The Editors’ Council has expressed deep concern and strongly condemned recent attacks, threats, harassment and obstruction of journalists in different parts of Bangladesh.
The council said the latest attack on journalists at Rajshahi University, while they were performing their professional duties, is particularly concerning. The journalists were collecting information and reporting in the public interest, not on behalf of any particular side.
There is no justification for attacking, threatening, or obstructing journalists, even when there are disagreements over a report, opinion, or a journalist’s professional activities, it added.
“An attack on a journalist is not only an attack on a professional; it is an attack on independent journalism, freedom of expression and the public’s right to know,” it said.
The Editors’ Council welcomed the filing of a case and the initiative to investigate the Rajshahi University incident.
However, it said the investigation must be impartial, credible and evidence-based, and those involved in the attack must be brought to justice regardless of their political or organisational affiliations.
The Editors’ Council made the following demands:
- All recent attacks, threats and harassment of journalists must be investigated swiftly and impartially.
- Those involved in the attacks must be brought under the law and face exemplary legal action regardless of their identities or political affiliations.
- A safe environment must be ensured for journalists to perform their duties at political programmes, universities, courts, government offices and other places where people gather.
- Obstruction, intimidation and harassment of journalists while performing their professional duties must end immediately.
- Political parties and their affiliated organisations, as well as all other stakeholders, must make a clear commitment to journalists’ safety and independent journalism.
The Editors’ Council said journalists’ safety is not a special privilege but an essential condition for a free, democratic and accountable society.
“Independent journalism is not possible in an environment of fear, threats and violence,” it said, calling on the government, law enforcement agencies, political parties, educational institutions and all relevant stakeholders to take prompt, visible and lawful action in every incident of attack on journalists and adopt effective measures to prevent such incidents in the future.