Local journalism: Tale of a double

Even before Chandanaish journalist Ayub Meahzi was beaten by a local criminal group and thrown off the roof of a two-story building, he had already been reeling from an overwhelming six cases filed against him.

The attack was widely covered in the national media, Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and international media like The Guardian.

However, soon after the media interest waned, the culprits got bail while two new cases were filed against Meahzi. Besides, he lost his job at the Daily Sangu, one of the media outlets he worked for.

"I have also been removed from the WhatsApp group of local media personnel, which was one of my news sources. With adversities all around, it is very challenging to carry on with my work," Meahzi told The Business Standard.

Meahzi, however, is lucky in the sense that he is still alive, unlike Golam Rabbani Nadim who was beaten to death for reporting on a local politician last week.

In Bangladesh, the list of journalists being beaten and harassed is huge. While harassment of journalists in Dhaka is a grim reality, as most journalists of national media are based in the capital, there have been numerous cases of attacks, murders and harassment of the district and upazila-level journalists over the years.

Along with the difficulties such as cases filed to prevent them from pursuing stories, harassment, absence of justice when coming under attacks, central media houses' negligence, and lack of training on how to navigate the localities, what ails the professional journalists in districts and upazila-level most are their own colleagues.

These so-called colleagues of theirs are allegedly different party cadres, but introduce themselves as journalists to exercise political muscle and influence corruption beyond accountability.

In light of the series of attacks on journalists outside Dhaka in the last several months, district and upazila-level journalists shared their perilous career predicaments with The Business Standard.

Fighting crocodiles in the water

On 25 December last year, TBS journalist Abu Azad was abducted and severely beaten by local thugs in Rangunia upazila in Chattogram while taking pictures of an illegal brick kiln.

"It is like fighting crocodiles in the water," Abu Azad shared his perspective of working at the upazila-level.

"It is not that everyone is tortured like me, but those truly doing journalism are beset with cases and other pressures to prevent them from pursuing stories," he said. "The local journalists always feel a threat to their personal, family and professional safety as they live alongside the people they report on," he added.

So far in 2023, according to data sent by Article 19 to The Business Standard, 255 journalists have been "victimised by physical attack, murder, kidnap, defamation, and legal harassment under the DSA and other laws."

International Press Institute (IPI) documented at least 42 cases of press freedom threats or violations in six months. While Ain O Shalikh Kendra in the first three months of the year reported 56 cases of journalists being tortured, harassed, threatened or sued across the country.

Monjurul Ahsan Bulbul, former president of the Bangladesh Federal Union of Journalists (BFUJ) and vice president of the International Press Institute (IPI) told The Business Standard that most of these attacks come on journalists operating outside of Dhaka.

A double-edged sword

A large group of journalists we interviewed across different parts of Bangladesh singled out one group of people as their principal predicament – their colleagues.

They said that district and upazila levels are swarmed with journalists. You will perhaps find dozens of unions of journalists in each upazila.

For example, according to the journalists we interviewed, there are several press clubs in each upazila of Bogura and Gaibandha. Groups such as Journalist Union, Journalist Forum, Journalist Network are mushrooming here and there every now and then.

Besides, the number of local daily newspapers is big too. According to the information ministry, there are 1,279 registered daily newspapers in Bangladesh, of which 775 are based in small towns and 504 in Dhaka. Of 1,199 weekly newspapers, 855 are based in small towns.

There are 20 daily newspapers only in Bogura, for example. Madaripur has five daily newspapers and nine weekly papers.

However, professional journalists we interviewed said many of the journalists in local areas are allegedly journalists in name only as they exploit their cards for personal and political gains. While many are actually political cadres, they complicate the job of professional journalists who want to do their job neutrally.

"Our enemies are us, the journalists. Local areas are full of political journalists – party cadres. They exercise their power to put field-level journalists like us in trouble," said Ajay Kundu, Madaripur correspondent of Prothom Alo.

"And the biggest trouble is these so-called journalists are the majority here," he said.

While these political journalists prevent the professionals in numerous ways on behalf of their parties, when the professionals still pursue a story, Ajay said, they even resort to harassing their family members so that the professionals face challenges from within their family.

Mostafa Shabuj, Bogura correspondent of The Daily Star, said the problem is huge for those who do honest journalism at the district level. He reiterated that a key challenge they face is from their colleagues with political connections.

"Good journalists are honestly very helpless," Mostafa said. "What I believe is if they don't do good journalism, that's fine. But instead of assisting the journalists who do their work properly, they team up with the corrupt to imperil the professionals."

According to Bangladesh Federal Union of Journalists (BFUJ) President Omar Faruk, two fractions of BFUJ has over 7,500 member journalists nationwide.

"There are around 10,000 to 12,000 journalists who are professionals. Along with them are an equal number of people who are journalists by hobby or for other reasons," Faruk said.

Journalist murder cases don't see justice

Journalist leader Monjurul Ahsan Bulbul said the journalists outside Dhaka are 24-hour journalists in the sense that they cover every event of the district for the outlet they work for, alone, from dawn till dusk.

Because of their extensive work, their social interaction is high. This increased social interaction creates both enemies and friends.

"In 52 years of Bangladesh, except a few cases like Sagor-Runi, most attacks on journalists happened outside Dhaka," Monjurul said.

According to this veteran journalist, only three cases of over two dozen journalist murders have seen an end in independent Bangladesh while justice has barely been served.

"Among three cases that saw some sort of an end is Khulna's Harunur Rashid Khokon murder case. Manik Saha murder case got a verdict that his family and the journalists didn't accept. Another verdict came on Faridpur's Gautam Das murder case in the lower court, although one of the convicts is out of jail," he said.

Journalist Manik Saha, a freedom fighter, Khulna-based stringer for BBC Bangla Service and New Age correspondent was bombed to death near Khulna Press Club on 15 January 2004 in response to his reports on the activities of armed Maoist groups and criminal gangs.

Nine convicts were jailed for life in 2016, however, the High Court acquitted four of them in 2019.

Manik Saha's colleagues and family asked for reinvestigation. According to the well-wishers of Manik Saha, the life-term verdict was based on "an imprudent investigation and flawed charge sheet". It identified 13 people mostly from the then two rival groups of outlawed Purba Banglar Communist Party, but it "did not include the planners, financiers and patrons".

Gautam Das, then Faridpur bureau chief of the Bangla daily Samakal, was murdered on 17 November 2005 in his office. He was murdered after running a series of reports based on allegations of corruption and irregularities by the accused. A Dhaka tribunal sentenced nine people to life. However, one of the criminals is reportedly still on the run.

The aggressors often have an influential political and administrative background, Monjurul said. They believe that attacking or killing a journalist will cause them no trouble because "they have a godfather, and journalist murder cases don't see justice in Bangladesh."

Abu Azad said when journalists defy the cases and harassment and somehow continue to do their work, they face the same fate as Nadim.

"Nadim had to die. If he chose to compromise, he could survive. But he chose not to compromise and lost his life," he added.

Rumky Farhana, a senior programme officer at Article 19 South Asia – an international organisation that defends and promotes freedom of expression and freedom of information, oversees the organisation's projects in Bangladesh.

She said that one of the biggest challenges is that there is no direct law to protect journalists in Bangladesh.

"Rather there is a strong legal framework like DSA 2018 that has been overly used to threaten and harass journalists and media communicators. The other one is the culture of impunity for crimes against journalists that let the perpetrators live with no accountability," Rumky said.

Systematic wrongdoing

Fazle Elahi, a journalist based in Rangamati district is editor of Daily Parbotto Chattogram. He also reports for several national dailies.

"The upazila-level journalists suffer from an identity crisis in most cases. Most of the media houses don't provide financial support to these journalists. Consequently, they have to do something besides journalism for survival," Fazle said.

"When a journalist in a local area falls in trouble, you won't see enough nationwide protests. Local journalists are thought of as lowly," he added.

Monjurul Ahsan said the structure of district and upazila-level journalists' employment has a problem.

"The owners are more responsible than the government. They employ journalists in districts but don't pay them. Nadim worked for three newspapers. The question is: Why did he have to work for three media outlets?"

He further said, "Journalists outside Dhaka don't have legal protection. Some of them don't even have a contract paper, except an ID card. As a result, the first trouble of the journalists outside Dhaka is that their outlets don't take responsibility whether in regards to salaries or safety."

The issue of training of the local journalists on safety was also raised in our conversation with the journalists.

Press Institute of Bangladesh (PIB) is one of the groups that train journalists in Bangladesh. In 2020-21, it trained 3,283 journalists.

"We provide both residential and non-resident training. In those trainings, we talk about the issue of protections," said Zafar Wazed, the director general of PIB.

"Since journalism at field level is a very tough job. We train how they will do journalism there and how they can stay safe," he added.

However, sharing his experiences of working at the district level, Prothom Alo's Ajay Kundu said that he attended many trainings in Dhaka, but nowhere did he find strategies or ways of navigating the local beats being discussed in training programs.

"The incident that happened in Jamalpur, such incidents will happen again if we are not trained properly," he added.

journalism / freedom of press