The Daily Star's reply to Mayor Taposh's legal notice

The Lex Counsel sent a legal notice dated June 5, 2023, undersigned by Barrister Mejbahur Rahman, on behalf of Sheikh Fazle Noor Taposh, Mayor of Dhaka South City Corporation. It finds a satirical article, published in our May 13, 2023, issue of Satireday under the title "Cutting trees to make way for air," highly offensive and defamatory to the notice giver.

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Mayor Taposh seeks Tk100 crore over satire article

The legal notice, which we received late on June 6 afternoon, allowed us only two days to respond. But before we could come up with our response within the stipulated time, Lex Counsel held a press briefing on June 7, 2023. There, the law firm stated that Mayor Taposh has served a legal notice on The Daily Star and sought Tk 100 crore for defamation. It went on to term the satire article a "report" or a "column", which is factually incorrect.

In response to the legal notice and the subsequent briefing, we humbly reiterate that it was neither a "report" nor a "column," but a satirical piece, which is mostly presented in a parody format in mainstream journalism. Satire relies heavily on irony and deadpan humour. Globally, such satirical articles are written on important and powerful persons and/or institutions. Political leaders, Nobel laureates, famous writers and prominent activists are subjects of satire and irony. It is the standard literary and journalistic practice.

We, however, are shocked to find ourselves so fundamentally misunderstood. In no way was our article meant to defame, humiliate or hurt anybody; it was simply a satire published in Satireday, our weekly page designated for satire. The topic was chosen only because it was one of the public interest issues and many reports, articles and editorials had already been written on it.

It is a long-standing journalistic practice, and it's known all over the world that important leaders and top-level decision makers are subjects of satire. This piece was written to draw more attention to a matter of public concern and assist the authorities to reconsider and re-evaluate their decision, and not, we repeat, not to hurt anyone in any way. It was furthest from our intention. Still, we are sorry to know that our satire piece has ended up upsetting the notice giver.

As a gesture of goodwill, we have already unpublished the link upon knowledge of the unintended hurt as communicated in the legal notice.

Editor