Why was a Bangladesh journalist picked up, tortured for four days and released unconscious?
This is another one of those stories that reflects the worst of contemporary Bangladesh — and the climate of fear surrounding freedom of the media.
A journalist, missing for four days, is found unconscious on the bank of a canal in Chittagong. When he revives, he is curled up repeatedly saying, in a clear state of trauma: “Please let me go. I will not write news anymore! I will quit journalism.”
When interviewed a few days later in hospital, the 36 year old reporter, a staff reporter of weekly Ajker Surjodo as well as the executive editor of an online news portal ctnewsbd, explained to the Business Standard what happened to him:
“I was going to my village home in Chandanaish from the port city’s Kazir Dewri area on Wednesday night. A kidnapper grabbed me from behind when I was about to ride on a rented motorcycle. A few more miscreants also came forward within a moment and shoved me into an ambulance. Without any delay, they made me unconscious.”
“When I regained consciousness, I found myself in a dark room with my hands and feet tied. Five masked men used to beat me daily in that room for long four days.
“I was given only bread to eat and water to drink. They put cotton in my ears, so that I cannot hear the sounds around me. However, I heard the sound of train sometimes from the room.
“While torturing, the kidnappers mocked me saying that as I was a journalist with almost no fame, my life had no security. Why did I write such report, they asked me,”
“Unable to bear the torture, I fainted again and again. Whenever I regained consciousness, they used to beat me again. …
“I repeatedly requested the torturers to release me on condition of giving up journalism for good; but they did not listen. They just kept beating me tirelessly and mercilessly.”
Most disappearances of this kind in Bangladesh are undertaken by state bodies — the police, Rapid Action Battalion or the Directorate General of Forces Intelligence. When they carry out these abductions they usually do so with governmental authority, but they also carry them out in a free-lance capacity, in private disputes on behalf of powerful politicians or businessmen. An example of the later is the enforced disappearances which have taken place as part of the private dispute between the prime minister’s advisor retired General Tarique Siddique and his former business partner retired Colonel Shahid Khan.
Although some of those subject to enforced disappearances are released after a period of time in secret detention — out of fear, almost no-one ever talks publicly about state agency involvement in their disappearance. So Sarwar’s silence on the identify of his abductors does not necessarily mean that state bodies were not involved. Yet there is reason to consider that his disappearance did not involve direct state action — but the action of aggrieved individuals.
First, there is the manner of Sarwar’s release. It is highly unusual for state agencies to release someone in an unconscious state.
Second there is the reason for his abduction — which seems almost certainly to be connected to the articles he wrote as a journalist. Bangladesh media have identified two particular reports that may have provoked someone to pick Sarwar up.
One concerned the operation of illegal casinos in Chittagong, claiming that whilst a number were closed down last year after a law enforcement lockdown, they were now reopening. It also alleged that casino equipment was being illegally imported under the guise of digital games. No names were mentioned in the report.
The second article, published on October 24th, five days before Sarwar was abducted reported on a specific allegation made by the developer, JS Construction Limited, that Anisuzzaman, the brother of Land Minister Saifuzzaman Chowdhury Jabed, was trying to illegally occupy land that his company was developing in Chittagong. This is a much more detailed report with the chairman of the company being quoted as stating:
“I saw on Monday night that the boundary wall in my occupied area was broken. I immediately made a general diary at the police station. I came to know later on that Anisuzzaman, the brother of the land minister, did this to take my place. He wants to occupy the space by increasing the boundary wall of his house and attaching it to my boundary wall. Because I took measures against this [by lodging the GD] he called me on the phone and threatened to kill me.”
As noted above, senior politicians do use law enforcement bodies to do their bidding; but it is also quite possible that someone named or affected by these articles may have decided to take the matter in their own hands.
An investigation is on-going. Yet it is unclear how seriously the authorities will take it — and Sarwar may be too frightened to assist them in their inquiries. One would have expected by now, even without Sarwar’s cooperation, that that the minister’s brother mentioned in the land-grabbing article would at least have been questioned by the police — but there are no reports of this having happened. And unless there is some instruction from on high, one shouldn’t hold one’s breath. Disappearances at the behest of powerful politicians or businessmen in Bangladesh are likely to remain as un-investigated as any enforced disappearance undertaken by a state body.
Equally concerning, of course, is the total failure of local and national politicians in Bangladesh to condemn the kidnapping and to seek to uphold the principle of freedom of the media. One would have expected, even in today’s Bangladesh, that some senior governing party politician would have thought it appropriate to condemn the kidnapping of a journalist — but so far no-one has. The silence is deafening.
//David Bergman
Correction: an earlier version referred to the minister’s son. It has now been corrected to refer to the minister’s brother.
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