"I
should kill you," the high-ranking
Dhaka policeman said. He drew his pistol
from his holster, shoved me to the floor
and pressed the muzzle to my temple. "You
are a traitor. You have betrayed your country.
How dare you describe the nation as a haven
for al-Qaeda and the Taliban?"
My troubles began last November when Britain's
Channel 4 asked me to set up interviews
and translate for a crew it was sending
to Bangladesh to make a documentary on the
state of the country. As a long-time reporter
in Bangladesh, I was delighted to take the
job. But these are perilous times in my
homeland. T
he
government holds power with the help of
fundamentalist Islamic groups that are changing
Bangladesh's secular character; local Hindus
and Christians are fleeing to neighboring
India in the thousands, and the authorities
are furious at media reports that Bangladesh
is playing host to jihadis from Afghanistan
and beyond. Rather than address these concerns,
the government has systematically muzzled
journalists and opposition leaders who try
to get the story out. Since October, more
than 4,000 people have been arrested and
44 have died in custody during a government
crackdown supposedly directed at organized
crime and euphemistically called Operation
Clean Heart.
In this environment, foreign reporters are
routinely denied visas to Bangladesh. So
Channel 4's crew-British reporter Zaiba
Malik and Italian cameraman Bruno Sorrentino-entered
as tourists. The authorities were tipped
off by a pro-Islamic daily, and we were
tailed by police intelligence agents. On
Nov. 25, Malik, Sorrentino and Bangladeshi
interpreter Priscilla Raj were arrested
at the border with India and charged with
sedition. I wasn't with them that day. Hearing
of their arrest, I decided to lay low. I
slept at a friend's home and instructed
my 18-year-old son to empty our house of
my papers and to hide my hard drive. But
the police were tapping my brother's phone,
and they heard me tell him where I was.
They showed up at my friend's flat at 3
a.m., and I went peacefully. The government
charged me with sedition and conspiracy
to defame the country.
At the police station, I was held in a 3-meter-by-4.5-meter
cell with up to 15 other detainees. The
conditions were foul. There was one squat
toilet in the floor of the cell and neither
soap nor drinking water. We were told to
drink from the toilet tank. On the third
day I got dysentery. We slept without blankets
on the bare concrete floor. The mosquitoes
were relentless.
We were given sodden rice and plain dhal
to eat. Every few hours I would be woken
up and pulled from the cell to answer questions.
The same high-ranking officer who brandished
his pistol would force me to sit on the
floor with my legs extended so he could
thrash my left kneecap with his baton. The
police wanted a full accounting of the time
I spent with the Channel 4 crew: the places
we went, the sources we met. I had done
nothing to be ashamed of, so I told them
everything I knew.
A military intelligence agent present at
these interrogations demanded to know where
my hard drive was hidden. He threatened
to hurt my son and wife. But I would not
give up my life's work.
Finally, after five days of interrogation,
I was loaded into a police van and driven
to a prison in Dhaka, where I was given
a cell to myself with a sink and enough
blankets to make a mattress. The prison
hospital gave me painkillers for the throbbing
in my knee. Compared to my treatment at
the police station, this was luxurious.
Then, after 50 days in custody, I was finally
released on bail on Jan. 18, thanks in large
part to pressure from Paris-based Reporters
Without Borders and New York's Center to
Protect Journalists. But the police have
yet to return my passport, credit cards,
ATM card, mobile phone or address book.
And I must still go before the courts to
face the charges against me, which carry
a maximum penalty of life imprisonment.
I am confident the High Court will acquit
me of all charges.
The Channel 4 crew was deported back to
Britain before Christmas without suffering
physical abuse. But Raj has told me that
her interrogators tortured her with electric
shocks. Before the arrests, however, the
Channel 4 team got 80% of their film footage
out of the country. The documentary has
yet to be broadcast, but if the world is
able to see-and read-how Bangladesh is being
transformed into a repressive nation, then
the suffering and anxiety I and my family
have endured will be worthwhile. But for
now, I feel I have emerged from a small
jail only to enter another, much larger
prison.
