The International Crimes Tribunal-2 on Thursday allowed six more days to 23 eminent citizens to respond to the contempt of court proceedings for issuing a statement criticizing Dhaka-based British journalist David Bergman’s punishment.
The tribunal asked them to submit their reply by April 29, 2015.
Thursday was the last date for submissions of their replies. But they could not present their answers and submitted separate petitions seeking more time.
The citizens are Shireen Huq, Zafrullah Chowdhury, CR Abrar, Ali Ahmed Ziauddin, Farida Akhtar, Bina D’ Costa, Afsan Chowdhury, Rahnuma Ahmed, Shahidul Alam, Leesa Gazi, Anu Muhammad, Lubna Marium, Zarina Nahar Kabir, Shabnam Nadia, Muktashree Chakma Sathi, Mahmud Rahman, Nasreen Siraj Annie, Hana Shams Ahmed, Anusheh Anadil, Delwar Hossain, Masud Khan, Tibra Ali and Ziaur Rahman.
The 23 respondents are among the 49 citizens who signed a joint statement on December 18, 2014 over punishing journalist David Bergman, which Prothom Alo published on December 20, 2014.
The tribunal exonerated 25 of the 49 as they had apologized unconditionally for their statement.
On December 2, 2014, the tribunal unanimously awarded Bergman, also New Age’s contributing special correspondent, the ‘sentence of simple imprisonment till rising of the court with a fine of Tk 5,000’ on charge of contempt of court for using ‘derogatory and unfair words and phrases’ about a tribunal judgement in two articles posted on his personal blog.
The December 18, 2014 statement expressed concern of the signatories over ICT-2 contempt judgment on Bergman. The statement said, ‘We express our deep concern about the use of contempt of court law to curb freedom of expression and at the recent conviction and sentencing of journalist David Bergman by the International Crimes Tribunal-2 on charges of “contempt of court”.’
The tribunal on January 14 served notices to 49 citizens asking them to explain their joint statement.
Source: New Age