Author: News
Publication: The Times of India
Date: November 26, 2001
Kolkata: The arrest of Bangladeshi
rights activist and journalist Shahriar Kabir has provoked angry across
the world. In Dhaka, more than 2000 people staged an angry demonstration
demanding against Kabir's arrest. watchdog Reporters Sans Frontiers (RSF)
has demanded immediate release of Kabir.
In a letter to Bangladeshi home
minister Altaf Hossain Choudhury, the RSF has said that the country's government
has used an emergency law to imprison the journalist who was only reporting
the situation of hundreds of Hindus suffering the religious violence in
Bangladesh.
"This decision runs counter to your
party's recent electoral promises, which committed you not to use emergency
laws against the press," said the RSF general-secretary Robert Mnard. Kabir,
detained under the Special Powers Act of 1974, may be kept in custody for
90 days.
In Kolkata, Kiriti Roy of Manabadhikar
Suraksha Mancha strongly condemned the arrest of Kabir, who was picked
up by Bangladeshi authorities last Friday, immediately after he landed
at Dhaka airport. Roy said that the arrest was undemocratic and against
the charter of human rights. He demanded immediate release.
