No journalist will be jailed for revealing facts, says information minister

Information Minister Hasanul Haq Inu has said that no journalist who has presented facts through the media has ever been arrested under the present government.

Speaking to journalists on Tuesday on the sidelines of an announcement of the schedule for the observance of International Information Day, the minister said, "I do not know of a single instance where a journalist has been harassed for publishing facts.

“Those journalists who have gone to jail are the ones who are guilty of political malpractices, not for revelation of facts.”

He was responding to questions on the controversial Section 57 of the ICT Act.

The BNP has been citing the instances of the imprisonment of Shafik Rehman and Mahmudur Rahman in its allegations that mass media freedom is non-existent in Bangladesh.

Daily Amar Desh acting editor Mahmudur is in jail for doling out distorted facts as news, and senior journalist Shafik Rahman has had to spend some time in jail over allegations of his involvement in a ‘plot to kidnap and murder’ the prime minister's son Sajeeb Wazed Joy.

Last year the controversial Section 57 was invoked to arrest journalist Probir Sikdar over a Facebook post by him against LGRD Minister Khandker Mosharraf.

The move prompted civil rights activists and journalists to term the controversial section of the ICT Act an impediment to free speech in the country.

Journalists and the Editors' Council have been advocating a revoking of clauses 1 and 2 of the controversial section.

Inu on Tuesday clarified, "Section 57 does not hang over the heads of journalists. It is just another law of the land.

“There are over 34 laws under CrPC that make bail an impossibility after arrest. So, you should get to know more facts, know more of the laws.”