Bangladesh / Asia

  
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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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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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…

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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.

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Bangladeshis read a newspaper pasted to a wall in Dhaka. The editor of The Daily Star, based in the city, is facing multiple legal cases after saying he published unsubstantiated reports several years ago. (AP/A.M. Ahad)

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…

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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…

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Bangladeshi protesters hold torches in a demonstration against the murder of Niloy Neel, the fourth blogger killed in the country this year. (AFP/Munir uz Zaman)

Case will test Bangladesh and its commitment to justice for bloggers

Murder charges filed this week against five suspected Islamist militants in the killing of a Bangladesh blogger give the government a chance to prove it’s serious about protecting the nation’s bloggers. The formal charges, filed in connection with the March killing of Washiqur Rahman Babu, mark the first time charges have been brought in any…

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Bangladeshi activists protest the killing of secular blogger Niloy Neel in Dhaka on August 11, 2015. (AP/ A.M. Ahad)

Hasina government must do more to protect Bangladesh’s bloggers

Asif Mohiuddin’s stab wounds are still visible two years on. In January 2013, the outspoken Bangladeshi blogger narrowly escaped death after he was attacked near his office by knife-wielding assailants. His attackers stabbed him nine times on his neck, head, and back, narrowly missing his spine.

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A 2007 election poster for Bangladesh's Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. Independent journalists in the country say the press is coming under pressure from her government. (AFP/Jewel Samad)

Mission Journal: Bangladeshi press reined in as Hasina exerts authority

Matiur Rahman Chowdhury has been the host of “Frontline,” a popular Bangla-language news show, for five years. Aired live three times a week, the show gained notoriety for bringing politicians, members of civil society, and journalists together to discuss current affairs. Chowdhury distinguished himself from many of his counterparts with his soft-spoken but firm demeanor…

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Journalists surround Bangladeshi Attorney General Mahbubey Alam following a verdict at the International Crimes Tribunal court premises in Dhaka on January 21, 2013. (AFP/Munir uz Zaman)

Restrictive broadcast policy in Bangladesh raises concerns

This week, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s cabinet approved a restrictive policy governing Bangladesh’s broadcast media. While the policy calls for the creation of an independent commission to oversee electronic media–a positive step, in principle–it’s unclear how and how quickly the commission will be formed. Meanwhile, the policy restricts what can be broadcast, raising red flags.

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