Bangladesh under pressure for jailing critic
▶ Photojournalist Shahidul Alam has been denied bail five times since August
Bangladesh’s culture minister has insisted that the jailing of an award-winning photojournalist will be “resolved” soon.
Shahidul Alam, 63, was detained on August 5 and has been refused bail five times since.
The photojournalist, whose work has been published in
The New York Times and National Geographic, was accused of breaching laws against criticising the government or “prejudicing the image of the state or a person”.
Mr Alam was arrested after he posted videos on social media and criticised recent security force attacks on student demonstrators in Dhaka.
The Bangladeshi government also claimed Mr Alam made what it described as “provocative comments” in an interview he gave to Al Jazeera.
“Let me tell you one thing, everybody is free to talk,” Culture Minister Asaduzzaman Noor told The National at the Dhaka Literary Festival. “You should watch our television shows and you will see that everybody is criticising the government.
“The right to speak is always there but at the same time the government has some responsibility, so sometimes there are two ends that won’t meet. But, in time, this problem will be resolved.
“If you look at our newspapers, watch our television shows, go to the public rallies of opposition parties, they are criticising every time and every day. Even here on this platform, there will be some criticism. We don’t stop it.”
Tens of thousands of students took to the streets in August in protests about road safety after two teenagers were killed by a bus on July 29. Police fired teargas and rubber bullets at the crowd.
Amnesty International called for Mr Alam to be “immediately and unconditionally released”.
Mr Noor, a member of the ruling Awami League and one of Bangladesh’s most popular actors, said that the role of the artist and the politician in society was comparable.
“Actors, writers, poets and painters – they all belong to the society, they belong to the people and they reflect the pains and the happiness of the people,” he said.
“Without connectivity with society and with people, a person cannot be an artist. And a true politician must follow the same set of rules to connect with the people.
“The artist and the politician are for the people, they must work for the people, they must serve the people, so I don’t see that there is any difference between politics and culture.”