THE government’s hostility towards oppositional journalism has found many expressions over the past few years, the latest incident … being the Tejgaon police’s professed aspiration for taking some senior journalists … of daily Amar Desh to remand for interrogation. …The police inspector concerned said … that [the journalists] needed to be remanded in custody for interrogation about their full names and permanent addresses. Earlier, the police filed a case against the journalists on [the] charge of obstructing government officials from arresting the editor of the Bangla daily … in June 2001. However, the excuse that the police officer had put forward for taking the newsmen [into] custody was a lame one….

Notably, the ruling Awami League pledged before the last general elections that the party, if voted to power, would ensure democratic freedom of the mass media … but journalists have not been freed from the traditional legal and extra-legal harassments and intimidations by the government and the governing party. The media industry has witnessed under the present regime, as it did in the past … newspapers and a TV channel [closed down] on various pretexts. The government … including the prime minister has frequently been displaying … intolerance [of] the critical role of the media, which is … important for the democratic transformation of the state … and accountability of elected representatives….

…[W]e urge the government … to keep in mind its legal and constitutional obligations to safeguard the freedom of the media and to stop harassing media practitioners. Side by side with that, we request the working journalists as well as the owners of media outfits to consolidate their strength to protect media practitioners from government repression. This is important for … the democratic growth of society and the unhindered progress of democratic journalism.  — (Oct 23)