Bangladesh authorities must immediately drop all charges against journalist Shofiuzzaman Rana and investigate the harassment of five journalists in Lalmonirhat, the Committee to Protect Journalists said yesterday.
On March 5, a mobile court jailed Shofiuzzaman Rana, the Nakla correspondent of Desh Rupantor, for six months for "misbehaving" with a government official while he was trying to collect information through the RTI Act from the UNO office.
"CPJ welcomes a government investigation into the retaliatory jailing of Bangladeshi journalist Shofiuzzaman Rana. Journalists should not face reprisal merely for seeking information," said Beh Lih Yi, CPJ's Asia program coordinator, in a report on the CPJ website.
"Authorities should launch a transparent probe into the confinement of five correspondents in a government office in Lalmonirhat and ensure that journalists are not harassed with impunity."
Rana's arrest unfolded after an office assistant refused to provide the journalist with a receipt for his RTI application. Rana then called the Sherpur deputy commissioner, or district magistrate, to resolve the issue, Mustafa Mamun, acting editor of Desh Rupantor, told CPJ citing Rana.
The chief of the local government office arrived at the scene and shouted at Rana, saying, "You are a broker journalist" (an insult used to refer to a media member who makes money through one-sided stories).
Police then arrived at the scene, arrested the journalist, and seized his two mobile phones. Rana was held for one week in Sherpur District Jail and released on bail on March 12. A local magistrate court is scheduled to hear Rana's appeal against the verdict on April 16.
Separately, on March 14, employees at an assistant land commissioner's office in Lalmonirhat held Mahfuz Sazu, a correspondent for the broadcaster mytv and the newspaper The Daily Observer, after the journalist filmed a land dispute hearing allegedly conducted by an unauthorised official, according to news reports, Bangladeshi Journalists in International Media, and the journalist, who spoke to CPJ.
Sazu said that after filming the land dispute hearing, he interviewed three people connected to the case in the corridor of the assistant land commissioner's office when an official unsuccessfully attempted to confiscate his phone.
The official then called the assistant land commissioner. At the same time, the office staff escorted the three people he interviewed out of the building and locked the entrance, leaving the journalist confined within the premises, Sazu said.
Sazu told CPJ that the journalist's four colleagues later entered the building with the assistance of a local ward councilor but were also locked inside the premises. The journalists were: Mazharul Islam Bipu, a correspondent for the broadcaster Independent Television; SK Sahed, a correspondent for the newspaper Daily Kalbela; Neon Dulal, a correspondent for the broadcaster Asian TV; Liakat Ali, a correspondent for the newspaper Daily Nabochatona.
The assistant land commissioner then arrived at the scene and shouted at the journalists, calling them "brokers" and threatening to send them to jail via a mobile court, Sazu said, adding that the journalists also heard him telling an unidentified individual on the phone that he would file legal cases against them.
Later that day, the divisional commissioner of Rangpur issued an order transferring the assistant land commissioner to another locality. As of yesterday, the order had not been executed, and no further legal or administrative action had been taken, Sazu told CPJ.
According to the CPJ report, Arafat did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the incident in Lalmonirhat.
