New Delhi: The Muhammad Yunus-led interim government in Dhaka has appointed Mushfiqul Fazal Ansarey, an outspoken critic of Sheikh Hasina and former aide to Khaleda Zia, as an ambassador to one of the country’s overseas missions with the rank of senior secretary for a period of three years, Bangladeshi media outlets reported Monday.
Ansarey had during a press briefing in March sought US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller’s reaction to the arrest of then Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal by the ED as well as the Income Tax department freezing Congress party’s bank accounts in the run-up to the Lok Sabha elections.
Miller’s response elicited a sharp reaction from the Indian Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) which summoned deputy chief of mission of the US Embassy in India, Gloria Berbena, to lodge a protest.
Days later, Ansarey also sought a response from Stéphane Dujarric, spokesman for the UN Secretary-General, on allegations of a systematic crackdown on the Opposition in India ahead of the general election.
Considered close to the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) leadership, Ansarey returned to the country in September, following Sheikh Hasina’s ouster. Asked what he expected of a BNP government that would come into power in place of the Hasina-led Awami League, he had told reporters at the time, “I cannot speak for the BNP since I do not represent them.”
Asked about Ansarey, Sydney-based Mubashar Hasan, a noted expert on Bangladesh, told ThePrint that political appointments as ambassadors are common in Bangladeshi foreign services and Ansarey has proved his worth.
“What he did in Washington was educate the people about the issues of Bangladesh. He did much better than career diplomats who were appointed by Hasina. He played a big role in exposing the human rights violations, political corruption, and subversion of freedom in Bangladesh under the autocratic regime of Sheikh Hasina by asking regular questions to officials of the State Department in DC and the UN HQ in New York,” said Hasan.
Also Read: Yunus govt to ‘bar’ Hasina’s Awami League, like-minded parties from contesting Bangladesh polls
Who is Mushfiqul Fazal Ansarey
Ansarey has in the past worked as an anchor for the state-owned Bangladesh Television (BTV), a reporter for the Bengali-language daily The Daily Ittefaq and the host of ntv’s Hello Excellency—a programme in which he interviewed foreign diplomats for the Bengali-language TV channel.
He also served as assistant press secretary to Bangladesh’s then prime minister Khaleda Zia from 2001 to 2006.
Interestingly, Ansarey was also part of a government delegation that delivered a letter from Zia to Muhammad Yunus in 2006, congratulating the latter on winning the Nobel Peace Prize for setting up Grameen Bank.
In 2011, he was part of a delegation led by Zia to the US and the UK.
Cut to January 2015, Ansarey went into exile in the US and has since been working as an accredited White House and United Nations correspondent for JustNewsBD—an online publication of which he is chief news editor.
Ansarey has on more than one occasion faced criticism back home for his provocative questions during briefings, particularly about alleged US interference in Bangladesh’s affairs. In November 2022, Bangladesh police reportedly filed charges against him and two others under the contentious Digital Security Act, 2018, for ‘tarnishing the image of the state’.
Bangladesh’s former foreign minister Hasan Mahmud even once alleged that Ansarey was “paid by BNP” and accused him of framing his questions in a manner so as to target the then Hasina-led government in Bangladesh.
In addition to his stints as press secretary and journalist, Ansarey is also executive director of South Asia Perspectives, a “monthly opinion based magazine” based out of Washington DC, according to its official website.
Bangladesh’s UN mission had previously objected to Ansarey attending events as a journalist due to his active political affiliations. In 2015, the mission’s then press secretary Bijon Lal Deb had in a veiled reference to Ansarey objected to “active politicians” being given press cards.
Ansarey had during a US State Department press briefing in March asked Kelly Razzouk, special assistant to the president, about the White House’s stance on Bangladesh’s “sham election” and concerns over the Indian government’s handling of various human rights issues.
Earlier this year, he also courted controversy after he falsely attributed a remark to Bangladesh’s foreign minister at the said briefings about Indian interference in the country’s elections.
On 9 October, he took to ‘X’ to post US State Department spokesperson Miller’s response to his question during a press briefing. In summing up the response in his own words, Ansarey wrote: “… Bangladesh issues often come up in meetings with Indian officials, as former dictator Hasina is in India and allegedly trying to destabilise Bangladesh.”
Also Read: BNP chain of command is breaking down. It isn’t fighting culture of thuggery in Dhaka