FCA appealed to Samay TV’s management to take back the five journalists and let them continue doing what they have been doing faithfully for years.
South Asian foreign correspondents’ organizations—FCCSA, The Press Club of India, and Indian Association of Foreign Affairs Correspondents—voiced their concern today after five senior Bangladeshi TV journalists were fired after a student coordinator of the movement against student discrimination was found to have demanded their dismissal.
In its statement, FCCSA expressed strong concern over the move and urged the interim government of Bangladesh, Muhammad Yunus, to uphold the freedom of the press.
We would like to remind the Interim Government in Bangladesh that it has repeatedly promised to uphold the principles of press freedom. The leader’s visit to a TV channel’s newsroom demanding favourable coverage is nothing but news censorship and policing of information through the threat of mob action, it said.
According to the statement, the Anti-Discrimination Students’ Movement’s leader, Hasnat Abdullah, had met with the promoters of one of the largest TV channels of Bangladesh, Samay TV, on December 17 and sought the removal of veteran journalists. They had worked as the Section Heads of Samay TV for over a decade.
The journalists sacked are Chief Input Editor Omar Faroque, Chief Output Editor Ariful Sajjad, Digital Head Kamal Shahriar, Assistant Special Presenter Debashish Ray, and Senior Reporter Bulbul Reza.
The management of Samay TV decided to sack the journalists on December 22 after Abdullaha’s visit.
Then, taking to social media, he said that he had visited investors of the Samay TV “protest.” He also claimed that the channel “distorted” his comments and was “campaigning for a fallen political party,” said the FCCSA press statement.
The German news channel DW interviewed one of the sacked journalists and revealed that the organization had requested them to quit because of the “risk” they posed to the organization, which is a clear sign of a threat from the mob.
