A United Nations expert and the Committee to Protect Journalists called on Bangladesh authorities to conduct an immediate and impartial investigation into recent attack on Mahinur Khan, brother of exiled journalist Zulkarnain Saer Khan, in the capital’s Mirpur on March 17.
Mary Lawlor, the United Nations special rapporteur on human rights defenders, on her twitter handle stated on Friday night that she was very concerned to hear reports of an assault in Dhaka on brother of UK-based Bangladeshi journalist and human rights defender Zulkarnain.
She also said that Zulkarnain reported on alleged high-level corruption in Bangladesh.
‘I hope to see a swift investigation and call for the protection of Khan’s family.’
New York-based CPJ said on Saturday that in the evening of March 17, in the capital city of Dhaka, four unidentified people beat Mahinur Khan with iron rods and kicked him while accusing his brother of writing ‘about the prime minister’ and ‘against the government,’ according to Al-Jazeera and Zulkarnain Saer Khan, who spoke to the CPJ about the matter over the phone.
The people videoed the attack before leaving the scene, the CPJ said quoting Zulkarnain.
‘The attack on brother of Bangladeshi journalist Zulkarnain Saer Khan is the latest case of harassment of family members of journalists in exile,’ said Beh Lih Yi, CPJ’s Asia programme coordinator.
‘Bangladesh has built a reputation for this heinous form of transnational vengeance. Authorities must ensure that the perpetrators of the attack are held accountable and that the Khan family can live safely.’
The Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, better known as OCCRP, reported that four people in Bangladesh attacked the brother of an OCCRP-affiliated journalist, telling him while they were beating him with iron bars in front of his home in Dhaka that he was being punished for his brother’s critical reporting on prime minister Sheikh Hasina and her government.
