(RSF/IFEX) – On 29 July 2002, RSF and the Bangladesh Centre for Development, Journalism and Communication (BCDJC) expressed great concern over the Bangladeshi government’s threat to prosecute the independent daily newspaper “Janakantha” for sedition, in an attempt to force it to reveal its sources for two articles about corruption in police appointments. “The government has […]
(RSF/IFEX) – On 29 July 2002, RSF and the Bangladesh Centre for Development, Journalism and Communication (BCDJC) expressed great concern over the Bangladeshi government’s threat to prosecute the independent daily newspaper “Janakantha” for sedition, in an attempt to force it to reveal its sources for two articles about corruption in police appointments.
“The government has every right to demand a right of reply to an article, but we remind you that the principle of protecting a journalist’s sources, which is under threat in many countries, constitutes one of the fundamentals of press freedom,” RSF Secretary-General Robert Ménard and BCDJC President Nayyemul Islam Khan said in a letter to Interior Minister Altaf Hossain Chowdhury. They urged the minister to stop such harassment and respect the right of journalists not to reveal their sources.
After the article appeared on 8 July, the Interior Ministry sent the newspaper a threatening letter, accusing it of trying to demoralise the police and giving it two days to supply the names of the sources for the story. Four days after the ultimatum expired, the ministry repeated its demand in another letter. A third letter, dated 21 July, threatened the newspaper with prosecution under Articles 131 and 132 of the Criminal Code, which include provisions for very heavy punishment for the crime of “sedition”. The letter also accused the newspaper of having tried again to demoralise the police by publishing another article about the purge of 36 police officers, because they were veterans of the 1971 war of independence. The newspaper’s response to the government’s harassment has been that articles about corruption can help the government punish those responsible.
RSF previously denounced the harassment of the newspaper in January (see IFEX alert of 18 January 2002). On 16 January, the company that supplies Dhaka with electricity (DESA) cut off power to “Janakantha”‘s printing facility in Dhaka. According to one DESA employee, the order to cut the printing facility’s power “came from the top.” On 14 January, Kabir Uddin Hannu, an elected official affiliated with the ruling Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), from a village in southern Bangladesh, along with his henchmen, violently struck Shawkat Milton, a “Janakantha” staff correspondent in Barisal. Several days earlier, on 8 January, Reazzudin Jami, a “Janakantha” correspondent in Brahmanbaria (eastern Bangladesh), was assaulted by armed activists of the BNP’s youth movement. The government stopped buying advertising space in “Janakantha” on 22 November 2001. The decision followed the publication of articles on the harsh abuse allegedly perpetrated by members of the ruling party against Hindu minorities and Awami League militants. In an editorial published on the daily’s front page, the newspaper’s editorial staff affirmed that the decision came from the highest level of government, and not from the Film and Publications Department, which “simply carries out orders.”
