Editorial

Journalists coming under increasing wrath

We condemn JCD’s treatment of media professionals
Journalists, photojournalists in particular, while covering campus events, have been routinely at the receiving end of Police-JCD wrath. This is outrageous, alarming and simply not acceptable any more. They came under the attack while collecting news of the unprovoked attack on common students by the police and cadres of Chhatra Dal at Dhaka University campus on Wednesday. The Chhatra Dal cadres not only seriously injured the photojournalist of Prothom Alo, Firoze Choudhury and staff correspondent of Ajker Kagoj, Moinul Haq Choudhury, they even had the audacity to misbehave with other journalists and order them to leave the campus.

Much as the leaders of Chhatra Dal tried to deny they were involved in the attacks, accounts of witnesses conveyed a different impression. We want to know why the journalists were prohibited from either taking pictures or collecting news during the atrocious attacks on common students? If Chhatra Dal had nothing to hide, then why did they pounce on the journalists so ruthlessly? The journalists were simply doing their job. This was a clear illustration of attempting to sweep things under the carpet and that also by use of force. How can we allow such preposterous attitude in a free democratic society? The government has pledged to investigate any excessive action against the students on the part of the police on Wednesday, though unfortunately, but not unexpectedly, there has been no comment from the government about taking steps against those who attacked the journalists.

Attack on journalists is not a new phenomenon in our country. We can cite the recent murder of fearless journalist of Khulna, Manik Saha in this respect. In fact reporters in the mufassils have always been working under threats. However what's been alarming is the ascending order of such threats. And now with the rising temperature in the political arena, the journalists are set to be under further similar threats. We fail to understand why can they not take note of the inadequacies and wrongdoings that we reveal in our reports and take steps accordingly, instead of attacking us? Let us do our jobs without any fear of reprisal.