Proposed cyber-security bill threatens media freedom in Bangladesh
Bangkok, August 24, 2016–The Committee to Protect Journalists called today on Bangladesh’s legislature to scrap proposed cyber-security legislation that would impose severe penalties for disseminating online material deemed to be anti-state or a threat to national security or public order. The Digital Security Act 2016 was approved on August 22 by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s…
Bangladesh journalists could face 14 years in prison for refuting rumor
New York, August 12, 2016 — Bangladeshi authorities should drop all criminal proceedings against three journalists from the news website banglamail24, release them immediately, and restore press credentials to nine of their colleagues, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. The three journalists could face a maximum sentence of 14 years in prison if charged…
Bangladesh arrests suspect in attack on publisher, jails second publisher
New York, June 16, 2016 — The Committee to Protect Journalists welcomes reports of the arrest of a suspected member of a banned Islamist group accused of participating in an October 2015 attack on a publishing house. The arrest of Mohammed Sumon Hossain came amid a broader sweep of thousands of suspected criminals across Bangladesh,…
Bangladesh should take urgent steps to protect freedom of expression
The U.N. Human Rights Council will convene in Geneva for its next session today. Ahead of this meeting, international groups working on press freedom and freedom of expression, including the Committee to Protect Journalists, made a joint submission to the council calling for urgent and concrete steps to reverse the deteriorating climate for free expression…
CPJ condemns murder of Bangladeshi LGBT journalist
New York, April 25, 2016–The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the murder today of Bangladeshi journalist Xulhaz Mannan. The senior editor at gay rights magazine Roopbaan, who also worked at the U.S. Agency for International Development, was stabbed to death at his home in Dhaka alongside a friend, according to reports. A third person, described…
Secular blogger hacked and shot to death in Bangladesh
New York, April 7, 2016–Unidentified assailants attacked blogger Nazimuddin Samad with sharp weapons and then fatally shot him in Dhaka Wednesday night, according to news reports. The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on the Bangladeshi government to determine the motive for the killing, and to take immediate steps to bring his attackers to justice
CPJ Newsletter: March edition
Landmark conviction in 2000 attack on Colombian journalist A Colombian court on February 26 convicted a former paramilitary fighter in the kidnapping and torture of Colombian journalist Jineth Bedoya and sentenced him to 11 years in prison. The fighter, Alejandro Cárdenas Orozco, was also ordered to pay a fine of around US$17,500.
Slideshow: Remembering Avijit Roy, one year after blogger’s murder in Dhaka
On the day Avijit Roy was murdered in Bangladesh’s capital, Dhaka, I had only just left the country. When I arrived in India later that day a Bangladeshi journalist broke the news to me that Roy had been hacked to death and his wife Rafida Ahmed Bonya, also a blogger, had been critically injured.
79 cases and counting: Legal challenges pile up for Daily Star editor who admitted error in judgment
When Mahfuz Anam, editor of one of Bangladesh’s most respected newspapers, admitted recently to a lapse in editorial judgment several years ago, he could not have predicted the legal backlash that would ensue. Anam’s admission that he published unsubstantiated information accusing Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina of corruption has led to a barrage of defamation and…
From Charlie Hebdo in Paris to bloggers in Bangladesh, extremists target press
Thursday marks one year since two gunmen burst into the Paris offices of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and opened fire. Over the following year, CPJ documented the deaths of 28 journalists who were killed for their work by Islamic militant groups such as Islamic State and Al-Qaeda. This StoryMap charts the deadly attacks that took…