Journalists working in Rajshahi on Thursday protested against filing of a case against their four fellow journalists on charges of demanding extortion and defaming Bangladesh Nationalist Party chairperson Khaleda Zia and acting chairman Tarique Rahman.
Over 50 of them under the banner of Rajshahi Union of Journalists formed a human chain in the Kadirganj area in Rajshahi city at about 11:00am, terming the case ‘false and fabricated’.
Addressing the human chain, the speakers said that after the fall of former prime minister Sheikh Hasina and her cabinet members amid student protests, a group of people was looting and vandalising people’s properties.
‘Journalists are being targeted first so that they cannot reveal the facts. Filing false and fabricated cases against the journalists is an easy example of this,’ said RUJ president Rafiqul Islam.
Ahmed Shafi Uddin, president of Shushashoner Jonno Nagorik’s Rajshahi district unit, said that obstacles to journalists performing their professional duties were nothing new.
‘Journalists faced and overcome these obstacles in the past, and they will surely do the same in the future. But, it is our responsibility to establish a society where freedom of press is guaranteed,’ he added.
Bangladesh Federal Union of Journalists’ joint secretary Rashed Ibn Obaid said that the purpose of the student movement was to establish a discrimination-free country.
‘But what is happening now? False and fabricated cases are being filed while attacks are being carried out. If these things continue, dreams of billions of people will be crushed,’ he added.
Among others, BFUJ executive member Badrul Hasan Liton, RUJ vice-president Taibur Rahman, former general secretaries Tangimul Haque, Shibli Noman, and Mamun-or-Rashid, incumbent general secretary Saifur Rahman Rocky and Bangladesh Photojournalists’ Association Rajshahi unit former president Md Asaduzzaman spoke at the human chain.
Earlier on Tuesday, Bazlul Haque Montu, joint convener of the Rajshahi city BNP, filed the case against four named journalists and four to five unnamed people on charges of extortion and defaming the party chairperson, Khaleda Zia, and acting chairman Tarique Rahman.
RUJ president and Rajshahi bureau chief of Daily Kaler Kantho Rafiqul Islam, BFUJ joint secretary and Gazi TV’s staff correspondent in Rajshahi Rashed Ibn Obaid (Rashed Ripon), Dainik Karatoa’s Rajshahi correspondent Rozina Sultana, and Rajshahi-based local Daily Upachar journalist Asgar Ali were made the accused in the case.