Media vs. muscle

Reportedly, they were sufficiently instigated and backed by a couple of local ruling party lawmakers. The cadres carried out for an hour their operation of crushing the journalists' meeting at Kushtia. They physically assaulted, indiscriminately stoned and seriously injured a good number of national and local journalist leaders including the BFUJ President, Iqbal Sobhan Chowdhury. Reportedly, the journalists gathered there to protest against alleged false cases against and harassment of four local journalists for their reporting involving a local lawmaker.

No, the story and the journalists' agony did not end there. The cadres have allegedly created a reign of terror against the local journalists thus forcing them to be on the run for life. They have forcibly stopped publication of a Kushtia daily namely 'Andoloner Bazar' and one godfather of those cadres -- allegedly a local BNP lawmaker -- has publicly threatened to ensure non-publication of that newspaper. He may have grievances -- genuine or false -- against the local daily and its publisher but there are sane mechanisms to redress the grievances.

His threat amounts to a threat against the whole free press of the country affecting, of course, the people's rights and interests. I also believe he and his sympathisers ought to bear in mind that Kushtia is not the whole of Bangladesh as Feni and Laxmipur were not during the previous Awami League regime.

No, I have no personal grudge against the lawmaker. Nor do I intend to side with the Andoloner Bazar and its publisher in the case.

But, the lawmaker's undemocratic words and overbearing threats following the Kushtia attacks betray his utter disrespect for law and thus invite serious criticisms and rejoinders from conscious people from all walks of life. It is to be mentioned here that the police attacks on the journalists at Chittagong were condemned, among others, by the government. This time, however, the government has not even bothered to condemn the attacks though many including civil society people, foreign dignitaries and reporters without borders have strongly condemned the attacks.

I believe the BNP high command must have committed a blunder by not clearing its position as its mysterious silence betrays its connivance with the MP's heinous attacks and repeated threats, no matter whether it is actually involved in it or not. I wonder how BNP high command forgot so quickly the Joynal Hazari anecdote for which Awami League had to pay by the nose. The ministers and the political leaders are constantly terming the media people as media terrorists, pen terrorists and what not, and to blame the media for the national crisis -- ridiculously though -- has become a routine affair for them.

Journalists have become the target of the ruling party people. Though it is not a new phenomenon in Bangladesh, a good number of them have already been killed or maimed. Manhandling of journalists by the security people is also a regular phenomenon. And the remark that Bangladesh has turned out to be a dangerous place for the journalists continues to come true time and again.

To further truncate the media, the government is contemplating measures to tie up the media and that too, under the auspices of legal provisions. What else can be the motive behind this move other than throttling the people's freedom of information and reverting back the country to the dark ages? I do not claim that all sections of the media are equally committed to truth but the influential section of it is definitely serving the nation by keeping us constantly updated and making us aware as well as conscious.

For their commitment they are constantly being made -- as the repeated attacks on them suggest -- to pay and pay heavily at times and the battle between media and muscle continues. However, the ones opting for muscle have no option but to unlearn their method of intimidation and shun reliance on muscle power as it will not only make them pay but will surely be their curtains -- no, this is not a mere wishful thinking as several such examples were set in the recent past. Thus, the sooner the muscle mongers realise this bare fact, the better will they be served.