MONTHS and months of unpaid salaries, unending unpaid leaves, unpaid termination benefits and penalised unions this is what the pandemic has left the news industry with. An introspection into the fourth estate reveals that those tasked with speaking up against violations have been the victims of gross labour rights violations themselves.
When a legacy newspaper with ruling party alignment terminated 36 people on March 15, 2021, it led to a messy series of events. First, the ones terminated claimed that they were all members of a trade union inside the newspaper, and they had been penalised for unionising.
“We formed a union because two years ago we wanted to pressurise the establishment to pay the arrears of the previous years. At the time of termination we were demanding that we receive increments there had been no increments in the newspaper for eight years,” claimed Bivash Barai, a terminated journalist who was the head of the union unit.
Journalism in bad shape
Ahammad Foyez | Published: 00:25, May 03,2021
Bangladesh observes World Press Freedom Day today with professionals and rights bodies noting that the room for independent journalism in the country has shrunk because of increasing harassment, persecution and prosecution of journalists under the Digital Security Act.
According to them, the domination of political and corporate power on journalism is gradually increasing while the Digital Security Act has become a serious barrier to practising journalism freely.
Editors’ Council president and The Daily Star editor Mahfuz Anam told New Age that ensuring press freedom was a must for the authorities as the news media was a place for common people to express their views enabling the government to know what people were thinking about the government.
Killings, attacks and intimidation: Journalism under fire across borders
Illustration: Noor Us Safa Anik
For the first time, media organisations in Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Nepal are coming together to report about the killings, attacks, harassment, and intimidation of journalists in these South Asian countries. It is the first such collaboration by media outlets in the region.
By Nirmal Jovial
On the evening of August 8, 2020, ten women from Subhash Mohalla in North East Delhi proceeded to the Bhajanpura police station to make the police register a first information report on a complaint they had made two days before. The complaint was that some men had tried to foment communal tension in their locality. The complainants said the men had abused Muslims, tied saffron flags near a mosque and burst crackers in celebration of a ceremony for the construction of a temple at faraway Ayodhya on August 5.
Veteran journalist Syed Shahjahan passes away | Bangladesh Sangbad Sangstha (BSS) bssnews.net - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from bssnews.net Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.