journalists
Farid Hossain new Dhaka Journalists' Forum president, Moursalin Babla general secretary
United News of Bangladesh (UNB) Editor Farid Hossain and Juger Chinta Editor Moursalin Babla have been elected the president and general secretary of the Dhaka Journalists' Forum for the next two years.
The committee was announced at the Jatiya Press Club Monday.
Also, Nuruddin Ahmed was elected senior vice-president, Nirmal Chakraborty vice-president, Monirul Islam joint secretary, Kawsar Rahman treasurer, Nurunnabi Robi public welfare secretary, Mithun Sarkar culture and publication secretary and Atiqul Islam office secretary.
Rafiqur Rahman, Mahbub Alam, Sharmin Rinvi, Md Momin Hossain, Anjan Rahman, and Golam Majtuba Dhruvo were picked as the executive members of the committee.
Journalists from 13 countries meet Hasan
Information and Broadcasting Minister Hasan Mahmud met with 13 journalists from Asia, Europe, and Africa at his office in the capital Monday.
The minister informed them about the overall development of the country, including the mass media. He also replied to their questions.
Journalists from Algeria, Bahrain, Bulgaria, Cambodia, Hong Kong, Oman, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain and Vietnam are now in Bangladesh at the invitation of the foreign ministry.
They already visited the top tourist spots in Bangladesh and the Rohingya camps in Cox's Bazar.
Read more: 10 journalists win UNICEF award for outstanding reporting on children’s rights in Bangladesh
Martyred Intellectuals Day on Wednesday
The nation is set to observe the Martyred Intellectuals Day on Wednesday to commemorate the intellectuals killed systematically by Pakistan occupation forces and their local collaborators at the fag-end of the Liberation War in 1971.
On this day in 1971, the country’s renowned academicians, doctors, engineers, journalists, artists, teachers and other eminent personalities were dragged out of their homes, blindfolded and taken to unknown places and then brutally tortured and murdered.
Their bodies were later dumped at Rayerbazar, Mirpur and some other killing fields in the capital.
Sensing an imminent defeat, the Pakistani forces and their local collaborators like Al-Badr, Al-Shams and Razakar committed the cold-blooded mass murders aiming to annihilate the country's intelligentsia and cripple emerging Bangladesh intellectually.
Read more: Bangladesh observing Martyred Intellectuals Day
Among the martyred intellectuals are Prof Munier Chowdhury, Dr Alim Chowdhury, Prof Muniruzzaman, Dr Fazle Rabbi, Sirajuddin Hossain, Shahidullah Kaiser, Prof GC Dev, JC Guha Thakurta, Prof Santosh Bhattacharya, Mofazzal Haider Chowdhury, journalists Khandaker Abu Taleb, Nizamuddin Ahmed, SA Mannan (Ladu Bhai), ANM Golam Mustafa, Syed Nazmul Haq and Selina Parvin.
The government has chalked out elaborate programmes to commemorate the December 14 tragedy.
President Abdul Hamid and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina issued separate messages on this occasion.
President Hamid in a message said, “I call upon all to play an effective role from their respective position to build ‘Sonar Bangla’ imbued with the sacrifice of the Martyred Intellectuals and spirit of the Liberation War.”
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, in her message urged all irrespective of party affiliation to get united against the killers of 1971, war criminal Jamaat, fundamentalists and perform their duties from their respective positions to continue the development spree of the country by resisting all conspiracies of anti-democratic forces.
Read more: Nation set to observe Martyred Intellectuals Day Tuesday
Bangladesh Television and private television channels will broadcast special programmes highlighting the significance of the day.
Crab gives 7-day ultimatum demanding withdrawal of case against journos Jewel, Azad
Crime Reporters Association Bangladesh (Crab) on Thursday gave a seven-day ultimatum to a contractor company to withdraw a ‘false case’ that it filed against DBC journalist Saiful Islam Jewel and camera person Azad Ahmed.
Crab raised the demand while staging a human chain and protest rally at Dhaka Reporters Unity (DRU) premises in the capital's Segunbagicha.
The journalist leaders expressed deep concern and strongly condemned the ‘false case’ filed against the journalists by Nazmul Hasan Bhuiyan, brother of Kawsar Bhuiyan, owner of contractor company Victor Trading.
Read: Assault on Faridpur journo: Main accused held
They said, On August 2, Kawsar and his associates attacked Jewel and Azar, leaving them seriously injured. Kawsar and his accomplices were arrested and currently in jail over the incident but now they are giving murder threats to the journos.
The speakers said memorandums will be submitted to the Ministry of Law and Ministry of Home Affairs demanding the withdrawal of the case. If the case is not withdrawn within seven days, Crab, DRU, Dhaka Union of Journalists (DUJ) will announce a united programme soon.
DUJ president Sohel Haider Chowdhury, former president Abu Zafar Surya, DRU president Nazrul Islam Mithu, general secretary Nurul Islam Hasib, DRU former general secretary Kabir Ahmed Khan, former Crab general secretary Sarwar Alam, addressed the rally presided over by Crab president Mirza Mehedi Tamal.
Sports Journalists’ Association’s AGM held
The 15th Annual General Meeting (AGM) of Bangladesh Sports Journalists’ Association (BSJA) was held on Saturday at its office premises at the Bangabandhu National Stadium here.BSJA general secretary Anisur Rahman Paltu and treasurer Mazhar Uddin Omi presented their reports at the AGM, presided over by BSJA President ATM Saiduzzaman. The AGM gave emphasis on forming a welfare fund to help the BSJA members during crisis situation. Former BJSA Presidents Majurul Haque and Syed Mamun, former Vice Presidents Dilu Khodakar, Kamal Ahmed, Arifur Rahman Babu, among others, took part in the discussion on different issues.
Read: Babu emerges best player in Walton-BSJA Sports CarnivalCountry's leading sports journalists and sports editors of national dailies, news agencies, electronic and online media were present at the meeting.
Govt working to create database of journalists: Info Minister
Information and Broadcasting Minister Dr Hasan Mahmud said on Sunday that the Press Council was working to create a database of journalists with a view to bring fake journalists to book.
“Once the database is created, identifying oneself as a journalist will become tough. As a result, the number of fake journalists will drop,” said Hasan.
Hasan was speaking at a views exchange meeting with the Editors Forum at his ministry’s meeting room.
Also read: BNP's statements outlandish, insane: Hasan Mahmud
During the meeting, Iqbal Sobhan Chowdhury, Advisor of the Forum, said that journalists must work according to the spirit of the liberation war, while Rafiqul Islam Ratan, Convener of the Forum, said that there is no scope to air talk shows or news bulletins on the websites of newspapers or on online news portals according to the Printing Presses and Publications (Declaration and Registration) Act, 1973.
Leaders of the Editor’s forum submitted a 10-point memorandum to Hasan at the meeting. The demands include—refraining from providing government advertisements and supplements to and cancelling the registrations of irregular and weak newspapers, paying the outstanding advertisement bills, reorganizing the circulation-determining process of newspapers, not making unprofessional journalists the Editors of newspapers, designating VIP status to the members of the Editors Forum and enabling the Information Ministry to provide declarations to newspapers.
The Minister thanked the forum for agreeing with the Association of Television Channel Owners (ATCO) that talk shows and news bulletins can’t be broadcast by newspapers.
“Newspapers can publish short videos with their news, not talk shows or news bulletins. The existing law prohibits such practice,” Hasan said.
Also read: Online news portals cannot legally broadcast talk shows, bulletins: Hasan Mahmud
Member Secretary of the Editor’s Forum Faruk Ahmed Talukder, Advisors of the forum Azizul Islam Bhuiyan, Sharif Shahabuddin and Belayet Hossain, and Members of the forum Dulal Ahmed Chowdhury, Mir Moniruzzaman, Mofizur Rahman Khan Babu, Rimon Mahfuz, Nazmul Alam Toufiq and Jagdish Chandra Sarker attended the meeting.
2 journalists killed in Mexico; 10th and 11th of the year
Just as Mexican journalists prepared to protest the killing of a journalist last week, word came Monday that two more were shot to death in the Gulf coast state of Veracruz, raising to 11 the number of such killings in the country this year.
The Veracruz State Prosecutor's Office said via Twitter that it was investigating the killings of Yessenia Mollinedo Falconi and Sheila Johana García Olivera, the director and a reporter, respectively, of the online news site El Veraz in Cosoleacaque.
Veracruz State Prosecutor Verónica Hernández Giadáns said the investigation would be exhaustive, including considering their journalism work as a possible motive in their killing.
The State Commission for Attention To and Protection of Journalists said the two women were attacked outside a convenience store.
“We condemn this attack on Veracruz’s journalism profession, give it prompt monitoring and have opened an investigation,” the commission said.
Their killings came on the heels of the ninth slaying of journalist this year, in the northern state of Sinaloa. Prosecutors there said Thursday that the body of Luis Enrique Ramírez Ramos was found on a dirt road near a junkyard in the state capital, Culiacan.
Also read: Russia-Ukraine war: Russian journalist killed in Kyiv shelling
Prosecutors said that his body was wrapped in black plastic and that he died from multiple blows to the head.
Ramírez Ramos’ news website, “Fuentes Fidedignas,” or “Reliable Sources,” said that he had been abducted near his house hours earlier.
The dizzying pace of killings has made Mexico the deadliest country for journalists to work outside of war zones this year.
On Monday evening, Griselda Triana, wife of Javier Valdez, a journalist slain in 2017, spoke to some 200 journalists gathered at Mexico City’s Angel of Independence monument. The demonstration had originally been scheduled to protest the killing of Ramírez Ramos and those who preceded him.
Valdez, one of Mexico’s best-known journalists killed in recent years, was an award-winning reporter who specialized in covering drug trafficking and organized crime in the northern state of Sinaloa.
“In all this time I haven’t stopped thinking about how easy it is for them to kill a journalist in Mexico,” Triana said. “I feel hurt each time they take the life of so many colleagues.”
“There’s so much anger, indignation, powerlessness knowing that we come here to protest the murder of Luis Enrique Ramírez, (that happened) a few days ago in Culiacan, Sinaloa, and the news of the killing of two women journalists in Veracruz reaches us here,” Triana said. “It’s a whirlpool. The crimes against freedom of expression keep occurring every day. We shouldn’t tolerate it. We have the authority to ask the authorities to put a stop to this slaughter of journalists.”
The victims, like those killed Monday, are most often from small, hyperlocal news outlets. El Veraz operated a Facebook page and appeared to almost exclusively post notices about events or public information from the municipality's government. El Veraz’s motto was “Journalism with Humanity.”
The phone number listed for El Veraz rang to what appeared to be Mollinedo Falconi's cell phone, according to its message.
Also read: U.S. journalist killed by attack near Kyiv
Cosoleacaque is just off a major east-west route in southeastern Veracruz. Organized crime is present in the area and involved especially in migrant smuggling, but there was no immediate indication of who could have been responsible.
Veracruz Gov. Cuitláhuac García said a search was underway for those responsible.
“We will find the perpetrators of this crime, there will be justice and there will not be impunity like we have said and done in other cases,” García said via Twitter.
Journalists had already scheduled a demonstration for Monday in Mexico City to protest killings of their colleagues, most recently that of Ramírez Ramos in Sinaloa.
Mexico’s state and federal governments have been criticized for neither preventing the killings nor investigating them sufficiently.
While organized crime is often involved in journalist killings, small town officials or politicians with political or criminal motivations are often suspects as well. Journalists running small news outlets in Mexico’s interior are easy targets.
Mexico has a protection program for journalists and human rights defenders, but it was not immediately known whether either Mollinedo Falconi or García Olivera were enrolled.
Participants receive support, such as electronic devices or “panic buttons” to alert the authorities to any threat; surveillance systems in their homes; even bodyguards in some cases. Often authorities recommend that threatened journalists move to another state or the capital to lessen the threat, but that means separating them from their work, livelihood and families.
While President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has promised a “zero impunity” program to investigate such slayings, journalists’ murders, like most homicides in Mexico, are never resolved by authorities. López Obrador has also kept up his regular verbal attacks on journalists critical of his administration.
In February, the Inter American Press Association called on the president to “immediately suspend the aggressions and insults, because such attacks from the top of power encourage violence against the press.”
In March, the European Union approved a resolution that “calls on the authorities, and in particular the highest ones, to refrain from issuing any communication which could stigmatize human rights defenders, journalists and media workers, exacerbate the atmosphere against them or distort their lines of investigation.”
Late Monday, presidential spokesman Jesús Ramírez said via Twitter that the federal and state governments would work together to investigate the killings. “The commitment is that there is not impunity.”
Media fraternity pays last tributes to KG Mustofa
Journalists paid their last tributes to their fellow colleague and renowned lyricist KG Mustofa at the Jatiya Press Club in the capital on Monday.
Over a hundred media workers, former colleagues and friends of KG Mustofa gathered on the JPC premises to show their last respect to him as his mortal remains were brought there around 1:30pm.
Apart from journalists, people from different professions also paid homage to the veteran journalist by placing wreaths on his coffin.
Also read: Eminent lyricist, journalist KG Mostafa passes away
Wreaths were also placed on his coffin, on behalf of different organisations, including JPC, BFUJ, DUJ, PIB and Noakhali Journalist Forum.
Earlier, his namaz-e-Janaza was held on the JPC premises.
JPC senior vice president Hasan Hafiz, general secretary Ilias Khan, joint secretaries Mainul Alam and Ashraf Ali, treasurer Shahed Chowdhury, senior journalist Ershad Majumder, Mohiuddin Alamgir, Mostafa Kamal Majumder, Zakaria Kajal, Abdul Jalil Bhuiyan, Quamrul Islam Chowdhury, Omar Faruque, M Abdullah, Nurul Amin Rokon, Khairuzzaman Kamal and Gonoshasthaya Kendra founder Dr Zafrullah Chowdhury took part in the janaza.
KG Mustofa (84), the legendary lyricist of numerous evergreen songs from the golden era of Bengali cinema, passed away at his home in Azimpur at 8 pm on Sunday at the age of 84.
Born on July 1st, 1936, in Begumganj of Noakhali district, KG KG Mustofa is known for writing many popular songs, including “Tomare Legeche Eto Je Bhalo, Chaand Bujhi Ta Jaane” from the movie 'Rajdhanir Buke' (1960) starring Rahman-Shabnam. This iconic track was composed by Pakistani-Bangladeshi playback singer and film music composer Robin Ghosh and sung by famous Indian singer Talat Mahmood.
Another of his popular songs is “Aayna Te Oi Mukh Dekhbe Jokhon,” composed by Robin Ghosh and sung by eminent Bangladeshi playback singer Mahmudun Nabi. This song was used in the movie 'Nacher Putul' (1971) starring the popular on-screen duo Razzak and Shabnam.
In his esteemed career, KG KG Mustofa worked as a prominent journalist, columnist and poet. He was the editor of ‘Shachitra Bangladesh’ magazine.
Threats to media workers' freedom growing: UN
Journalists and media workers are facing increasing politicisation of their work and threats to the freedom to simply do their jobs, according to the UN.
Throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, many media workers have been on the frontlines, providing accurate, science-based reporting to inform decision-makers and save lives, said the UN Secretary-General António Guterres, marking World Press Freedom Day Tuesday.
But the threats to their freedom to go about their reporting and storytelling fairly and accurately are multiplying daily.
Also read: In Kashmir, India batters press freedom — and journalists
From global health to the climate crisis, corruption, and human rights abuses, they face increased politicisation of their work and attempts to silence them from many sides, Guterres said.
Digital technology has democratised access to information, but it has also created serious challenges, he added.
The UN chief also said many social media platforms make their money not through increasing access to fact-based reporting, but by boosting engagement, "which often means provoking outrage and spreading lies."
Media workers in war zones are threatened not only by bombs and bullets but by the weapons of falsification and disinformation that accompany modern warfare. They may be attacked as the enemy, accused of espionage, detained, or killed, simply for doing their jobs.
Guterres said digital technology was also making censorship easier for authoritarian governments and others, seeking to suppress the truth, with many journalists and editors facing the prospect of their work being taken offline daily.
Digital technology is also creating new "channels for oppression and abuse," with women journalists "at particular risk" of online harassment and violence.
The UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, UNESCO, has found that nearly three-quarters of women respondents had experienced online violence. Hacking and illegal surveillance also prevent journalists from doing their jobs.
The methods and tools change, but the goal of discrediting the media and covering up the truth remains the same as ever, said the UN chief, leading to citizens without free media being "manipulated in horrifying ways."
Without freedom of the press, there are no real democratic societies. Without freedom of the press, there is no freedom, he added.
Ten years ago, the UN established a Plan of Action on the Safety of Journalists to protect media workers and end impunity for crimes committed against them and continues to fight to protect their rights.
Egypt frees 3 as president appears to reach out to critics
Egyptian authorities freed three journalists early Sunday, the head of a journalists’ union said, the latest in a string of releases as President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi appears to be reaching out to critics of his administration.
Ammer Abdel-Moneim, Hany Greisha and Essam Abdeen walked free from jail after they spent around a year and a half in detention in separate cases.
Diaa Rashwan, head of the Journalists’ Union, posted images showing the three journalists wearing white jail uniforms and embracing their families in the street.
Also read: Egypt: Ruins of ancient temple for Zeus unearthed in Sinai
They were released pending investigations into initial charges of misuse of social media and joining a terrorist group, in an apparent reference to the Muslim Brotherhood. Egypt designated the Brotherhood a terrorist organization since 2013. The three have yet to face trial.
Their release came a few days after authorities freed 41 detainees — including several prominent writers and activists — who had been held for months also without trial. Long pre-trial detentions have been a major concern for rights groups in recent years.
El-Sissi also reactivated a presidential pardon committee and appointed new members. The committee, in charge of reviewing cases of prisoners held for political crimes, was created in 2016 and had been mostly ineffective in recent years.
Also read: US, Egypt launch group to prepare for COP27 climate summit
On Thursday, authorities released prominent political activist Hossam Monis following a pardon by el-Sissi. Monis was serving a four-year sentence on terror charges that rights advocates deemed baseless.
Some independent observers believe the government is trying to reach out to critics in the midst of a grinding economic crisis sparked by the Russian war on Ukraine. Thousands of political prisoners, however, are estimated to remain in Egyptian jails.
The Egyptian government has in recent years waged a wide-scale crackdown on dissent, jailing thousands of people, mainly Islamists, but also secular activists involved in the 2011 Arab Spring uprising that toppled longtime autocrat Hosni Mubarak.
It has also imprisoned dozens of reporters and occasionally expelled some foreign journalists. It remains among the world’s worst jailers of journalists, along with Turkey and China, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, a U.S.-based watchdog.