Citizens lament RTI paralysis in Bangladesh
Jun 15, 2025
Shamsul Bari and Ruhi Naz
FILE VISUAL: SHAIKH SULTANA JAHAN BADHON
“I think there is a deliberate attempt to downgrade the use of the RTI law. There are no protection mechanisms in place to protect whistleblowers, and we hear about so many incidences of corruption and malpractice daily, but how do you raise the alarm?”
This is a typical lament of an activist who uses Bangladesh’s Right to Information (RTI) Act 2009 to unearth corruption and hold the government to democratic account. Since the departure of the three Information Commissioners soon after the 2024 July uprising, this column has sought to draw the interim government’s attention to the urgent need to appoint a new set of commissioners. We emphasised that, apart from the urgent reform of various institutions and mechanisms of governance destroyed through past misrule, there was an overriding need to uphold the importance of citizens’ role in monitoring the work of all public authorities for better governance. This, we argued, can be advanced by conscious citizens’ unhindered use of the RTI law. We underlined that the emergence of an alert group of youthful citizens who spearheaded the uprising was propitious for better and more effective use of the law and for taking it forward.