More competitive, more dangerous
By Ron Chepesiuk Posted Oct 1 2003
Riot police block a group of Bangladeshi journalists at the national press club gate during a protest rally against government torture in Dhaka, Bangladesh in this December 2002 photo. More than 70 journalists from 22 countries gathered this year in Bangladesh on Feb. 17, to discuss widespread violence against reporters around the world and especially in this Southeast Asian nation.
Bangladesh is a tale of two journalisms. On one hand, the profession is flourishing. For instance, Bangladesh may be one of the world's poorest countries, but its citizens now have more than 50 satellite channels to choose from. Each week, it seems, a new newspaper or magazine hits the newsstands. In Dhaka, there are an estimated 73 Bangla and English-language newspapers, and the number keeps growing.
On the other hand, Bangladesh is one of the world's most dangerous countries for a reporter. Covering the news here can be as dangerous as reporting in a war zone. Five Bangladesh journalists have died in the line of duty since 1998, including three last year. Since the beginning of 2003, the Paris-based Reporters without Borders (RSF) has registered 51 physical attacks against journalists (including 10 attempted killings), 50 death threats, 13 arrests, five abductions and 14 intimidating law suits and prosecutions.
“Corruption exists at all levels and an investigative journalist takes risks reporting the story,” explains Sahid Ullah, an assistant professor of journalism at Chittagong University. “It can even be dangerous to talk with the police.” For the past two years, Transparency International, a German-based organization that monitors corruption globally, ranked Bangladesh the world's most corrupt country.
There seems to be no limit to the type of abuse that a journalist in Bangladesh can experience. For instance: Ahsan Ali, a stringer for the daily newspaper Jugantor, was reported missing on July 20 and found dead on July 22 in an irrigation canal in Rupganj Village. Ali's killers bound his hands and legs, burned his face with nitric acid and then stabbed him. Ali had been investigating corruption in his home area.
Last June, after 21 days of captivity, kidnappers freed Atabar Siddique Khosu, a correspondent for Itefaq, a leading Bangla-language daily. His hands and legs had been shackled and his body bore marks of torture. His family charged that the investigating police officers forced Siddique not to mention the names of the culprits behind his abduction in the statement he gave to them.
In an editorial, The Independent, a Dhaka-based English-language daily, commented that “the kidnapping and brutal treatment of the journalist is one more example of the severely deteriorating law and order situation in the country . . . organized criminal groups are so powerful that they can hit anybody anytime. Journalists of late have been particular targets of their wrath.”
Even the foreign press has not been free of intimidation and censorship. In November of 2002, two United Kingdom based television documentary crewmembers were detained and accused of “sedition,” or in the words of Bangladesh's Home Secretary Muhammad Omar Faruque, “their malicious intent of portraying Bangladesh as an Islamic fanatical country.” The journalists spent 16 days in jail and then were deported after signing a statement agreeing not to use any of their film footage from Bangladesh.
Last July, the Bangladesh government banned an issue of Newsweek for allegedly containing “confusing and objectionable” information about the Quran. Government officials gave no further details.
Bangladesh has the necessary prerequisites for democracy – free elections and a free press – but authorities constantly pressure the media to project what they say is the “country's true image.” Through their actions and words, the powers that be continually show they haven't a clue what role the media should play in Bangladesh.
In a speech to the Overseas Correspondents Association of Bangladesh, Begum Khaleda Zia, Bangladesh's Prime Minister, told the gathering that her government “believed in freedom of the press and would uphold it,” but she added, “Journalists of other countries do not write against their respective countries.”
Over the past year, Zia has made several similar statements before meetings of the South Asia Free Media Conference in the capital Dhaka, the Dhaka Union of Journalists, the Bangladesh Photo Journalists Association and a joint gathering sponsored by the Bangladesh Federal Union of Journalists and the Metropolitan Union of Journalists, among others.
Even foreign journalists are pressured to portray a “correct” image for Bangladesh. In a speech before the Conference of Commonwealth Journalists Association in Dhaka last February, Begum Zia charged that “we have known with deep concern that an organized campaign has been launched, particularly in the foreign media, undermining the position of Bangladesh.”
Mahfuz Anam, the influential editor of The Daily Star, Bangladesh's largest circulating English-language daily, concedes that the country's media should make a concerted effort to find “good stories” to write about, but added, “Our politicians want us to write good stories without them making any effort to do good works.”
On June 11, The Bangladesh government issued a warrant for the arrest of Anam, as well as Matiur Rahman, the editor of the Daily Prothom Alom newspaper, and Abdul Jalil, the Secretary General of the Awami League, the main opposition party. The arrest warrants were issued in response to the publication of a letter Jalil wrote in the two newspapers that was critical of the Bangladesh government's nomination of a senior government official for an executive position in an international organization.
Amnesty International condemned the attack and warned that it would consider anyone detained in connection with the writing of the letter a “prisoner of conscience.” The organization urged the government to “reform the penal code to ensure once and for all no one expressing an opinion peacefully will be detained or imprisoned under the so-called criminal defamation laws.”
Anam noted that “since our independence in 1971, successive Bangladesh governments have talked about the importance of press freedom, but not one of them has gone all out to protect it.”
The fact is, it doesn't matter which political party has been in power, they have all tried to intimidate the press. “The government is always trying to put pressure on the press as a way to undermine the opposition and protect their special interest,” explains Muhammad Ali Asgar, chairman of Chittagong University's journalism department.
The withholding of advertising and the denial of press credentials are two prime ways the authorities try to intimidate the press. In Bangladesh, the government accredits journalists. “In many cases, the government in power will not issue credentials to journalists who have written critically of government policies,” Asgar said.
In Bangladesh, it seems journalists are still looking for a sign the country's leaders will begin practicing what they preach: That the press can play a big role in good governance and in protecting the country against corruption.