Bangladesh authorities Thursday arrested an antigovernment newspaper editor, the latest in a series of detentions amid spiraling public clashes between Islamist and secular communities.
Mahmudur Rahman, editor of the Bengali-language Amar Desh newspaper, later Thursday was charged by a court with sedition. He denied the charge.
The Amar Desh has been publishing material questioning the independence of a war-crimes tribunal set up three years ago by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s government to look into allegations of abuses by Islamists during a civil war in 1971.
Supporters of Ms. Hasina say the tribunal is needed to account for the violence four decades ago, during which tens of thousands of people died, many at the hands of Islamist militia.
Since February, a network of bloggers have organized daily protests of tens of thousands of people against Islamists. The protests began after the war-crimes tribunal in February sentenced a leader of the Jamaat-e-Islami, a leading Islamist party, to life in prison for his role in the 1971 violence. The bloggers’ network since then has organized huge daily protests, calling for the tribunal to give the maximum death sentence to all those found guilty.
At the weekend, Islamist parties organized a massive counter-protest in Dhaka, the capital, demanding the government bring in anti-blasphemy laws to protect Islam. Police have shot and killed dozens of Islamist protesters in recent weeks.
Opposition politicians claim the government is using the tribunal and the recent tensions to clamp down on political opponents. All of the ten people on trial are from opposition parties, eight of them from the Jamaat-e-Islami, the country’s leading Islamist group.
On Monday, police arrested 10 officials from the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party on allegations they have been inciting communal violence by supporting calls for nationwide strikes in recent weeks. Shamsher Chowdhury, vice chairman of the BNP, said the arrests were on “false and fictitious charges.”
Mr. Rahman, the newspaper editor, is among those questioning the war-crimes tribunal. In December, Amar Desh republished transcripts that purported to show government meddling in the trails.
The transcripts — leaked Skype conversations supposedly between the former head of the tribunal and a Bangladeshi lawyer — appeared to show the two men discussing government pressure on them to reach verdicts. A court later proscribed newspapers from carrying the alleged transcripts but Amar Desh continued to do so.
Since then, Mr. Rahman had been living in his newspaper’s offices in an attempt to avoid arrest.
Ms. Hasina’s secular-minded Awami league-led government denies political meddling in the tribunal. In recent speeches, Ms. Hasina has said the country will push ahead with the trials, which she says is needed to bring justice to families that lost members. In 1971, Islamist militia that opposed Bangladesh breaking away from Pakistan targeted those who favored independence. Many of these fighters left for Pakistan after Bangladesh became an independent country that year, but others stayed.
Mohammed Nasim, a senior leader of the Awami League, said the opposition was attempting to shield war criminals. “They are trying to take the country backwards,” he said.
Awami League members, especially its youth division, have supported the bloggers’ protests. But the government also has been keen not to inflame more religious Bangladeshis, who make up a sizeable portion of the country’s 160 million population.
On Wednesday, authorities detained two bloggers for allegedly destabilizing communal harmony, bringing the total numbers of in custody to six. None have yet been formally charged. A number of bloggers have published content that ridicules Islam.
Source: The Wall Street Journal
