Journalists holding rally in city (Video)

Submitted by priyodesk on Tue, 05/06/2012 - 3:44pm

Journalists are holding a rally in front of the National Press Club (NPC) today (Tuesday) to press for their various demands, including the arrest of the killers of Sagar and Runi, an end to attack on journalists, their harassment by police and freedom of the press.

The rally began after 11 am.

The programme was announced by president of Bangladesh Federal Union of Journalists (BFUJ) Iqbal Sobhan Chowdhury after a meeting at the National Press Club on Monday afternoon.

BFUJ secretary Abdul Jalil Bhuiyan, president and acting secretary general of the other faction of BFUJ Ruhul Amin Gazi and M Abdullah, NPC president Kamal Uddin Sabuj and secretary Syed Abdal Ahmed, Dhaka Reporters` Unity (DRU) president Sakhawat Hossain Badshah and secretary Sajjad Alam Khan Topu and presidents and secretaries of the two factions of DUJ Omar Faruque and Shaban Mahmud and Abdus Shahid and Baker Hossain were, among others, present.

After the meeting, Iqbal Sobhan Chowdhury said leaders of the journalist community will also go to the Speaker of the Jatiya Sangad (parliament) today to submit a memorandum to him demanding the arrest and exemplary punishment of the assassins of journalist couple Golam Sarwar Sagar, alias Sagar Sarwar and Meherun Nahar Runi and the killers of other journalists, an end to harassment and assault of on-duty journalists by police, attack and killing of working journalists by miscreants and freedom of expression, including mass media.

Leaders of the journalist community also demanded that chairman of private TV channel ATN Bangla Mahfuzur Rahman be quizzed in connection with the journalist couple Sagar-Runi murder.

In a joint statement on Monday, leaders of BFUJ, DUJ, DRU and NPC also protested the remarks made by Mahfuzur Rahman recently in London on the killing of the noted journalists Sagar and Runi.

Mahfuzur Rahman, talking to journalists in London, said Sagar and Runi might have been the victims of ‘extramarital affair’.

Condemning the remark, the journalist community leaders demanded the government’s intelligence agency which is investigating the grisly murder interrogate Mahfuzur Rahman about his comment and killing of the journalist couple.

"Such remarks about ATN Bangla reporter Runi by the owner of the media house are inhuman, indecent and offensive,” the journalist leaders said in the statement.

News Source:

UNB