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In
2001, the anti-corruption watchdog group Transparency
International ranked Bangladesh the most corrupt
country in the world. The almost complete
collapse of law and order in the country was
seen as one of the prime reasons behind the
fall from power of the Awami League.
The year began with a brutal attack on a young
reporter that shocked a press corps already
hardened by death threats, harassment, and
assaults. On January 25, the private army
of a local politician in the southeastern
Feni District, Joynal Hazari, beat Tipu Sultan,
a correspondent for the United News of Bangladesh,
with iron rods and wooden bats, crushing the
bones in his hands, arms, and legs so that
he would never be able to work as a reporter
again. The reporter was attacked for his writing
on Hazari's abuse of power.
Outraged local journalists organized a campaign
on Tipu's behalf to raise money for his medical
treatment abroad. They also aggressively pursued
his story, covering the circumstances of his
attack, naming those responsible, and consistently
holding the government accountable for its
failure to prosecute the assailants.
The government of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina
did little or nothing to investigate the attack
because Hazari was a member of parliament
from the ruling Awami League in a constituency
that the party decided it could not afford
to lose. But when Hasina's term ended in mid-July,
Parliament was dissolved, and a politically
neutral caretaker government was established
to supervise the
forthcoming general elections.
Once the Awami League no longer held the reins
of government, Joynal Hazari's once formidable
powers in Feni seemed to evaporate. On July
31, the caretaker government charged Hazari—along
with dozens of his associates—in connection
with the murders of three villagers in an
attack that seemed politically motivated.
That same week, according to the Bangladesh
Centre for Development,
Journalism, and Communication, the government
replaced Feni's police chief and deputy commissioner
and ordered the new officials to investigate
the attack on Tipu Sultan thoroughly.
Hazari went into hiding. He ultimately lost
his parliamentary seat in October elections
that brought to power an alliance led by the
Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP).
Tipu's story revealed the dangers facing Bangladeshi
journalists who expose corruption, the active
involvement and tacit complicity of political
leaders in violence against journalists, and
the politicization of law enforcement agencies.
"It seems that we, the people in the
press, have become the most vulnerable group
of professionals in the country right now,"
wrote The Daily Star, Bangladesh's leading
English-language daily, a few days after the
attack on Tipu.
Even after the cries for help and pledges
from the government to uphold press freedom,
local journalists continued to come under
attack. Nahar Ali, a reporter for the Khulna
newspaper Anirban, was killed in April because
"he knew too much" about the workings
of local criminal syndicates and the complicity
of some local authorities in their activities.
Another local reporter, Ahsan Ali (not related
to Nahar Ali), was tortured and killed in
July. As is often the case in Bangladesh,
the motive for his murder remained unclear.
Because of the extent of local corruption,
police investigations are themselves often
suspect, making it difficult to determine
the reasons behind a journalist's murder,
let alone secure justice in a case.
Pressure from local journalists did help in
efforts to prosecute the assassins of Shamsur
Rahman, a senior correspondent for the daily
Janakantha who frequently contributed to the
BBC's Bengali service and had reported on
smuggling gangs and illegal arms trafficking
along Bangladesh's western border with India.
Rahman was gunned down on July 16, 2000, as
he was working alone at night at his office
in downtown Jessore. His case, like Tipu's,
galvanized the media and forced police to
launch a high-profile investigation.
Though the investigation moved slowly, and
some journalists remain skeptical of the results,
police filed charges against 16 people in
May 2001. In a bizarre twist, five of those
accused were journalists, including the Jessore
bureau chief of the daily Inqilab. By August,
at least 10 of the suspects had been arrested,
but no trial date was set, according to local
journalists.
During the last five years, six Bangladeshi
journalists have been killed for their reporting.
None of those cases has yet been successfully
prosecuted. Equally disturbing were the increasingly
vicious attacks. Tipu Sultan was not the only
one left crippled by an assault. Reporter
Prabir Shikder had his bullet-ridden right
leg amputated following an attack that also
left him with multiple stab injuries and
bullet wounds in his right hand and arm. Shikder
was attacked for his reporting on alleged
war crimes committed by a prominent businessman
during Bangladesh's 1971 war for independence
from Pakistan, according to police.
Bulu Sharif, a reporter for the daily Jugantor,
was stabbed in his face, neck, and left eye
one day after he wrote an article explaining
why a local BNP leader seemed unlikely to
win a seat in the October parliamentary elections.
Death threats, which for years have been common
in Bangladesh, were taken much more seriously,
and small groups of journalists sometimes
evacuated their towns, going underground for
periods when they felt particularly insecure.
Unfortunately, there was no particular reason
to believe that conditions for the press would
improve under the leadership of Prime Minister
Khaleda Zia, the archrival of Sheikh Hasina.
Zia heads the Bangladesh Nationalist Party,
the leading partner in a four-party coalition
government that includes two religious parties
not known for their tolerance of press freedom,
the Jamaat-e-Islami and
Islami Oikya Jote. Though the new home minister
promised to launch fresh investigations into
the murders of all journalists killed during
the Awami League's rule, no action had been
taken by year's end. CPJ sources said the
announcement might have been nothing more
than a partisan jab at the previous government.
The most direct threat to press freedom from
the central government actually occurred under
Zia, when authorities arrested Shahriar Kabir,
a documentary filmmaker and newspaper columnist,
for reporting on a wave of attacks against
Bangladesh's Hindu minority community following
the parliamentary elections. Supporters of
Zia's Bangladesh Nationalist Party were allegedly
responsible for
these attacks, targeting Hindus in part for
their tendency to favor the Awami League.
Kabir was arrested on November 22 under Bangladesh's
notorious Special Powers Act, a law that Zia,
while out of power, had pledged to abolish
since authorities have often abused it to
punish the political opposition. He was later
charged with treason, a crime punishable by
death. Kabir was released on bail on January
20, 2002.
January 25
Tipu Sultan, United News of Bangladesh
ATTACKED
Tipu, a correspondent for the independent
wire service United News of Bangladesh (UNB),
was crippled in a brutal attack in the southeastern
district of Feni.
On the night of January 25, Tipu was stopped
along a road by a group of armed men working
for Joynal Hazari, a member of parliament
from Feni for the ruling Awami League. Tipu
later told CPJ that he heard one of the attackers
call Hazari on a cell phone and receive instructions
to "cut off my hands and legs."
The gang first took Tipu to a community center,
where they beat him severely and told him,
"This is the order of Hazari." They
then moved him to another building, where
he was beaten unconscious with bats, hockey
sticks, and iron rods.
Tipu was hospitalized with gaping wounds and
multiple broken bones and fractures in his
hands, arms, and legs. Doctors feared he would
suffer permanent disabilities.
Tipu says the attack came in reprisal for
his reporting on Hazari, who had an infamous
reputation as the "Godfather of Feni."
In 2000, the journalist won UNB's award for
best correspondent in recognition of his courageous
and enterprising reporting.
On January 28, Tipu failed in his initial
attempt to file a police report accusing Hazari
and 14 others of assaulting him. Police refused
to register the case because one of Hazari's
followers had already filed a report accusing
local opposition party activists of involvement
in the attack. Local journalists said the
false case was registered to frustrate Tipu's
efforts to secure legal redress.
However, Tipu successfuly filed a police report
against Hazari on September 17, during the
rule of the non-partisan caretaker government
that presided over Bangladesh in the run-up
to parliamentary elections. Hazari had, by
that time, gone underground in order to avoid
prosecution on murder charges in an unrelated
case.
The attack on Tipu Sultan became symbolic
of the rising tide of violence directed against
the press in Bangladesh. Leading journalists
championed Tipu's cause, and two of the leading
national dailies, the Bengali-language Prothom
Alo and English-language Daily Star, launched
a fund drive to help pay for his medical treatment
abroad. That money, together with funds raised
by international organizations (including
CPJ), allowed Tipu to seek treatment at the
world-class Bumrungrad Hospital in Bangkok.
By the end of 2001, after multiple operations
and extensive physical therapy, Tipu had regained
the use of his right hand, which attackers
had taken special pains to destroy. "Now
I am going to start my previous profession
within the shortest possible period,"
he wrote in an e-mail to CPJ in December.
"Though I am still not fully cured, now
I can write with my right hand."
April
19
Purbokone
ATTACKED
Iskander Ali Chowdhury, Purbokone
ATTACKED
Jalaluddin Ahmed Chowdhury, Purbokone
ATTACKED
At around 1:30 a.m., a group of men led by
Mamunur Rashid Mamun, a ward commissioner
in the Chittagong City Corporation, forced
their way into the offices of the local Bengali-language
daily Purbokone.
The intruders assaulted chief subeditor Iskander
Ali Chowdhury and journalist Jalaluddin Ahmed
Chowdhury and forced them out of the building.
The journalists were threatened and then shoved
into a nearby roadside ditch.
In an April 24, front-page interview in the
Bengali-language daily Sangbad, Mamun admitted
going to the Purbokone offices but denied
attacking the journalists. Mamun maintained
that he visited the newspaper to ask why Purbokone,
an independent publication, did not give favorable
coverage to the ruling Awami League.
In the Sangbad interview, the commissioner
also stated that he had the blessings of senior
party officials and expressed confidence that
he would not face legal reprisals over the
incident. However, police in Panchlaish Thana
charged him under the Public Safety Act.
In an April 24 letter to Prime Minister Sheikh
Hasina, CPJ noted an alarming spate of violence
directed against journalists in Bangladesh
and urging her government to take immediate
action to ensure that these crimes were prosecuted
vigorously. Among the cases raised in the
letter was the attack on the Purbokone journalists.
On April 28, police seized Mamun's property,
under court orders, in an effort to force
the politician to face the charges against
him. Meanwhile, Mamun had gone into hiding
to avoid arrest. The Associated Press reported
that the seizure was "the first step
by the government after a string of attacks
by politicians and criminal gangs against
Bangladesh's beleaguered journalists."
On May 5, in another unprecedented move, the
government offered a 100,000 takas (US$5,400)
reward for information that would help find
Mamun. On May 6, two brothers of the politician
were arrested for allegedly violating wildlife
preservation laws. "Our main aim is to
draw him out of hiding," a police officer
told the AP. On May 7, Mamun surrendered before
the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate's Court
in Chittagong.
Mamun's case was referred to the Public Safety
Act Tribunal in Chittagong, with hearing dates
set for June 24, 25, and 26, according to
the Dhaka-based newspaper The Independent.
CPJ was unable to determine the outcome of
these proceedings.
April
20
Prabir Shikder, Janakantha
ATTACKED
Shikder, Faridpur correspondent for the national
Bengali-language daily Janakantha, was on
a reporting assignment when a group of armed
men ambushed him on the outskirts of town.
The attackers, who had been waiting by the
roadside in a van, threw several Molotov cocktails
at Shikder as he approached on his motorcycle,
according to eyewitness accounts from the
local press. Several of the men then shot
the journalist and stabbed him repeatedly
before fleeing the scene. The reporter was
rushed to Faridpur Medical College Hospital
and later transferred to the National Institute
of Cardiovascular Diseases in Dhaka. Doctors
amputated Shikder's right leg, which was shattered
by bullets. The journalist also sustained
multiple stab injuries and bullet wounds in
his right hand and arm.
Local journalists say Shikder was most likely
attacked for reporting on the alleged collaboration
of prominent local figures with Pakistani
forces during the country's 1971 war for independence
from Pakistan. Shikder had also covered organized
crime and its links to local police.
April
21
Nahar Ali, Anirban
KILLED
Ali, a correspondent for the Khulna-based,
Bengali-language daily Anirban, died shortly
before midnight on April 21, while undergoing
treatment at Khulna Medical College Hospital
for injuries sustained in an attack days earlier.
Late on the night of April 17, masked men
kidnapped Ali from his home in the village
of Shovna, according to local press reports.
The assailants stabbed him, beat him
severely, and broke his hands and legs before
abandoning him on the outskirts of his village,
according to police.
Ali was found unconscious and taken to the
hospital in Khulna, a major city in southwestern
Bangladesh. Doctors said he died due to major
brain damage and profuse bleeding.
Police suggested that members of the outlawed
Biplobi Communist Party may have killed Ali
because of a dispute over ownership of a shrimp
farm. However, journalists in Khulna said
that the investigation lacked credibility
because Ali's reporting had uncovered links
between police and smuggling rings in the
region. CPJ sources said that Ali, who worked
as the Dumuria subdistrict correspondent
for Anirban, was killed because "he knew
too much" about the workings of local
criminal syndicates and the complicity of
some local authorities in their activities.
July
20
Ahsan Ali, free-lancer
KILLED (Motive unconfirmed)
Ali, a stringer for the daily newspaper Jugantor,
was reported missing on July 20 and found
dead on July 22 in an irrigation canal in
Rupganj Village, where he lived. Assailants
had bound the journalist's hands and legs,
burned his face and chest with nitric acid,
and stabbed him to death, according to police.
Ali had received death threats that same week
from a local leader of the ruling Awami League's
youth wing, according to his wife, Shahida
Akhter. Akhter told journalists that the threats
followed Ali's reporting months earlier that
party activists were linked to incidents of
highway robbery on the road from Dhaka to
Chittagong. However, she also suggested that
Ali might have been killed over a
land dispute with some relatives.
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