Nobel laureate and Chief adviser of Bangladesh’s new interim government Muhammad Yunus. File
| Photo Credit: AFP

Bangladesh’s interim government revoked the diplomatic passport of ousted premier Sheikh Hasina on Thursday (August 22, 2024), after she fled a student-led uprising earlier this month.

The interior ministry said in a statement that Ms. Hasina’s passport, as well as those belonging to former government ministers and ex-lawmakers no longer in their posts, “have to be revoked”.

More than 450 people were killed — many by police fire — during the weeks leading up to Ms. Hasina’s ouster, as crowds stormed her official residence in Dhaka.

A United Nations team arrived in Bangladesh on Thursday (August 22, 2024) to assess whether to investigate alleged human rights violations committed during protests that ended Hasina’s iron-fisted 15-year rule.

“The former Prime Minister, her advisers, the former cabinet and all members of the dissolved national assembly were eligible for diplomatic passports by virtue of the positions they held,” the ministry said in a statement.

“If they have been removed or retired from their posts, their and their spouses’ diplomatic passports have to be revoked.”

Hasina’s government was accused of widespread abuses, including the mass detention and extrajudicial killing of political opponents.

Dhaka’s new authorities said that Ms. Hasina, and other former top officials during her tenure, could apply for a standard passport, but that those documents were contingent on approval.

“When the aforementioned people apply afresh for ordinary passports, two security agencies have to clear their application for their passports to be issued,” the ministry added.

Hasina, who fled to India, was a close ally of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, whose government preferred her over her rivals from the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, which it saw as closer to conservative Islamist groups.

While India is hosting Hasina, Modi has also offered his support to the new Bangladeshi leader Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, who is heading the caretaker administration.

Yunus has said his administration would “provide whatever support” UN investigators need.

South Korea has said that in 2022, a 22-year-old man was publicly executed by North Korea for sharing and listening to K-pop music and South Korean films. The information is taken from testimonials of North Korean defectors that were published in a human rights report by the South Korean ministry of unification.

According to the report, the man from South Hwanghae province was accused of listening to 70 K-pop songs, watching 3 South Korean films, and distributing this prohibited media. 

North Korea has strict control over the information its citizens consume, includes strict rules regarding entertainment consumption, and has very harsh punishments for those who violate them.

The report further reveals that North Korea tightened its grip on outside culture in 2020 with a law banning “reactionary ideology and culture.” This law is seen as a tool to shield citizens from Western influences, which the North Korean government considers detrimental.

North Korea has consistently denied accusations of human rights violations, calling them attempts to undermine its leadership.

The ban on K-pop is part of an effort to protect North Koreans from the negative influence of Western culture. This campaign began under the former leader, Kim Jong-il, and has become more intense under his son, Kim Jong-un.

In 2022, Radio Free Asia, funded by the US government, reported that the regime was cracking down on “capitalist” fashion and hairstyles. This included targeting skinny jeans, T-shirts with foreign words, and dyed or long hair.

Experts believe that allowing South Korean popular culture to enter North Korean society could threaten the ideology that demands complete loyalty to the “infallible” Kim dynasty, which has ruled the country since its founding in 1948.

Despite these strict measures, the influence of South Korean culture, including recent television shows, seems unstoppable, according to a recent North Korean defector.