Bangladesh
English-language paper attacked by radical groupPosted Oct 25 2006
The offices of the Weekly Blitz, an English-language newspaper in Dhaka known for the publication of sympathetic articles to Israel, were attacked for the third time this year by a radical Islamist group, according to Dr. Richard Benkin of Chicago, special advisor to The Intelligence Summit on Bangladeshi Affairs and U.S. correspondent for the Weekly Blitz. The first attack on the offices was a bombing in July 2006. Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury, the owner and editor of the paper, says his problems started when it became known he wanted to attend a conference of the Hebrew Writer’s Association in Tel Aviv in 2003. That would have been a violation of the Bangladeshi Passport Act forbidding citizens from visiting Israel and Taiwan, countries with which Bangladesh does not maintain diplomatic relations. At that time, he said, he was taken into police custody, blindfolded, beaten up and interrogated for 10 days instead of receiving the usual $8 fine. “The police wanted to hear me say that I was a spy. When I refused to confess something I did not do, they put me in jail for 17 months, tortured me, broke my legs and refused treatment for my glaucoma.” Choudhury’s trial started Oct. 12. According to Benkin, Choudhury was brought into court on sedition charges at the insistence of a judge who is a member of the radical JMB party, even though the public prosecutor said in court days before the judge’s ruling that the government did not have evidence and would not object to the charges being dropped. “The trail has no jury and the defense is not allowed to present witnesses”, Benkin said, adding that Chodhury is not the only journalist oppressed by Prime Minister Begum Khaleda Zia’s government. But Chodhury is among the few that remained in the country to fight the regime. Benkin also said that in the past, seven other journalists have been brought into court on by the same Ms. Zia’s government on sedition charges, due to their attempt to document Bangladesh's repression of religious minorities. — Ana Adi