By IPS Correspondents
DHAKA, May 4 2001 (IPS)

Just a year ago, young journalist Tipu Sultan was at the top of the world, having been recognised by his news agency as its best reporter. Today, however, Tipu lies in a hospital bed here in Bangladesh’s capital Dhaka, unable to practise the profession that he loves.

In January, Tipu was waylaid in a street in Feni, about 200 km south-west of Dhaka, by armed men allegedly on the employ of a local legislator.

The lawmaker, who belongs to the ruling party, had been among those named by Tipu in a series he wrote last year on corruption and other malpractices of local politicians.

Tipu’s attackers twisted his arms and legs and left him with injuries so grave he had to brought to the National Orthopaedic Hospital in Dhaka.

Doctors say he needs more specialised treatment abroad if he does not want to be disabled for life. Fortunately for Tipu, the ‘Daily Star’ and the ‘Prothom Alo’ newspapers have launched a joint fund drive so that he could be operated on overseas.

Nahar Ali, a staff correspondent of ‘Anirban’, a regional Bengali daily based in the south-western town of Khulna, was not as lucky as Tipu. On Apr. 18, several men attacked him and left him for dead. Nahar, who specialised in criminal exposes, managed to survive for only four days more.

If Bangladeshi journalists are looking over their shoulders more frequently these days, it is not only because of the cases of Nahar and Tipu. In the past few years, there has been a rising number of incidents of harassment, intimidation and outright assault of members of the media in Bangladesh.

In the first four months of this year alone, there have been 36 recorded cases of journalists being attacked physically. Since 1994, nine journalists were killed as a result of assaults.

More often than not, the attacks are in retaliation for the journalists’ exposes of criminal activities done by public officials. But activists engaged in anti-government protest, religious bigots and even policemen have assaulted media members as well.

A recent report by the ‘Daily Star’ newspaper also noted: “Many journalists have been arrested and sent to jails on false charges. Offices, houses and vehicles of journalists have also come under attack.”

Publications like the ‘Daily Star’ and media associations have taken turns calling for authorities to protect journalists or at least go after those responsible for the assaults. But that may take some doing, since the people suspected to be behind many of the attacks belong to the ruling party.

Bangladesh Federal Union of Journalists President Iqbal Sobhan Chowdhury also observes that legal action against suspects in cases of attacks against journalists often gets mysteriously delayed or fizzles out after the initial investigation.

Saleem Samad, secretary of the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), accuses “people in power” of shielding criminals responsible for the death of journalists. He says, however, that both ruling and opposition parties, as well as religious fanatics, are to blame for many of the assaults on media people.

Journalists all over Bangladesh have held separate rallies condemning the killings and attacks on journalists. “The voice of conscience will die if the culprits responsible for killing and attacking journalists were not taken to task,” said a speaker in one rally.

In the port city of Chittagong, journalists and newspaper employees held a day-long hunger strike in front of the Chittagong Press Club on Apr. 30 demanding the arrest of a youth leader of the ruling Awami League under whose leadership armed men attacked the office of Bengali daily ‘Purbakone’. Five journalists were injured in the Apr. 4 attack.

In an Apr. 26 editorial, the ‘Daily Star’ said: “By failing to take a strong stand against offenders, the government is acquiring a most unsavoury notoriety of complicity and negligence.”

“We urge the authorities to clean up a tarnished record, take steps to prevent any quarters whatsoever from undermining the vitality of the Fourth Estate, ensure a climate of security for an institution that is critical to the survival of democracy,” it said.

As it is, other people seem to have taken the cue from the powers that be and are treating journalists as fair game for their violent tendencies. In January, for example, followers of a Muslim cleric attacked the crew of the state-run television station that was taking footage of a gathering of women.

The following month, police severely beat up nine journalists after one of them took pictures of students being dragged by other lawmen near the Tongi Press Club in the north of this city.

On Apr. 2, activists ganged up on three newspaper reporters covering the general strike here in Dhaka. A few days later, a reporter of the daily ‘Inqilab’ was manhandled right at the residence of opposition leader Begum Khaleda Zia by her supporters.

Apparently, opposition leaders did not take too kindly to an ‘Inqilab’ article that had criticised them, and took out their ire on one of the paper’s reporters.

In late April, the ‘Independent’ newspaper reported that student activists in Chittagong University had threatened to kill a journalist of a national daily for filing an allegedly false report about their leaders.

Nurul Huda, police inspector-general said authorities have tried to protect journalists “but justice is often delayed for reasons beyond the control of police”.

Some police officials have tried to justify their apparent lack of enthusiasm for protecting members of the media by hinting that journalists are only getting what they deserve because they are corrupt.

It is an open secret that some journalists live beyond their means, fuelling suspicions that they get financial incentives from corrupt businessmen and public officials.

A senior journalist in Dhaka said that the erosion of moral values in every tier of society, inefficiency and corruption of law enforcing agencies and the lack of political will were to blame for the social degradation.

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