(RSF/IFEX) – On 26 December 2002, RSF voiced its outrage at the Bangladeshi government’s decision to use the Special Powers Act to hold journalist Saleem Samad for another month. The one-month extension was obtained on 24 December, the same day that the high court ruled that Samad should be released on bail. Samad, who is […]
(RSF/IFEX) – On 26 December 2002, RSF voiced its outrage at the Bangladeshi government’s decision to use the Special Powers Act to hold journalist Saleem Samad for another month. The one-month extension was obtained on 24 December, the same day that the high court ruled that Samad should be released on bail. Samad, who is an RSF correspondent, was arrested on 29 November for collaborating with two British journalists from Britain’s Channel 4 television who were preparing a documentary on the political situation in Bangladesh.
“The government made an unjustified and abusive decision just as Samad’s family and friends were getting ready to celebrate his release under the high court’s orders,” RSF Secretary-General Robert Ménard said in a letter to Interior Minister Altaf Hossain Chowdhury. The organisation called for Samad’s immediate release and the charges of “conspiracy” and “sedition” to be dropped.
“One wonders why Samad is still in prison while the primary accused, Zaiba Malik, Bruno Sorrentino and Priscilla Raj, have already been released,” Ménard said. “If the Dhaka government wants to take Reporters Without Borders to task for denouncing repeated press freedom violations in Bangladesh, it should use the international judicial system and stop harassing our correspondent.”
The government has provided no information about its reasons for extending Samad’s detention under the Special Powers Act. Since its adoption in 1974, the act has been used to justify thousands of abusive detentions. During the 2001 election campaign, Prime Minister Begum Khaleda Zia promised to repeal the act, but instead her government has used it to jail dozens of opponents and journalists since October 2001. In 2000, a parliamentary inquiry found that 80 percent of the proceedings initiated by the Bangladeshi authorities under this act failed to result in a conviction.
Shahriar Kabir, a journalist and human rights activist, has also been detained since 8 December under the Special Powers Act for providing information to the Channel 4 team on the political situation. He was transferred to Gazipur prison, north of Dhaka, on 22 December. Another human rights activist who had assisted the Channel 4 team, Mainul Islam Khan, had to flee the country for fear of being arrested.
