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Newsmen not spared

Sharier Khan
The Airport Road was empty. A few brickbats and some burning tyres on the road showed a hartal was in progress. A couple of on-duty journalists were rushing to Tongi on a three-wheeler that had a board written "Press" on its windshield. Suddenly, near Khilkhet, some teenagers and preteenagers stopped the three-wheeler. Wielding hockey sticks, these kids angrily charged the journalists, "Where do you think you are going?"
One of the journalists tried to calm the situation: We are journalists. A kid asked: Show me your identity card.
Not sure if the kid could read or write, the journalist brought out his card. Meanwhile, the other kids were harassing the three-wheeler driver.
Suddenly, a person in his thirties appeared at the scene. He came quickly and drove away the kids. He was apologetic to the journalists: Sorry. Those kids don't understand things. Please go.
That was a picture of the mid-nineties, when the Awami
FROM PAGE 16
League as the opposition party was enforcing an endless number of hartals demanding introduction of a caretaker government system. There was anarchy and there were cocktail blasts. The hartals were imposed on people but still there were certain codes.
The press vehicles and the ambulances were allowed to ply and all groups of pickets were led by at least one leader of the party that was enforcing the hartal. If a journalist got hurt, he or she knew it was accidental, as nobody targeted any journalist.
FAST FORWARD TO 2013
Abu Habib, a reporter of the daily Dainik Janmabhumi based in Satkhira was taking photographs of Jamaat activists vandalising and setting fire to the office of Kaliganj upazila Awami League president in the afternoon of October 29. When Jamaat activists saw him, they attacked him and snatched his camera and mobile phone.
Then they cut off a finger of his left hand.
Such a trend prevailed throughout the year.
On January 5, four photo journalists of four media houses were assaulted and injured by Bangladesh Chhatra League activists in pre-hartal violence.
On April 6 and 7, five journalists including two female journalists were attacked and injured by Hefajat men in hartal and prehartalviolence.
In October, the BGL, police, Jamaat-Shibir and BNP - all alike -- beat up and attacked journalists among other targets. As many as 14 journalists became victims of targeted or random attacks, including an incident on October 29, where Jamaat men severed a thumb of a journalist in Satkhira.
And during the recent blockade enforced by the BNP, with the Jamaat men mainly carrying out attacks during November 25 to November 30, at least eight journalists were injured, including a woman journalist who became a bum victim. A few more journalists were assaulted by the police during their raid on the BNP central office in the capital.
Besides, the opposition's hartal-blockade enforcers hurled bombs on several TV channel offices just to spread their message of terror.
This list excludes a large number of journalists injured during clashes between the police, the ruling party men, and the opposition activists.
The journalists, who used to be newsmakers' friends, have now become enemies of the political parties - not only the BNP and Jamaat but also the ruling party. But due to the nature of the profession, journalists cannot shy away from the streets when an event is taking place. The risk ofbecoming a victim of violence had always been there for a journalist but it has multiplied many times as the press has become a political target.
The opposition activists sometimes attack even journalists of newspapers that support the opposition, while the ruling party men or the police do not hesitate to attack journalists of a pro-government media house.
As the political situation in the last two years became volatile, journalists see a change in the way a hartal or blockade is enforced. Unlike in the past, these programmes are now enforced through terrorist acts like hurling bombs or setting fire to a vehicle on the previous day.
Then on the day of the hartal or blockade, no leader of any rank belonging to the main opposition BNP is seen on the streets. The programme is carried out by hired goons who do not care about what they are doing. As a result, anybody becomes the victim.
Politicians have leased out agitations to criminals who in return would ensure that these politicians go to power. They no longer need journalists to pass on their messages because they no longer even need people to vote them to power. Golumnist Farhad Mazhar summarised their philosophy, saying in a television programme in late October that the media gave birth to terrorism in the country, and that journalists "deserved" to be bombed.