POBNEWS24, Dhaka Feb 23, 2025 : Journalists were intimidated by Bangladesh’s intelligence agencies, including DGFI and NSI agents, to refrain them from reporting on the July uprising, according to a recent report of the United Nations (UN) rights office.
It also revealed how the journalists were victims of security forces indiscriminately firing at protesters during the student-led movement.
“Ministry of Information officials and DGFI and NSI agents, including senior officials from the Ministry and DGFI, intimidated editors and journalists by calling them, coming to their offices and private homes and demanding changes to their reporting and broadcasting,” said the report of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR).
The Office of the OHCHR released its Fact-Finding Report titled “Human Rights Violations and Abuses related to the Protests of July and August 2024 in Bangladesh” from its Geneva office on February 12.
The report showed the authorities violated the rights to freedom of expression and media indiscriminately by intimidating and arresting journalists.
“Journalists testified about a general climate of intimidation and pressure from media owners close to the Awami League who did not allow them to freely report on the protests or the Government’s use of force to suppress them.”
Instead, the report said, some media outlets published misinformation that appears to have been fabricated and spread by intelligence and other government officials.
In one case, RAB officers raided a media outlet, assaulted employees and tried to force them at gunpoint to identify a journalist who obtained information exposing serious violations by military officers.
NSI agents issued threats against that media outlet to ensure that this information was not published, according to the fact-finding report.
During the July uprising from 15 July and 5 August 2024, at least six journalists were killed at or around protests in Dhaka, Sylhet and Sirajganj, while about 200 journalists were injured.
The first-hand testimony obtained by the found that journalists were victims of security forces’ indiscriminate firing at protesters, while they were often directly targeted with violence due to exercise of their profession.
Photojournalists were especially subject to aggressions by different actors, who did not wish their involvement in events to be recorded.
On July 18, a journalist was shot and killed by police while he was covering protests in Jatrabari.
On July 19 in Sylhet, police fired shotguns loaded with lethal ammunition at a BNP rally. Some of the protesters defended themselves with their flag poles and bricks in response. Among those shot and killed by the police was a journalist who was taking photos at the protest.
Also on 19 July, around Elephant Road in Dhaka, police warned a photojournalist that, if he kept taking photos, he would be shot.
A few minutes later, in the same area, several police officers fired shotguns loaded with lethal metal pellets at another journalist who was holding a microphone while he stood next to his cameraman. Metal shot injured him in the neck and limbs.
The same day in Paltan, a journalist was injured by metal shot when police fired without warning at protesters, the UN report said.
