PARIS, July 7: Bangladeshi authorities have withdrawn the publishing license of opposition newspaper Dainik Uttarabanga Barta and have forced a magazine editor into exile, reported Reporters Sans Frontieres (RSF).

According to RSF secretary-general Robert Menard, who condemned the decision in a letter to Moyeen Khan, Bangladesh’s minister of information, “this affair throws new discredit on the commitments of Khaleda Zia’s government in favour of press freedom, for the decision is taken just as the opposition had made a positive gesture in agreeing to sit in Parliament.”

Calling on the government to reverse its decision, RSF also asks that Mr Khan explain “ the reasons for the recent search of the offices of the magazine Linkbangla, which have apparently led the managing director to go into exile out of fear of being arrested.”