Paris-based Reporters Without Borders has called upon Bangladesh home minister Asaduzzaman Khan not to ‘intimidate’ broadcaster Zillur Rahman and ‘censor’ his social media posting.
The RSF came up with the call on Thursday against the backdrop of Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission’s move asking Twitter to take action against one of Zillur’s tweets in which he wrote on December 22 that a police team visited his village home to gather ‘information’ on him.
‘RSF condemns censorship and intimidation of Zillur Rahman, one of the most famous TV journalists in Bangladesh, who has just received a message from Twitter warning him that the telecom regulator wanted to delete a tweet where he denounced an abusive police raid,’ the global media freedom campaigner said on Twitter.
‘Indeed, the police wanted to search Zillur's ancestral home in the previous week without any warrant.’
RSF calls upon home minister Asaduzzaman Khan to put an end to such intolerable instances of censorship, intimidation and blatant breaches of the confidentiality of sources.
The BTRC has recently approached the social media giant Twitter and sought action against one of the tweets made by Zillur.
Twitter in an email informed Zillur that, ‘In the interest of transparency, we are writing to inform you that Twitter has received a request from Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission regarding your Twitter account, @zillur, that claims the following content violates the laws of Bangladesh.’
‘We have not taken any action on the reported content at this time as a result of this request,’ the twitter legal team wrote to Zillur.
Zillur on December 22 wrote on his twitter handle, ‘I am astonished to know that a contingent of police visited my ancestral home in Shariatpur to ostensibly gather information about me. I live in Dhaka, and have an office in Dhaka.’
The police admitted that their team visited Zillur’s ancestral home to collect information as ‘a part of the beat-policing activities’.
Zillur is the executive director of the non-government think tank Centre for Governance Studies which recently hosted the Bay of Bengal Conversation in the capital with 200 participants from 70 countries or their representatives including diplomats of various countries stationed in Bangladesh.
Several ministers and Awami League leaders avoided the programme though they were invited to it while a local media started smear campaign against Zillur since then.
