Journos' protest continues

A group of journalists on Tuesday held a rally reiterating their demands for the release of Amar Desh acting editor Mahmudur Rahman and reopening the newspaper's printing press, which remains sealed off since April 11.

"We will continue the demonstration until our demands are met," Ruhul Amin Gazi, president of a faction of Bangladesh Federal Union of Journalists (BFUJ), said while addressing the rally in front of Jatiya Press Club in the capital.

Around 100 journalists of the two factions of BFUJ and Dhaka Union of Journalists joined the rally.

Gazi also announced to stage a four-hour sit-in from 10:00am Wednesday at the same venue demanding the same.

On Thursday morning, police arrested Rahman in a case for publishing Skype conversations between Justice Md Nizamul Huq, ex-chairman of International Crimes Tribunal-1, and Ahmed Ziauddin, an expatriate Bangladeshi legal expert.

Later at night, law enforcers locked the Amar Desh press and seized a computer and some documents.

Rahman, also former energy adviser of the BNP-Jamaat-led alliance government, was also shown arrested in two other cases — one filed on March 17 in connection with hartal and pre-hartal violence and another on March 26 for assaulting police and obstructing their work.

The same day, a general diary was also filed against him for running a fictitious report in January involving the changing of the Gilaf (cover) of Holy Kaaba. Amar Desh published a photo of the event with a false news report with the caption, “A human chain led by the khatib of Holy Kaaba protests the war crimes trial in Bangladesh.”