The High Court today expressed utter dismay and dissatisfaction as nobody came forward to save a journalist when he was seeking help after being shot during a clash in Noakhali this February. Journalist Borhan Uddin Muzakkir was shot while collecting information during a clash, and he called for help but nobody came forward to rescue him although some people were taking photos
BenarNews
In an online video of his sermons that went viral, a Muslim preacher called for journalists to be “slaughtered” in Bangladesh, where conservative ideology keeps shrinking the space for freedom of speech, a global media group said in a report this week.
The preacher and madrassa teacher, Wasik Billah Nomani, delivered the sermon in the presence of thousands of people, “repeatedly vowing to ‘slaughter’ journalists after establishing the caliphate,” the International Federation of Journalists said in its South Asia Press Freedom Report 2020-21.
The preacher, a prominent activist with the hardline Hefazat-e-Islam group, was arrested in the city of Mymensingh on April 11 for allegedly making provocative statements in his sermons, but social media is “overflowing” with Islamic lectures replete with “hate speech,” IFJ reported.
India curbs free speech during pandemic
As the latest coronavirus wave ravages India in unprecedented ways, journalists are facing increasing crackdowns and constraints on their freedom of speech. While experts say the pandemic has accelerated official limitations on press across the region, the trend, however, has been consistent over the past years. They are using COVID as an excuse for everything. Journalists are being far more intimidated now than they have been in the past and the pandemic is being used as a cover, Nidhi Razdan, former executive editor of NDTV, told DW.
India was ranked 142nd among 180 countries on the World Press Freedom Index 2021, for a second consecutive year.