(Media Watch/IFEX) – The following is a Media Watch press release: TWO FOREIGN JOURNALISTS DEPORTED On 11 December 2002, the Bangladeshi government deported two foreign journalists, Zaiba Naz Malik and Leopoldo Bruno Sorrentino. State Minister for Foreign Affairs Reaz Rahman announced the deportation of the Channel 4 TV journalists at a press conference, as an […]
(Media Watch/IFEX) – The following is a Media Watch press release:
TWO FOREIGN JOURNALISTS DEPORTED
On 11 December 2002, the Bangladeshi government deported two foreign journalists, Zaiba Naz Malik and Leopoldo Bruno Sorrentino. State Minister for Foreign Affairs Reaz Rahman announced the deportation of the Channel 4 TV journalists at a press conference, as an “extraordinary gesture.” Both journalists left Bangladesh at 8:50 p.m. via an Emirates flight (EK-337).
Zaiba Malik and Bruno Sorrentino were arrested on 25 November on charges of anti-state activities. They were sent to Dhaka Central Jail on 1 December. Following an extensive interrogation over a five-day period, the journalists were released in the presence of their respective heads of mission, the High Commissioner of the United Kingdom and the Ambassador of Italy, at the Foreign Ministry. The state minister said the two foreign media personnel had acknowledged that they had improperly entered the country on false identities, and had apologized for their act of deception. Both journalists, along with their UK employers, Channel 4 and the Mentorn Production Company, undertook not to malign Bangladesh on false grounds.
Malik and Sorrentino were brought to the Foreign Ministry at around 2:30 p.m. from the Dhaka Central Jail. After their release, they were rushed to the airport to catch their flight out of the country.
After the release of the two foreign journalists, when asked about the fate of two Bangladeshi nationals who helped them, freelance journalist and RSF correspondent Saleem Samad and human rights activist Pricila Raj, the minister said “their cases are altogether different.”
