuses committed during the party’s 16 years in power.

“The issue is not what I think,” he wrote. “The issue is the mothers, fathers, spouses and families who lost their loved ones. Shouldn’t we care about their feelings?”

He argued that dismissing the uprising as “meticulously designed” or insisting that “nothing happened in July” amounted to retraumatizing families who had lost relatives in the movement.

“Every time such remarks are made on television or in newspapers, our martyrs are killed a second, third and countless times,” Farooki said.

The filmmaker said the state’s responsibility extended beyond prosecuting those responsible for killings and abuses under the previous government to safeguarding the dignity of victims and preventing what he called the continued production of narratives that justify authoritarian rule.

To that end, Farooki proposed legislation holding those who “produced consent for fascism” accountable, or, at minimum, the establishment of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

He also called for laws barring public statements that disrespect the memory of victims until their families have had time to heal.

Describing the July 2024 uprising as Bangladesh’s bloodiest mass movement, Farooki said the country could not treat the post-revolution period as ordinary times, arguing that protecting the historical memory of the uprising was essential to preserving its democratic gains.

Farooki’s remarks come amid a broader push by government figures to pursue accountability for the previous administration. Home Minister Salahuddin Ahmed said Saturday at the July National Conference-2026 that the banned Awami League would soon face trial as a political party under the Constitution’s Article 47, the Anti-Terrorism Act, and the ICT Act, and that the party had been rendered politically defunct, or “buried in Delhi.”

Farooki, who served as Cultural Affairs Adviser and has been a prominent voice on the July uprising’s legacy, did not name specific individuals in his post but suggested that public discourse continued to feature figures downplaying or disputing the scale of violence during the movement, which saw hundreds killed and thousands injured, according to estimates cited by officials at Saturday’s event.