DHAKA: Journalists, editors and owners of media outlets in Bangladesh on Saturday demanded that authorities protect them following recent attacks on two leading national dailies by mobs.
They said the media industry in the South Asian country is being systematically targeted in the interim government headed by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus. They said the administration failed to prevent attacks on the Daily Star, the country’s leading English-language daily, and the Prothom Alo, the largest Bengali-language newspaper, both based in Dhaka, the capital.
In December, angry mobs stormed the offices of the two newspapers and set fire to the buildings, trapping journalists and other staff inside, shortly after the death of a prominent Islamist activist.
The newspaper authorities blamed the authorities under the interim government for failing to adequately respond to the incidents despite repeated requests for help to disperse the mobs. Hours later, the trapped journalists who took shelter on the roof of the Daily Star newspaper were rescued. The buildings were looted. A leader of the Editors Council, an independent body of newspaper editors, was manhandled by the attackers when he arrived at the scene.
