Special powers used to hold correspondent Saleem Samad for another month

Reporters Without Borders (Reporters sans frontières) today voiced its outrage at the Bangladeshi government's decision to use the Special Powers Act to hold journalist Saleem Samad for another month. The one-month extension was obtained on 24 December, the same day that the high court ruled that Samad should be released on bail. Samad, who is Reporters Without Borders' correspondent ,was arrested on 29 November in connection with his work for two European journalists from Britain's Channel 4 television who were preparing a documentary on the political situation in Bangladesh.

"The government took an unjustified and abusive decision just as Samad's family and friends were getting ready to celebrate his release on the high court's orders," Reporters Without Borders secretary-general Robert Ménard said in a letter to interior minister Altaf Hossain Chowdhury calling for Samad's immediate release and for the charges of "conspiracy" and "sedition" to be dropped.

"One wonders why Samad is still in prison while the principal accused persons, Zaiba Malik, Bruno Sorrentino and Priscilla Raj, have already been released," Ménard said. "If the Dhaka government wants to take Reporters Without Borders to task for denouncing repeated press freedom violations in Bangladesh, it should use the international judicial system and stop harassing our correspondent."

Malik and Sorrentino, the European journalists who made up the Channel 4 team, were expelled from Bangladesh on 11 December. Raj, a human rights activist who was interpreting for the Channel 4 team, was released on 22 December.

The government has given no details of its reasons for getting Samad's detention extended under the Special Powers Act, under which thousands of abusive detentions have been made since its adoption in 1974. Prime Minister Begum Khaleda Zia promised to repeal the act during last year's election campaign, but her government has used it to jail dozens of its opponents and journalists since October 2001. In 2000, a parliamentary enquiry found that 80 per cent of the proceedings initiated by the Bangladeshi authorities under this act failed to prosper in the courts.

Shahriar Kabir, a journalist and human rights activist, has also been detained since 8 December under the Special Powers Act for having given testimony to the Channel 4 team on the political situation. He was transferred to Gazipur prison, north of Dhaka, on 22 December. Another human rights activist who had assisted the Channel 4 team, Mainul Islam Khan, had to flee the country for fear of being arrested.

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