Meenakshi Ganguly

Activists are continuing to protest in Dhaka to demand the repeal of the Digital Security Act (DSA), a sweeping and vague law that the Bangladesh authorities are using to arrest critics, including those who speak out over the government’s handling of the Covid-19 pandemic.

In 2015, Salma’s husband and his parents held her down and poured nitric acid down her throat because they wanted more than the Tk 100,000 (USD 1,100) that her parents had already paid in dowry.

Nine-months pregnant, Fatema Akhter Mukta, 30, died on June 10 after her family struggled for five days to find a hospital in Bangladesh willing to admit her when she began having trouble breathing. When, finally, a hospital admitted her and referred her to Chittagong Medical College for its intensive care facilities, it was too late.