Bangladesh arrests journalist over election reporting
DHAKA:ABangladeshijournalist was arrested and another was on the run yesterday for publishing ‘false information’ about voting irregularities in an election won by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, police said.
Hedayet Hossain Mollah, who works for the Dhaka Tribune newspaper, was detained late Tuesday under a controversial digital security law which rights groups say gives authorities broad powers to stifle dissent.
Mollah was arrested in the southern Khulna region after he reported that in one constituency 22,419 more ballots than the number of registered voters were cast, local police chief Mahbubur Rahman said.
“The actual votes cast were only 80 per cent of the total votes,” Rahman told AFP, adding that Mollah was accused of ‘providing false information in an effort to make the election look questionable’.
If convicted Mollah could face up to 14 years in jail under a draconian anti-press law that was toughed by Hasina last year.
The police chief said another journalist was wanted for questioning after a local government administrator filed a case against the two under the controversial law.
Hasina, 71, is accused of creeping authoritarianism, including muzzling the media and jailing prominent journalists such as Shahidul Alam, an award winning photographer, who spent four months in prison recently. — AFP