Prothom Alo journalist arrested after report on high food prices
30 March 2023
Al Jazeera :
Bangladeshi police have arrested a journalist of a leading daily under a controversial media law following the publishing of a story that criticised rising food prices in the country.
Shamsuzzaman Shams, a correspondent for Prothom Alo, was detained in the early hours of Wednesday at his home in the industrial town of Savar near the capital, Dhaka.
Bangladesh's Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan later told reporters in his office that Shams was arrested under the Digital Security Act (DSA) as his report was "false, fabricated and ill-motivated". The newspaper has denied the allegations.
Denounced by critics as "flawed" and "draconian", the DSA allows for jail sentences of up to 14 years.
According to the Center for Governance Studies, a total of 138 cases were filed against journalists under the DSA between January 2019 and August 2022, in which a total of 280 people were accused and 84 were arrested.
The case against Shams was filed by a local leader of the governing Awami League in connection to the report that was published by Prothom Alo on March 26, Bangladesh's Independence Day.
The story quotes a day labourer, Zakir Hossain, as saying, "What will I do with the independence if I can't afford food? We need the independence of rice, fish and meat."
Hours after the report was published in both print and online, lawyer Nijhoom Majumder posted a video on his Facebook page that has more than 200,000 followers declaring that he would investigate whether Hossain had indeed given that quote to Prothom Alo or the paper ran this story to "embarrass the government".
In a Facebook post promoting the story, the publication used the photo of a different person also quoted in the story - a flower seller named Sobuj - alongside the quote given by Hossain.
Majumder tracked down Sobuj and said that he had not given that particular quote. Channel 71, a pro-government television station, accompanied the lawyer and ran a report accusing Prothom Alo of using false quotes.
