{"id":32922,"date":"2017-05-03T05:09:18","date_gmt":"2017-05-03T05:09:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/en.bornomalanews.com\/?p=32922"},"modified":"2017-05-03T05:09:18","modified_gmt":"2017-05-03T05:09:18","slug":"amnesty-bangladesh-media-faces-more-restrictions-now-than-ever","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/en.bornomalanews.com\/?p=32922","title":{"rendered":"Amnesty: Bangladesh media faces more restrictions now than ever"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2 class=\"excerpt FBIA\" style=\"text-align: left;\"><img class=\"wp-image-32923 aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/en.bornomalanews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/WEB_Restrictions-on-media_Bigstock-690x450-300x196.jpg\" alt=\"WEB_Restrictions-on-media_Bigstock-690x450\" width=\"738\" height=\"482\" srcset=\"https:\/\/en.bornomalanews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/WEB_Restrictions-on-media_Bigstock-690x450-300x196.jpg 300w, https:\/\/en.bornomalanews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/WEB_Restrictions-on-media_Bigstock-690x450-644x420.jpg 644w, https:\/\/en.bornomalanews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/WEB_Restrictions-on-media_Bigstock-690x450.jpg 690w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 738px) 100vw, 738px\" \/>The government treats journalism as if it were a crime, says Amnesty\u2019s Bangladesh researcher Olof Blomqvist<\/h2>\n<div class=\"fb-quote fb_iframe_widget\" style=\"text-align: left;\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"text\">\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">The government has stifled freedom of expression and its various attempts to silence critical coverage has resulted in more restrictions on the media in recent years, the Amnesty International claims in a new report.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Most media workers, interviewed by Amnesty, said media freedom was at its worst since Bangladesh returned to democracy in 1991, although the government insists that there was \u201cenough freedom\u201d for journalism in Bangladesh.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">In a statement, Amnesty claimed that Bangladesh had frequently invoked \u201carchaic, colonial-era criminal defamation and sedition laws against critical journalists.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">After the Awami League retained office in 2014, the authorities have used \u201ccriminal charges and other tactics to harass and interfere in the work of media outlets in an effort to silence critical reporting\u201d, the report \u2013 Caught between fear and repression: Attacks on freedom of expression in Bangladesh \u2013 alleged.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">It claimed that the government had made use of a \u201crepressive legal framework\u201d containing \u201ca number of laws that stifle the right to freedom of expression\u201d. While some of these laws date back to the colonial-era, others have been introduced more recently.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">The fear of being charged, imprisoned or falling victim to physical violence has led to extensive self-censorship, the report noted.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">A journalist, who was not named, told Amnesty that there was indirect pressure on media not owned by ruling Awami League supporters to not to cross the line.<\/p>\n<p><iframe src=\"https:\/\/drive.google.com\/file\/d\/0B2U3ygHCS0seQWJQcDB3Tl9sdGM\/preview\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">\u201cThey can ban the newspaper or revoke your licence. In a very intelligent way, the government is controlling the media,\u201d the journalist said.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">The website of Sheersha News was shut down by the government in August 2015 without any explanation.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">\u201c\u2026 By closing down news portals, the government is sending a clear message to all media firms that they won\u2019t tolerate any news organisation that does not follow their line,\u201d Ekramul Hoque, the head of Sheersha News, was quoted in the Amnesty report as saying.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">The report highlighted at length various obstacles Bangladeshi journalists and news media faced. It referred to a statement issued by the Editors\u2019 Council on February 25, 2015, in which the council alleged that the government was interfering with the media\u2019s rights.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">\u201cIndependent and impartial news gathering and publishing are facing obstructions from the government and administration,\u201d the statement claimed but the government denied the allegation, dubbing it \u201cdevoid of reality, fabricated, motivated and unfortunate.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">A number of editors and journalists have been accused in criminal cases and cases under the ICT Act in recent years.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Amnesty said the purpose was to \u201csend a message to the individuals themselves to avoid certain topics, and to dissuade other journalists and outlets from challenging the authorities.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Killings, physical violence, threatening journalists have also been used as tools of repression. The other measure used was putting pressure on advertisers to cease advertisements in selected newspapers \u2013 the major source of revenue for newspapers.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Olof Blomqvist, Amnesty International\u2019s Bangladesh researcher, said the government treated journalism \u201cas if it were a crime\u201d.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">\u201cThrough imprisonment, threats, intimidation, and constant interference in their work, Bangladesh\u2019s government has done all it can to silence critical voices in the media.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">The report also documents \u201chow armed groups have thrived in a climate of impunity, carrying out a high-profile spate of killings of secular bloggers with few consequences.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">In the last four years, only a single case \u2013 the killing blogger Ahmed Rajib Haider \u2013 has resulted in convictions.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">It said the government has refused to provide protection to secular writers and activists who face regular death threats. This forced some of them to leave the country for their own safety.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Although the killings of secular activists have received considerable international and domestic attention, the shrinking space for freedom of expression has been less widely reported, the report says.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">An international NGO worker, interviewed by Amnesty, said the pressure on freedom of expression was \u201cmuch more institutionalised today than before\u201d.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">\u201cThe authorities have more or less \u2018managed\u2019 the opposition, the only credible threat left now is from media and civil society.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The government treats journalism as if it were a crime, says Amnesty\u2019s Bangladesh researcher Olof Blomqvist The government has stifled freedom of expression and its various attempts to silence critical coverage has resulted in more restrictions on the media in recent years, the Amnesty International claims in a new report. Most media workers, interviewed by [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":32923,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[12],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v16.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/en.bornomalanews.com\/?p=32922\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Amnesty: Bangladesh media faces more restrictions now than ever - Bornomalanews.com\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The government treats journalism as if it were a crime, says Amnesty\u2019s Bangladesh researcher Olof Blomqvist The government has stifled freedom of expression and its various attempts to silence critical coverage has resulted in more restrictions on the media in recent years, the Amnesty International claims in a new report. 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