The Editors’ Council on Tuesday expressed concerns over continued attacks on the freedom of the press by some quarters despite assurances from the interim government of protecting the media freedom.
The council, a platform of editors of major national dailies, in a statement on Tuesday said that the first and foremost promise of the new Bangladesh emerging from the August 5 mass uprising was to ensure the press freedom,
They noted with concern that attacks on the press freedom still continued. Â
The statement calling upon all concerned to refrain from such attacks was issued from a meeting of the Editors’ Council at The Daily Star office in the city on Monday with its president and Daily Star editor Mahfuz Anam in the chair.
Despite the promise to ensure the environment for the practice of independent journalism, there were still attacks on the independence of the country’s media from some sections of society, said the statement.
There have been incidents of threatening to attack and besiege the offices of some of the country’s top print media.
Even some newspapers have also appealed to the law enforcement agencies seeking security for their offices in the Dhaka city, said the statement.
The council thinks that if someone has any objection to any news or editorial policy of a newspaper, he or she can express their intellectual position and statement through writing, said the statement.
The attempt to suppress the voices of the media through threats is, however, a repetition of the anti-people practices of the past, it said.
Expressing strong condemnation over the attempts to disrupt the practice and environment of independent journalism, the Editors’ Council urged the government to stop mob justices at all kinds of institutions, including the media outlets.
