As a well-wisher of Dr Fakhruddin's government we suggest an immediate rethinking on this matter. There is still time to step back from this disastrous move, which has to be done immediately before this government, which still enjoys enormous public support and the media's goodwill, suffers a serious credibility gap.

We urge the chief adviser to recall his recent meeting with the editors. There was practically no hard question put to him. Why? Because everyone had a genuine feeling of goodwill for him. There was an overall sense of relief at the caretaker government having saved the nation from a one-sided election and the consequent inevitable bloodbath. Almost all the editors openly extended their support to his government and to him personally.

But today the mood is dramatically different. Most of us are very concerned, in fact worried, at what is in the rules just promulgated. Yes, no specific instance of press censorship has yet occurred but an environment of self-censorship, a thousand times higher than normal, has been created. As the chief adviser himself knows very well that there is but a hair's breadth difference between censoring and creating pressure for self-censorship.

The emergency rules promulgated yesterday state, "The government can (also) restrict any publication or transmission of any anti-government news, editorial, post-editorial, article, feature, cartoon, talk show or discussion in any print or electronic media and any mass media, including the internet.…The government will be able to proscribe (meaning ban) any newspaper, book, document, printing press, equipment of electronic media if any news or information is published or propagated violating government order…. Restrictions have also been put on any provocative remark or activity against the government and its programmes, and on drawing a cartoon or making an effigy of an individual with ulterior political motive." The promulgation further says, "The government will have the right to ask any individual to submit information or material to a person or authority designated…. If any individual does not submit the information or material …the individual will have to suffer a maximum of five years or minimum of two years rigorous imprisonment."

A cursory reading of the above rules makes it very clear that if we are to be journalists worth the paper our names are written on, then we have no alternative but to suffer imprisonment. Because if we cannot write the truth as we know it, if we cannot give authentic information to our readers and viewers as we see it, if we cannot interpret events as we honestly understand it, then we might as well close down all the newspapers.

It was during president Shahabuddin's time that all provisions of banning a newspaper were forever withdrawn from our statutes. It is now back! How can there be any journalism if we cannot report critically on government policies, programmes and actions?

Even cartoons, for which Bangladesh enjoys a special recognition, may now be banned. Confidentiality of sources, which is a fundamental pillar of independent journalism, is now under question. It must be stated clearly that all this cannot be the way to move forward, and it was not why the people made so much sacrifice.

Let me recall a conversation I had with former prime minister Khaleda Zia immediately after her second election victory in 2001 (she stopped meeting editors after that). There were hundreds of us as more party cadres than genuine journalists attended that occasion. During a moment when I was able to step near her chair I said, "Prime Minister, never lose your faith in and patience with the independent media even if it criticises you, especially if it criticises you. Because when you are in power there is none to tell you the truth except the independent media. And if you never know the truth you will inevitably fall." I could say it because at that time the independent media was her favourite due to our role against the previous government's misgovernance. Soon all that changed and the rest is history, of which we are all victims.

Though this caretaker government has been in power for a much shorter time, it is still a government. Like every government it will handle power. Wherever there is power, there is the chance of abuse of power. Wherever there is abuse of power there is corruption. So who will tell the chief adviser about that abuse of power and of corruption in his own administration and by those who pretend to support it, but us. Even if his advisers are all honourable men and women, and they are, what about the hundreds of thousands of functionaries on whom Dr Fakhruddin has to depend and who will carry out his government's policies and orders. Some of these functionaries are the very people who partook of the corruption of the past government, and of the government before that, and so on. Will they suddenly turn saints? If not, then who will give the government the unvarnished truth about them? So when we are restricted or gagged, it is the government that deprives itself of the truth and genuine information on which a government's success depends. So Dr Fakhruddin must understand that by gagging the free media, he is setting a trap for himself for the end that has been the inevitable fate of all governments that restrict the flow of information.

We recall the chief adviser's own speech that inspired the whole nation. It did so, among other things, for his repeated commitment to fundamental rights and to freedom of the media. Therefore we urge this caretaker government and especially its chief not to throw away the tremendous support, public confidence and international goodwill it enjoys. Since it is not an elected government, public confidence and support are its main strength, which comes from openness, accountability and transparency. Whoever heard of all these without a free and independent media? Need we say more?