Pro-BNP journalists want broadcast policy dropped

Pro-BNP journalists have demanded cancellation of the National Broadcast Policy that the Cabinet approved on Monday.

Staff Correspondentbdnews24.com
Published : 5 August 2014, 01:26 PM
Updated : 5 August 2014, 01:26 PM

At a protest rally in front of the National Press Club on Tuesday, they urged the pro-ruling party journalists to join the agitations against the policy claiming that when in force, it would curb media freedom.

The journalists burned a copy of the policy and announced a month-long programme in protest against it.

Shaukat Mahmood, President of the pro-BNP faction of the Bangladesh Federal Union of Journalists (BFUJ), said: “The journalist community won’t accept this policy. This policy has been formulated to stop anti-government statements.”

The draft of the policy embargoed running news that might damage the image of the armed forces or police or create communal strife.
Describing the policy as anti-media, Mahmood, also an advisor to BNP chief Khaleda Zia, said: “Information Minister Hasanul Haque Inu has turned an enemy of the media by approving the policy.”
“We don’t want to see the information minister at the National Press Club. We won’t see him unless this policy is cancelled,” he added.
He urged the owners and others related to private TV stations to come down on the street to protest against the policy.
BFUJ Secretary General MA Aziz and former president Ruhul Amin Gazi and Dhaka Union of Journalists President Abul Hye Shikder also spoke at the rally.