Muslim extremists threaten journos in Bangladesh

http://www.asiamedia.ucla.edu/article-southasia.asp?parentid=29943

BANGLADESH: Journalists targeted in rising tide of Muslim extremism
Letters containing death threats common for journalists

South China Morning Post
Monday, September 19, 2005

A chill ran down the spine of journalist Mizanur Rahman when a neatly folded white cloth symbolising an Islamic burial shroud slipped out of the packet he received by post this month.

An accompanying letter said that for his "anti-Islamic" reporting for the Dhaka daily Janakantha he would soon be executed.

White shrouds and death threats also reached eight other newspaper journalists in Satkhira, a southern district of Bangladesh, the same day.

The letters were signed by leaders of the outlawed Islamic militant group Jagrata Muslim Janata Bangladesh [JMJB or, Awakened Muslim Citizens of Bangladesh], the orthodox Islamic movement Ahl-e-Hadith [followers of sayings of the Prophet] and Jamat-e-Islami Bangladesh, an Islamic political party which is a partner in the ruling federal coalition in Bangladesh. The letters threatened that the journalists would be "slaughtered" because through their writings they were attacking the Islamic leaders who wanted to transform the country into a pure Islamic nation.

"We are determined to bring a total Islamic rule in Bangladesh through an armed revolution. You [the journalists] are some of the obstacles in our way to achieve the goals. So, you face removal from the Earth," the letter said.

Kalyan Banerjee, a Hindu correspondent of another popular Dhaka daily, Pratham Alo, said : "In the letter accompanying the kafan [burial shroud] they said to me that Hindu religious fare would not be allowed in Pak Bangla [Holy Bangladesh] and no Hindu would be allowed to vote in the next parliamentary elections in Bangladesh."

Banerjee, who exposed the growing Islamic extremist activities in the area in a series of reports recently, said he was also receiving threatening phone calls from unknown people on his mobile.

Along with other Islamic groups, JMJB and Ahl-e-Hadith were accused of masterminding the August 17 violence in which more than 400 small bombs exploded simultaneously across the country killing two people and injuring more than 200.

In the past 10 years, at least 19 journalists have been murdered and more than 800 injured in attacks sponsored by Islamic fundamentalists, political parties, criminals and various government agencies, including the police.

In January last year, a bomb killed Manik Saha, correspondent of the Dhaka daily New Age and a BBC stringer in the southwestern district of Khulna.

A banned Maoist group called Purba Bangla Communist Party claimed responsibility for the killing of Saha, who the group called an "enemy of the poor".

International Federation of Journalists president Christopher Warren said: "Death threats are becoming a pervasive part of daily life for journalists in Bangladesh, preventing them from freely reporting matters in the public interest. The intimidation is a direct violation of civil rights, which are the basic tools for a successful democracy."

Date Posted: 9/19/2005