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Govt to update contempt law to stop its misuse

Moudud tells discussion

STAFF CORRESPONDENT
The government is going to amend the Contempt of Courts Act to check its indiscriminate use as well as to make it up-to-date.
According to one of the amendments to the law under consideration, "Anything not directly related to the trial process or a judge can't be charged as a contempt," Law Minister Moudud Ahmed yesterday said.
Speaking at a discussion on 'security of journalists in national perspective' at the Jatiya Press Club, Moudud said, "The law in its existing form is incomplete, as it does not define contempt. We also have seen indiscriminate use of the law."
The law minister said a draft of the amended law has already been done and the ministry will now hold a series of discussions to incorporate sugges-
tions of different sections of the society.
"We will also examine the related laws in neighbouring India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka," he said.
Mass-Line Media Centre (MMC) that organised the event placed a study report there, according to which at least 20 journalists have been killed and 156 others injured in the country in the last 15 years.
The report based on a survey of local journalists in all the 64 districts identified the southwestern districts as the most vulnerable region in the country for journalists where 14 of them have been killed since 1991.
Senior journalists and journalism teachers at public and private universities who took part in the discussion bitterly criticised the law minister and two of his cabinet colleagues for their recent FROM PAGE 1
comments against the press, saying such remarks encourage the hoodlums who do not believe in press freedom.
They also interpreted the present situation in the country as not congenial to independent journalism and urged the government high-ups to act as a supporting force in countering those who threaten press freedom.
Defending himself, the law minister asserted that the present government will not enact any law or take any step contrary to the independence of the press, though there are pressures on him from certain quarters to do so.
"The government will not impose anything," he said, "as we believe in unrestrained freedom of the press."
Taking part in the discussion, Editor and Publisher of The Daily Star Mahfuz Anam referred to the government's criticism of the media for tarnishing the country's image and asked, "How can the media improve the country's image when the government is yet to take a single step to halt corruption?"
He said, "A responsible government should take account of the media reports and inquire the facts. And if the reports are found true, the government should act immediately."
Instead of blaming the media, the government should co-operate with it to unearth unethical business practices, corruption in the bureaucracy and elsewhere, appropriation of public property by politicians and abuse of power, said the senior journalist.
The Daily Sangbad Executive Editor Manjurul Ahsan Bulbul also lamented that some senior minis-
ters were making irresponsible comments about the media, which, he said, would encourage the people working against the press. Referring to a comment of Moudud he said, "We rather have witnessed an exercise of the 'freedom to lie' not by the mainstream media outlets but by the state-owned news agency within just three days of the minister's comment."
University of Liberal Arts Bangladesh School of Social Science Dean Prof Shakhwat Ali Khan chaired the discussion, where Dhaka University Department of Mass Communication and Journalism Chairperson Prof Golam Rahman, Press Information Department Principal Information Officer Abu Zafar, Jatiya Press Club General Secretary Shawkat Mahmud, Daily Jugantor Deputy Editor Sohrab Hasan and Crime Reporters Association of Bangladesh General Secretary Harun-ur-Rashid also spoke.
MMC Executive Director Quamrul Hasan Manju moderated the programme and KM Robiul Alam placed the MMC study report.