Different organisations alleged that the journalists are still facing oppression by holders of black money and from the people in power and demanded an end to the oppression.
The organisations, in separate statements on the occasion of World Press Freedom Day, condemned sacking of journalists in the country while they had been passing tough time during the spread of COVID-19.
In 1993, the United Nations General Assembly declared May 3 as the World Press Freedom Day. This year, the theme of the day is ‘journalism without fear or favour’.
Bangladesh Nationalist Party secretary general in a statement on Sunday also urged the authorities to ensure salaries and allowances regularly and adequate risk allowances as journalists had been fighting the ongoing pandemic as frontline fighter providing people true and verified information.
He expressed concern over oppression on journalists by the government and ruling party men as journalists had been publishing the truth to establish a just society.
Bangladesh Federal Union of Journalists faction president Molla Jalal and secretary general Shaban Mahmud and Dhaka Union of Journalists’ faction president Quddus Afrad and general secretary Sazzad Alam Khan Topu, in the backdrop of sacking media workers, urged the media house owners no to be inhumane and not to sack journalists.
It appears that the owners had taken the coronavirus pandemic as an opportunity to sack journalists, they alleged.
At least 12 journalists were injured while performing their professional duty, nine were assaulted, two were attacked, three were threatened, one arrested, and 32 journalists were sued in the first quarter of this year in the country, according to rights organisation Odhikar.
