Ruling party people, government employees, powerful quarters, and organised crime gangs are allegedly behind various kinds of attacks鈥攑hysical, cyber, and mental鈥攐n journalists, squeezing press freedom in Bangladesh.
Rights campaigners and academics believe that deficiencies in the rule of law due to democratic backsliding have exacerbated the situation.
While the government, on various occasions, highlighted the growing number of media outlets as a major indication of press freedom, it was limiting access for journalists to major offices like the secretariat and Bangladesh Bank.
Against this backdrop, the country will observe World Press Freedom Day today, like other countries.
Rights organisation Ain o Salish Kendra recorded 94 incidents of torture, harassment, and intimidation of journalists committed by government employees, leaders of the ruling Awami League and its associated organisations, and other political parties between January 1 and April 22.
According to the rights body, the number of such incidents was 292 in 2023, 226 in 2022, 210 in 2021, 247 in 2020, and 142 in 2019.
Of the 292 incidents in 2023, the number of reported attacks on journalists by the AL and its associated organisations was 38.
The number of such attacks was 55 by law enforcement agencies and other government employees and eight by the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party, the data showed.
A group of people, backed by the ruling party student wing Bangladesh Chhatra League Government Titumir College unit secretary SM Imrul Rudra, attacked Daily Somoyer Alo reporter Sabbir Ahmed on March 22.聽
The investigation officer, sub-inspector Yadul Haque of the Banani police station, said that they could not arrest any suspects as they obtained anticipatory bail from the court following the incident.
The ASK said one journalist was killed each in 2023, 2022, and 2021.
In December 2022, The Business Standard reporter聽 Abu Azad was attacked by a local union parishad member when he went to collect information on illegal brick kilns in Rangunia upazila of Chattogram.聽
One year later, Mohammad Imran Hossain, 30, a correspondent of Dainik Amader Somoy, was killed at about 1:30am on December 31, 2023, in the same area when a jeep collided head-on with his motorcycle on the Chattogram-Kaptai highway.
Imran鈥檚 mother, Ayesha Khatun, told 抖阴精品 that they were looking for justice despite harassment by the police and mounting pressure from powerful local quarters to accept some money and withdraw the case.聽
The case investigation officer, Pradeep Kumar Majumdar, dismissed the allegation.
In September 2022, the Rangunia upazila administration, based on information from Imran, conducted a drive and stopped the construction of a building on government land in the Sharafbhata area.
After the incident, Imran received threats and filed a general diary with the Rangunia Model Police Station.
Mostafa Yousuf, a journalist from Chattogram, said that Imran鈥檚 killing had a chilling effect on environmental journalism in rural areas.聽
Kamal Uddin Ahmed, the chairman of the National Human Rights Commission, said that establishing the rule of law was imperative to uphold press freedom.
He recalled the incident of the killing of journalist Golam Rabbani Nadim in Jamalpur in June 2023.
A group of 15 to 20 men linked to the ruling AL severely beat Nadim and left him unconscious before he was taken to a hospital by bystanders.聽
The Criminal Investigation Department鈥檚 additional police superintendent, Swagata Bhattacharjee, said that they were at the final stage of the investigation in the Nadim murder case.
The United States鈥� 2023 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices stated that media outlets that criticised the Bangladesh government were 鈥榩ressured.鈥�
鈥業nvestigative journalists often complained of their management and of editors 鈥渒illing鈥� reports due to fear of pressure from the government and intelligence agencies,鈥� it said.
鈥楶olitical polarisation and self-censorship remained problems,鈥� the report added.
ASK executive director Faruq Faisel said that the Digital Security Act, now renamed the Cyber Security Act DSA, had created fear among journalists, leading them to self-censorship.
Research carried out by the Centre for Governance Studies found that at least 451 journalists were sued under the DSA in five years starting from 2018 and 255 of them for their journalistic works.
Ali Riaz, a distinguished professor at Illinois State University, said that the ownership pattern and politicisation of media outlets were major impediments to press freedom in Bangladesh.
No comment was available from the state minister for information and broadcasting, Mohammad A Arafat.聽
Md Mustafizur Rahman, the senior secretary of the public security division at the home affairs ministry, said that it was the role of the police to ensure the protection of journalists.
In the past decade, Bangladesh dropped 11 spots to 163rd out of 180 countries in terms of press freedom in 2023, according to Reporters Without Borders.
