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Stop Gagging the Press

by Enam Ahmed Chaudhury
***Freedom of the press and safety of journalists are under grave threat now in Bangladesh. The monstrous attack on the Dinkal is the latest incident that bears clear testimony to the government’s and the ruling party’s calculated move to gag the democratic dissent and muzzle the press.***
THE Daily Star in its editorial of the March 11 edition has rightly commented on Hie despicable attack on the Daily Dinkal as an “attack on the freedom of the press" and that it should be protested as such vandalising the Dinkal premises was pure and simple hooliganism." The Incident also clearly shows the extent of repression the police can take recourse to under direction of the ruling party, the Awamt League. The naked truth is that the government party wants to intimidate the press and to harass Journalists to force them to servility and to silence the democratic opposition. If the Awamt League government can indulge in such utterly condemnable brutality in the case of Dinkal the mouthpiece of the main Opposition party, one can only imagine what can happen to other newspapers, not on the right side of the fence.
Over the last few years under the Awami League rule, what has happened Is a serious erosion of a sense of morality in the government, with corresponding insidious enhancement of the discretionary powers of the enforcement machinery and their indiscriminate, undemocratic and irregular use for the selfish gains of the ruling party and party men.
As a matter of fact, the process started as soon as the party came to power. Taking advantage of the media's susceptibility to political manipulation in fragile democracies as ours. Awami League is using all state apparatus and financial manipulation and other pressures and allurements to control and dictate the press. And of course, the ruling Awami League fully controls the electronic media and does not show even the slightest pretence of impartiality or objectivity.
Citation of a few instances to substantiate what has been said would not be out of place. The ruling party’s intentions of controlling the media became apparent when it refused to grant autonomy to radio and television, contrary to election pledges. What a shameless volte face was that. Recently the chairman of the now-defunct Media Commission Asafud-
dawla resigned from Awami League to register his protest of this. On March 18. 1998 Alam Raihan, editor of the Sugandha. was arrested and sent to Jail without specific charges against him. The Sugandha was subjected to further persecution. The government party-backed armed goons unleashed attack on the weekly Janatar Dak and the Evidence and ransacked their office. The government arrested Luxmipur correspondent of the Inquilab Husain Helal and Khagrachari correspondent of Dinkal Prafulla Kumar without specific charges, and the Dinkal reporters Nurul Alam and Humavun Kabir were beaten up These atrocities were condemned by the presidents and the secretaries general of BFUJ and DUJ in a Joint statement. BNP leader and former state minister Manzur Quader. who is the editor of the analytical weekly Evidence, was arrested on \larch 10. 1999 without any warrant or any specific charge. A High Court Division Bench of the Supreme Court on May 27. 1999 declared his detention illegal and directed the government to set him free immediately. On November 28. 1999. the government ordered stoppage of publication of the weekly Evidence and the publisher appealed to the High Court and obtained a stay order. The government, it seems. Is determined to suppress Evidence. editor of which. Manzur Quader. is an opponent and rival of the current Awami League State Minister for Information Prof. Abu Sayeed in the same parliamentary constituency. Jalaluddin Shoaib Chowdhury', a free-lance journalist- turned satellite TV7 producer was detained by the police for “suspected conspiracy". Efforts were made to implicate the editor of the Daily Inquilab, a newspaper with very wide circulation because of the coverage in the newspaper, which Is not to the liking of the ruling Awami League. A. M. M. Ba-hauddin. the Inquilab editor, has been the most consistent target of persecution of the current regime.
Assaults on journalists who do not toe the Awami League party line are quite rampant. Habibur Rahman, editor of
Cox's Bazar dally Shalkat. was attacked by armed cadres of the AL student front in broad day light and was left profusely bleeding on the street. A few days earlier the newspaper office was ransacked by the same group of people. Saflul Alain Mukul, the uncompromising editor of the dally Runner of Jessore, was killed by bomb attack on August 30. 1998. Attack on photo-journalists by police Is quite commonplace. A Journalists' rally Jointly convened by the BFUJ and DUJ condemned police attack on photoJournalists. at Palton crossing on October 22, 1998. It also condemned attack on Barisal Press Club. It called upon the government to stop the conspiracy to curb the freedom of the press in the name of accountability. The Daily Star reported on November 2. 1999 that
"prominent on the list of the seriously injured were on-duty photo-Journalists Anisur Ra-haman of The Daily Star and Sanaul Huq of The Independent. They received shotgun pellets when police went Into action against the BNP activists In front of their party central office at about noon". While taking a snap of police action on October 22. 1999, photo-journalist Joy of the daily Bangla Bazar Patrika was mercilessly beaten up by the police. There are countless instances of this nature. Bangladesh was recently indicated for violence against Journalists by the Paris-based watchdog organisation called Reporters without Borders (RSF).
The US government's recently published report on violation of human rights in Bangladesh indicates that the intimidated journalists practice self-censorship for their own safety.
Freedom of the press and safety of journalists are under grave threat now In Bangladesh. The monstrous attack on the Dinkal is the latest Incident that bears clear testimony to the government's and the ruling party's calculated move to gag the democratic dissent and muzzle the press.
This has to stop.
The writer is a former secretary -and a vice-president. 1DB. Jeddah