New York, January 28, 2005—Intelligence agents have been assigned to look for anyone who might have provided interviews or information for the January 23 New York Times article on the rise of Islamic fundamentalism in Bangladesh, according to a Bangladeshi intelligence source quoted in the Dhaka-based newspaper The Daily Star. The search has been extended…
Around the world, 122 journalists were in prison at the end of 2004 for practicing their profession, 16 fewer than the year before. International advocacy campaigns, including those waged by the Committee to Protect Journalists, helped win the early release of a number of imprisoned journalists, notably six independent writers and reporters in Cuba.
Your Excellency: Today marks the one-year anniversary of the arrest and imprisonment of Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury, the editor and publisher of the tabloid weekly Blitz. The Committee to Protect Journalists strongly condemns Choudhury’s ongoing detention and calls for his immediate and unconditional release.
Remarks by Ann Cooper, Executive Director of CPJ At this event we celebrate the courage of individual journalists and we demonstrate our collective determination to thwart forces that would silence the press. Those collective efforts over the past 12 months have helped win the early release of journalists imprisoned for their work in Tunisia, in…
New York, October 4, 2004—Assailants wielding knives and traditional axes brutally murdered the executive editor of the Bangla-language daily, Durjoy Bangla, late Saturday night in the latest fatal attack on the press in Bangladesh, according to local journalists and press accounts. The Committee to Protect Journalists is investigating the potential motives behind the slaying to…
New York, September 14, 2004—The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the violent attacks by pro-government activists on at least eight journalists covering demonstrations on the Dhaka University campus in the capital, Dhaka, last Saturday, September 11. Members of the ruling Bangladesh Nationalist Party’s youth wing, the Jatiyatabadi Chhatra Dal (JCD), went on a rampage around…
New York, August 25, 2004—Kamal Hossain, the local correspondent for the Bangla-language daily Ajker Kagoj, was abducted and brutally murdered by unknown assailants in the early morning of Sunday, August 22, in Manikcchari, eastern Chittagong District, according to local news reports. The newswire service the United News of Bangladesh (UNB) reported that police discovered Hossain’s…
New York, August 23, 2004—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is deeply concerned about the growing number of threats being made against the popular Bangla-language daily Prothom Alo by Islamic groups in the capital, Dhaka, and in the southeastern Chittagong District. The threats began last week in the wake of Prothom Alo’s investigative series about…