‘Journalist Rozina most probably walked into a trap’
Syed Badiuzzaman:
The Rozina episode is still quite unclear. What exactly had happened with Prothom Alo journalist Rozina Islam at the Bangladesh Secretariat on May 17 is yet to be clearly known. The Health Ministry officials have given one version of the incident while Rozina’s relatives and Rozina herself presented a completely different version.
So, at this point, no one knows for sure what exactly had happened. An independent probe into the incident would be the best way to get the truth out. But since there is no such investigation, we have to wait and see what the Detective Branch of Bangladesh Police which has taken over the responsibility of probing the incident is going to say about the whole drama.
Regardless of what unfolded on that day inside the Bangladesh Secretariat, the visuals were not good for the journalist community of the country as well as Bangladesh’s already troubled media. It may have a far reaching impact on press freedom of Bangladesh. The episode has already reflected an adverse condition under which Bangladeshi journalists perform their professional duties.
And the incident once again brought our country under the international spotlight and once again for absolutely wrong reason. A female journalist while performing her professional duty passed out and fell on the floor in the office of a Bangladeshi bureaucrat and then she was detained there for nearly six hours for whatever reasons did warrant immediate responses from the global journalist organizations, international rights groups and also the United Nations. Thanks to them for their reactions.
If the same incident would have happened in another country, the officials of that country would rather immediately call an ambulance and take that journalist to a nearby hospital for medical checkup. But regrettably Bangladesh Health Ministry officials sat her up, interrogated her and then kept her confined for six long hours. And then they took her to a local police station when the primetime news bulletin was over and registered a case in the middle of the night when everybody went to sleep. Everything was done in a pretty much planned way.
So, which part of the whole episode displayed any kind of kindness or empathy of the Health Ministry officials for a suddenly fallen sick and distressed mid-career female journalist of the most prominent Bengali newspaper of the nation? None whatsoever! Rather, they treated her like a serious criminal as if she breached the national security or committed an unpardonable crime against the interest of the nation. And they did charge her with “stealing” government documents.
But the irony is this that Bangladeshi journalists are not thieves nor have they ever been. On the contrary, many officials — they may not currently belong to the Ministry of Health –faced corruption charges for plundering national wealth and then they either went to jail or were terminated from their jobs in the last 50 years since the independence of the nation. Over the same period of time, not a single journalist of Bangladesh was accused of stealing anything of the government or went to jail for corruption.
Bangladeshi journalists are media professionals like in every country in the world. They do their professional duties honestly and professionally upholding the usual journalistic standards similar to that in all other nations. For information collection in greater public interest, any method is a fair game as people have the right to know. Journalists even go undercover for news gathering to do some investigative journalism sometimes, the latest example being the Al Jazeera report.
Therefore, what Rozina Islam did at the Bangladesh Secretariat that day was very much within the rights of journalists. She was simply gathering information for her next investigative report. Nowadays, instead of writing down notes of lengthy texts or speeches, journalists all over the world use their smart phones for taking images or audio/video recording. This method saves them a lot of time and energy and probably that was what Rozina did at the Secretariat on May 17.
So, what this fuss was all about? One might say that she needed to take permission. OK, that’s a fair point. But who would she take the permission from? As local press reported, there was none in the office of Saiful Islam Bhuiyan, the personal secretary to the Health Services Division secretary, when Rozina entered there. And once she was there, she probably found some vital information lying unguarded on the desk of the personal secretary which could be used for her next story and so she took photographs of those on her smart phone.
If a journalist finds some vital pieces of information just lying unguarded in front of him or her which can be used for a great investigative reporting, will not he or she be interested in taking images of those with his or her smart phone? I am sure any journalist anywhere in the world will. Secondly, if the documents which Rozina has been accused of “stealing” were of extremely confidential or top secret nature, then why were they just lying unguarded on the desk of personal secretary Saiful Islam Bhuiyan while he was out of his office?
What was rather totally wrong and a gross violation of privacy was video recording of Rozina’s interview by Health Ministry officials without her and also her lawyers’ permissions. Therefore, that interview itself was illegal because whatever she said then was completely under duress. Either way, it was wrong and such interview will never be accepted by any court of law anywhere. The video recording of Rozina’s any kind of statement without her clear consent violated her privacy which was both legally and morally improper. Once somebody is accused of something, that person has the right to remain silent.
Over a period of 12 years from 1976 to 1988, I went to Bangladesh Secretariat several hundred times first as a staff reporter of now-defunct Eastern News Agency (ENA) and then as a senior staff reporter of the daily New Nation for news gathering but I barely found any office of any bureaucrat where there was no attendant at all. Some office assistants were always there. So, it’s quite puzzling that personal secretary Saiful Islam Bhuiyan left his office unlocked to any visitor with confidential government documents on his desk even when no one was inside.
Some observers of the Rozina saga believe that it could be a trap deliberately laid out for the Prothom Alo journalist. When she will see those documents containing vital information, she will be tempted to take their photographs with her smart phone for a report and while she will be doing so she will be caught red-handed by somebody watching the whole thing carefully from somewhere. By executing this scheme, the Health Ministry officials probably wanted to settle a score with Rozina as she recently reported on mismanagement in health sector.
A small group of Bangladeshi bureaucrats was always against press freedom in the country. They never wanted to see a vibrant media in Bangladesh. Those people may not be living today but their ghosts are still alive and active. For the very first time in our country since we earned our independence, they have built the most bizarre case against a senior professional journalist under a never-used-before law called the Official Secrets Act originally passed by their colonial masters almost 100 years ago. While doing so, they have pushed themselves as well as the entire journalist community of Bangladesh into uncharted territory.
These bureaucrats probably have forgotten the glorious role of media in leading all national movements during the pre-independence days as well as the independence of Bangladesh alongside Awami League and other pro-liberation political parties. As Bangladesh’s longtime and most prominent journalist leader and Daily Observer Editor Iqbal Sobhan Chowdhury has recently noted, these officials are deliberately trying to create a confrontation between the media and government of Bangladesh. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina who has always stood by journalists and who wants to see a flourishing media in the country must be feeling quite uncomfortable in the situation.
Bring it on! Regardless of the outcome of what has been described as the “false case” by millions at home and abroad against Prothom Alo journalist Rozina, all real journalists of Bangladesh will always stay united and the fight will go on against the corrupt officials who are robbing the nation almost on a daily basis. As Chowdhury said, Rozina has become the “symbol of freedom of speech.” One Rozina will now create thousands more to defeat corruption and advance the cause of a free press in Bangladesh.
The writer is a Toronto-based journalist who also writes for the Toronto Sun and Canada’s Postmedia Network.
Courtesy: The daily observer
