Bangladesh / Asia

  
The Bangladesh flag is waved during a cricket match in Dhaka in early 2018. At least four journalists were attacked in Bangladesh while covering local elections in July. (AFP/Munir Uz Zaman)

Journalists in Bangladesh attacked and beaten covering local election

New York, August 1, 2018–The Committee to Protect Journalists today condemned violence against journalists covering local elections in the Bangladesh city of Sylhet, and called on authorities to identify and hold the attackers to account. At least four journalists were beaten, allegedly by police and supporters of the ruling Awami League party, according to news…

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Bangladeshi editor Mahmudur Rahman (center) celebrates his release on bail from prison in Gazipur on November 23, 2016. Rahman was injured in an attack outside a courtroom in Kushtia on July 22, 2018. (AFP/Stringer)

Bangladeshi editor injured in attack outside courtroom

New York, July 24, 2018–The Committee to Protect Journalists today strongly condemned Sunday’s attack on editor Mahmudur Rahman in Kushtia, a city in Bangladesh, and urged the authorities to investigate and bring the perpetrators to justice.

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A man reads a newspaper outside a Dhaka flower stall in 2015. Bangladesh's press say a climate of fear amid legal action, attacks, and threats makes covering sensitive issues difficult. (AP)

Bangladesh’s press say they are losing the courage to report amid threats from all sides

Nazmul Huda pointed his TV camera at garment workers demonstrating for higher wages in Savar, on the outskirts of Dhaka, and at the police firing tear gas and rubber bullets at them. It took a while for police to notice the ETV reporter, and they were furious. After all, they had ordered him to leave…

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Journalists and protesters hold placards outside an Istanbul court on October 31, 2017, calling for the release of jailed colleagues, including Turkish reporter Ahmet Şık. Turkey is the worst jailer of journalists in 2017. (AP/Lefteris Pitarakis)

Record number of journalists jailed as Turkey, China, Egypt pay scant price for repression

For the second year in a row, the number of journalists imprisoned for their work hit a historical high, as the U.S. and other Western powers failed to pressure the world’s worst jailers–Turkey, China, and Egypt–into improving the bleak climate for press freedom. A CPJ special report by Elana Beiser

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Bangladeshi journalists cover proceedings outside a Dhaka court in May 2016. The country's vaguely worded defamation law is creating a climate of self censorship, local reporters say. (AP/A.M. Ahad)

Bangladesh’s defamation law is ‘avenue to misuse power,’ local journalists say

It started with a Facebook post about a goat and ended in a day in jail for Bangladeshi journalist Abdul Latif Morol, when a fellow journalist filed a defamation complaint against him.

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A vigil in Sliema, Malta, for Daphne Caruana Galizia, a critical blogger killed in a car bombing in October 2017. (AFP/Matthew Mirabelli)

Getting Away with Murder

CPJ’s 2017 Global Impunity Index spotlights countries where journalists are slain and the killers go free

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Rohingya Muslim refugees stand on a street in the Bangladeshi town of Ukhia on September 15, 2017. Bangladesh has detained two Myanmar journalists who are reporting on the crisis. (AFP/Dominique Faget)

Bangladesh detains two Myanmar journalists covering Rohingya crisis

New York, September 15, 2017–Bangladeshi authorities should immediately release two Myanmar journalists who police detained on September 7 and drop all charges against them, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.

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A farmer waits for customers to buy his goats in a Dhaka market, December 18, 2017. (AFP/Farjana Khan Godhury)

Bangladeshi journalist arrested for reporting death of goat

New York, August 1, 2017–Bangladeshi authorities should drop all charges against Abdul Latif Morol and should release him without delay, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. Police in Dumaria, roughly 200 kilometers (124 miles) southwest of Dhaka, yesterday arrested the journalist on defamation charges after he wrote on Facebook that a goat had died.

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Bangladeshi embassies told to monitor journalists traveling abroad

Washington, D.C., May 19, 2017–The Bangladeshi Foreign Ministry should immediately and publicly rescind its instructions to the country’s embassies to monitor journalists traveling abroad, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.

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Bangladeshi journalist fatally shot covering street battles

Washington, D.C., February 3, 2017–Bangladeshi authorities should vigorously investigate and bring to justice those responsible for killing Abdul Hakim Shimul, a journalist for the daily Samakal newspaper, who died today from gunshot wounds sustained while covering political unrest yesterday, according to news reports.

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