(RSF/IFEX) – In a 31 December 1999 letter to Home Affairs Minister Mohammed Nasim, RSF protested the ransacking of the offices of “Weekly Evidence”, published in Dhaka. RSF also expressed its concern that police were looking for the editor without a warrant for his arrest. The organisation asked officials to identify and bring to trial […]
(RSF/IFEX) – In a 31 December 1999 letter to Home Affairs Minister Mohammed Nasim, RSF protested the ransacking of the offices of “Weekly Evidence”, published in Dhaka. RSF also expressed its concern that police were looking for the editor without a warrant for his arrest. The organisation asked officials to identify and bring to trial those responsible for the raid and drew the minister’s attention to deteriorating working conditions for Bangladeshi journalists, who are too often victims of political violence.
RSF also protested the 26 December arrest by policemen of the editor of the web magazine www.meghbarta.net, Anu Muhammod. He was attending a conference in Chittagong city.
According to information collected by RSF, on 30 November a group of unknown attackers raided the offices of the English-language “Weekly Evidence”, destroying computers, furniture and vehicles. It was the third time that the weekly had been the target of an attack. On the same day, police officers searched the home of the newspaper’s managing editor, who went into hiding. On 28 November, “Weekly Evidence” was suspended by a judge at the Dhaka court because of an error in the address of the editor which appeared in the imprint. The weekly was authorised to republish by the high court. According to the editor, Manzoor Quader, who is also a leader of the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), the newspaper has been a victim of deliberate obstruction by some members of the government. In May, the managing editor was arrested and released on bail.
