A government-linked Bangladeshi lawyer has filed a sedition case over an Al Jazeera investigative report that revealed how a criminal gang is colluding with Bangladesh’s security forces, and has links to the country’s prime minister.
The case, which was filed at a court in Dhaka on Wednesday, argues that Al Jazeera’s report –
All the Prime Minister’s Men – was “fictitious and flawed”, the Dhaka Tribune reported.
The lawyer behind the case, Moshiur Malek, said Al Jazeera’s reporting “tarnished the image of Bangladesh’s government and the state at home and abroad, which amounts to sedition”, Bangladeshi media reported.
Final Call News
Rohingya refugees walk at the Balukhali refugee camp in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, Feb. 2. Rohingya refugees from Myanmar living in camps in Bangladesh are condemning the military coup in their homeland and saying it makes them more fearful to return. A brutal counterinsurgency operation by Myanmar’s military in 2017 drove more than 700,000 Rohingya Muslims to neighboring Bangladesh. AP Photo/Shafiqur Rahman
Bangladesh Rohingya refugees from Myanmar living in camps in Bangladesh condemned the military coup in their homeland and said it makes them more fearful to return.
A counterinsurgency operation by Myanmar’s military in 2017 involving mass rape, murders and the torching of villages drove more than 700,000 Rohingya Muslims into neighboring Bangladesh.
Bangladesh has hosted them in crowded refugee camps and is eager to begin sending them back to Buddhist-majority Myanmar. Several attempts at repatriation under a joint agreement failed because the Rohingya refused to go, fearing more violence in a country that denies them basic rights including citizenship.
The United Nations has rightly expressed fears that the recent military coup in Myanmar would exacerbate the plight of the Rohingya still remaining in the country. There are about 600,000 Rohingya those that remain in Rakhine State, including 120,000 people who are effectively confined to camps; they cannot move freely and have extremely limited access to basic health and education services, said UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric.
While the recent episode of Rohingya genocide was unleashed during the regime of the democratically elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi in 2017, which led to the exodus of more than 700,000 Rohingya to Bangladesh after having endured unspeakable horrors, the seizing of power by the military who will have no accountability either to the people or to the international community is likely to make life worse for those who had remained behind.