DHAKA: A journalists’ rights group, Reporters Without Borders, has expressed deep concern over threats to Bangladeshi reporters by Muslim extremists waging a deadly bombing campaign to impose Islamic law.

“At least 50 journalists and 10 Bangladeshi publications have been threatened by terrorist groups in the past four months over supposedly anti-Islamic articles,” the Paris-based group said.

“After ignoring the terrorist threat for so long, the authorities now have a responsibility to come up with a response,” said the group whose French name is Reporters Sans Frontieres.

The French group released the statement jointly with a Bangladeshi rights group, the Bangladesh Centre For Development of Journalism and Communication.

The groups said all threats against journalists had come from the banned Islamic group Jamayetul Mujahideen or Assembly of Holy Warriors.

Police have linked the group to 434 synchronized blasts on August 17 and several recent suicide bombings that have left a total of 28 people, including four suicide bombers, dead and injured hundreds.

The extremist group has also threatened to blow up three press clubs in the Muslim country which prides itself on its secular constitution.

In the latest incident, the militants threatened to attack a leading newspaper after one of its editor spoke about their group in a BBC report.

Leaflets left at blast sites say the Islamic group wants to establish religious law. The judiciary has been a key target with four lawyers and two judges among the dead.

The latest threats from the Muslim extremists have added to what the French journalists’ group has said is an already dangerous situation for Bangladeshi media figures. They often face physical attacks from political parties, police and criminals unhappy with their reporting.

According to the group, four reporters were killed in 2004.

It accused the government in May of showing no interest in tackling violence against the press. The government rejected the group’s accusations as baseless and said it was fully investigating the journalists’ deaths.—AFP