The assault and subsequent death of Banglanews24 reporter Golam Rabbani Nadeem paints yet another troubling picture for the dire state of press freedom in Bangladesh as the news portal's Jamalpur district correspondent was assaulted allegedly by followers of local union parishad chairman on June 14, before succumbing to his injuries the following day.
According to reports, Nadeem was allegedly attacked because of a report he had worked on investigating the chairman of Sadhurpara union parishad of Bakshiganj upazila Mahmudul Alam. Alam, who is also the general secretary of Sadhurpara union Awami League, had filed a case against the reporter under the DSA, but the case was promptly dismissed by the Mymensingh Cyber Crimes Tribunal.
While six people have been detained in connection to his assault by Jamalpur police as of writing, if there is any credibility to allegations that the assault was carried out under orders of the UP chairman, they need to be followed up and investigated thoroughly by law enforcement.
We have already seen a string of incidents this year where journalists have come under attack for nothing more than doing their jobs, with Prothom Alo reporter Samsuzzaman Shams' incarceration being one of the more prominent ones.
But while detention and jailing, however clandestine the way they are carried out, still follow some semblance of due process, there is nothing murky about assault and murder.
Bangladesh has, unfortunately, never fared particularly well when it comes to press freedom, regardless of the government in place. This has never been a partisan issue. But we must all understand that a truly free press is essential to the very ideals of a working democracy -- nothing good can ever come from attacking journalists, physically or otherwise.
No stone can be left unturned when it comes to the investigations into Golam Rabbani Nadeem's assault, and those involved with it must be brought to book and appropriately punished, regardless of their political affiliations.
