Bangla editor held over FB post

Sikder after his arrest

TT, Aug. 18: A veteran journalist has been arrested in Bangladesh on the charge of maligning a senior minister on Facebook - a crackdown that brings under strain the Sheikh Hasina government's commitment to free speech and minority rights against the backdrop of recurring murders of liberal bloggers.

Probir Sikder, editor of the Bangla daily Bangla 71 and online news portal u71news.com, was picked up by detectives on Sunday evening from his office in Dhaka and later taken to Faridpur, where a lawyer had filed a complaint against a Facebook post by the journalist. After two days in captivity, during which he was taken to Faridpur from the capital, he was remanded in police custody for three more days.

In the post, Sikder had said his life was under threat and added that the local government, rural development minister Khandaker Mosharraf Hossain, businessman Moosa bin Shamser and fugitive war criminal Abul Kalam Azad would be responsible if he were killed. The journalist had lost one of his legs in an attack on him in 2001.
"He is one of the most respected journalists in the country, who has often been part of the Prime Minister's entourage.... He has been arrested under the draconian provisions of the ICT (information, communication and technology) Act, which doesn't have provisions for bail. The act is an assault on the liberals in the country," said Mozammel Babu, chief editor of Ekattor TV, a leading news channel in Bangladesh.

Similar provisions of another draconian act on this side of the border - the IT Act - had been invoked to arrest Jadavpur University professor Ambikesh Mahapatra in 2012 when he was accused of circulating a social media clip lampooning chief minister Mamata Banerjee.

The arrest of Sikder has several dimensions in Bangladesh, where an intense battle is being played out between liberal and fundamentalist forces.

The Muslim-majority country had fought a nine-month war with another Muslim country, Pakistan, but, of late, Bangladesh's Bengali identity has been facing challenges linked to social practices associated more with conservative Arab nations.

The arrest of the journalist, which followed the murders of four secular bloggers in recent months and allegations that the Hasina government was going soft on fundamentalists, has shaken civil society.

But police have portrayed the arrest as little more than a response to a law-and-order problem.

"The Facebook post was against peace and tranquillity in the area and could have created communal tensions.... There was a complaint that wrong and misleading information was being spread and so he was arrested," Zamil Hasan, Faridpur superintendent of police, told The Telegraph over phone.

Sikder's son Supriyo said: "There was no arrest warrant against my father, but still he was arrested.... There was not even a case against him when he was first picked up on Sunday. The situation is such in Faridpur that we were not even getting lawyers to fight his case. Only today, two lawyers volunteered to appear for him."

Supriyo, however, did not blame the Hasina government for the arrest and chose to hold "a section in the establishment" responsible for the plight of his father.

Sikder, who belongs to a family that lost 14 persons in the Liberation War of 1971, has been at the forefront of movements to retain the legacy of the independence movement and ensure equal rights for the minority communities in Bangladesh.

The journalist had written a series of reports on Bangladeshis who had supported Pakistan in the Liberation War - known as razakar - in Bangla daily Janakantha.

In the recent past, he had been writing columns on how a section of the ruling Awami League was grabbing land and other assets of the minorities by violating the basic tenets of secular Bangladesh.

"His writings drew the ire of Khandaker Mosharraf Hossain, who has been accused of land grab, and Sikder had to pay a price. Although a secular government is in power, which is apparently committed to those who fought for the country, such arrests are worrying," said Anjan Roy, an editor with Gazi Television.

Over the past few days, the journalist community in Bangladesh has held protest rallies and sit-in demonstrations and they have plans to organise more protests till Sikder is released.

Babu of Ekattor TV said that the journalists were facing attacks from several quarters in the recent past and there was a strong need to rise against the onslaught.