Silencing freedom of speech and muscling the press under the Digital Security Act has become a common phenomenon in Bangladesh as some 225 cases of harassment of journalists was reported from April 2020 to March 2021, said the International Federation of Journalists.
From April 2020 onward, at least three professional journalists – Iliyas Hossain, Julhas Uddin and Borhan Uddin Muzakkir – were killed in Bangladesh in the line of duty, said the organisation in its report on South Asia Press Freedom report-2020-21.
The Cyber Crimes Tribunal in Dhaka, established in 2013, has 3,324 cases pending with it most of which are filed based on Facebook posts under the Digital Security Act, which was passed in 2018 replacing the erstwhile Information and Communication Technology Act of 2006, according to the report.
The court so far disposed only 128 of the 3,324 cases between 2013 and March 4, 2021, and obtained only 30 convictions, the report said.
The first seven days of May 2020 saw the arrest of eight journalists and writers under the DSA over their news articles and Facebook posts, IFJ said.
The report highlighted the disappearance of Shafiqul Islam Kajol, a photographer and editor of Pakkhakal Shafiqul magazine, who went missing on March 10, 2020, a day after being charged under the DSA by a ruling party lawmaker.
Fifty-three days after his disappearance, the journalist turned up on World Press Freedom Day on May 3, 2020, in police custody at a border town 150 miles from where he had last been seen.
The list goes long as freelance journalist Jamal Mir, cartoonist Ahmed Kabir Kishore, writer Mushtaq Ahmed, editor of Haorancholer Katha and district correspondent of SATV Mohammad Mahtab Uddin Talukder, editor of Pakkhakal Shafiqul Islam Kajol, Dainik Grameen Darpan news editor Ramzan Ali Pramanik; staff reporter Shanta Banik and publisher and editor of online news portal Narsingdi Pratidin Khandaker Shahin were arrested under the DSA.
The IFJ detailed many cases in which journalists were assaulted and killed till March 2021, alleging that they were targeted because they were carrying out their duties of exposing irregularities and crimes committed by ruling party members.
Covid-19 upheaval on journalist’s livelihood and security
Covid-19 had shaken up the media industry with at least 37 journalists having succumbed and 14 others died with symptoms of Covid-19 but without being tested.
“A total of 1,346 journalists, including 946 in Dhaka, were infected with coronavirus till April 15, 2021. The virus infected 218 media houses including 131 newspapers, 32 TV channels and 48 internet portals, five radios and two news agencies,” said the IFJ quoting Our Media Our Rights, a social media platform of Dhaka-based journalists.
“Around 1,250 journalists lost their jobs while several thousand journalists are facing salary cut or irregular payments amid the pandemic,” claimed Our Media Our Rights.
