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Bangladesh: Journalists touch a raw
nerve
By Tabibul Islam
DHAKA
- The release from detention of two foreign television
journalists last week and the continued imprisonment of
two of their local colleagues underscores Bangladesh's
sensitivity to on-going claims that religious extremists
operate in the country.
Late last week, two
British-based television journalists, arrested in
Bangladesh on November 25 on suspicion of anti-state
activities, arrived in London after being held in prison
for two weeks. They were released on condition that they
would not broadcast any material shot in Bangladesh. No
formal charges were brought against the journalists, who
used fake identities to enter Bangladesh.
But
police said that the two entered the country to gather
"twisted information with a motive to project Bangladesh
as a base for extreme fundamentalists and a sanctuary
for the members of dreaded al-Qaeda and Taliban".
Since then, "both the journalists, along with
their employers, gave a clear undertaking not to malign
Bangladesh on false grounds," Reaz Rahman, the state
minister, said.
In London, the journalists'
lawyer told a press conference, "My clients have
apologized for their act of deception and they sincerely
regret any misunderstanding that their conduct may have
caused."
Leopoldo Brono Sorrentino of Italy and
Zaiba Naz Malik, a British national of Pakistani origin,
working for British Channel 4, were arrested trying to
cross the eastern border into India last month. The
foreign reporters' local aides and interpreters, Selim
Samad, the local correspondent for Reporters Sans
Frontiers, a Paris-based organization, and Pricilla Raj,
employed by a local non-government organization, were
also arrested and remain in custody.
During
their interrogation, the journalists confessed that they
had entered the country as tourists to shoot a
documentary about mainly Muslim Bangladesh for the
London-based firm Mentorn Midland, as part of a series
titled "Unreported World".
The arrests touched
off a bitter debate over the wisdom of the government's
decision to imprison the journalists. They also
highlighted suspicions by the government - as well as by
the local media - of the foreign media's intentions when
reporting about Bangladesh amid the international
attention to religious extremists elsewhere in Asia.
"Suddenly, Bangladesh has become a saleable
story as long as the story is about the existence of
fundamentalists and Taliban elements. Such agenda-driven
journalism by leaders of the global press undermines our
strength at home and creates suspicion against the free
media," the Daily Star declared in an editorial.
Sensitivities are also high in the wake of the
December 4 bomb explosions that rocked four packed movie
theaters in Mymensingh, 110 kilometers north of the
capital, Dhaka. A judicial inquiry is under way into the
blasts, which killed at least 18 people. Officials say
that the blasts were undertaken by a well-trained,
well-organized group and at one point brought in 20
people for questioning.
Since coming to power in
October last year, Bangladeshi Prime Minister Khaleda
Zia has also strongly denied opposition claims that her
governing four-party coalition has members of parliament
sympathetic to the Taliban and al-Qaeda.
Zia
says that Bangladesh is a moderate Muslim country and
one of the first nations to condemn the September 11,
2001, terrorist attacks in the US. But the opposition
Awami League, in its running political exchanges with
the government, argues that two hard-line Islamic
parties in the government alliance have expressed open
support for al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.
Former prime minister of Bangladesh and the
present opposition leader Sheikh Hasina believes Islamic
fundamentalists operate overtly and covertly in
Bangladesh, while opposition spokesman Saber Hossain
Chowdhury says that the ruling coalition has about 11
MPs who support the Taliban.
The Islamic Unity
Alliance (IUA) is one of the two hard-line parties in
government whose members in the past have protested US
involvement in the Middle East and Afghanistan. "We
consider an attack on one Muslim country to be an attack
on all Muslim countries," IUA spokesman and backbench
government MP, Fazlul Haq Amini, has said.
Reports in the foreign press have also attacked
the supposed growth of radical Islamic groups in the
country, which some here feel taint the nation
unnecessarily with extremism. In April, the Hong
Kong-based Far Eastern Economic Review published a
report depicting the nation as "a cocoon of Islamic
extremists" where thousands of students were being
picked out by religious zealots to train in the use of
arms.
In a statement, the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs denied the veracity of the report by the Western
media outlet and said that there was no place for
religious fanaticism in a moderate Muslim democracy such
as Bangladesh.
Critics have also emerged in
neighboring India. In early November, Indian Deputy
Prime Minister Lal Krishna Advani and Foreign Minister
Yashwant Sinha suggested that Dhaka had become a
sanctuary for al-Qaeda and Taliban fugitives.
Advani said that India was aware that Pakistan's
Inter-Services Intelligence had increased its activities
in Bangladesh since October 2001, by training insurgents
to operating in India's northeastern states. Dhaka has
strongly denied these reports.
(Inter Press
Service)
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