Bangladesh tribunal orders 3 journalists held until trial in 2024 uprising case

DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) — A special tribunal in Bangladesh’s capital on Monday asked authorities to keep three journalists jailed until their trial in a case involving a mass uprising that ousted former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina from office in 2024, lawyers said.

During the student-led uprising, hundreds of people were killed, and Hasina was later sentenced to death on charges of crimes against humanity. She fled to India two years ago and was tried in absentia.

The tribunal asked that Mozammel Babu, editor-in-chief of private Ekattor Television, its principal correspondent Farzana Rupa and Shyamal Dutta, editor of daily Bhorer Kagoj and former general secretary of the National Press Club in Dhaka, remain jailed.

After they appeared before the tribunal on Monday, the judge fixed Oct. 25 for the next court proceedings and asked the investigators to submit their findings against the journalists.

Global human rights groups have criticized the jailing of the journalists and the denial of bail, asking the government to drop the charges against them and stop criminalizing news reporting.

Prosecutors allege the three journalists incited the suppression of student demonstrators during the uprising. They say that the journalists asked Hasina provocative questions at a press conference on July 14, 2024, that led her to make disparaging remarks about the demonstrators before launching a bloody crackdown on the protesters leading to hundreds of deaths.

The three journalists have been in custody for years following Hasina’s ouster as they face various charges including murder involving the uprising in July-August 2024. They were arrested during an interim government headed by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus who handed over power in February to a new government.

The families of the journalists complained that they were held illegally.

“Launching a crimes-against-humanity case against journalists Shyamal Dutta, Mozammel Babu, and Farzana Rupa for simply asking questions at a press conference is outrageous and deeply troubling,” Kunal Majumder, CPJ’s Asia-Pacific Program Coordinator, said in a statement earlier this month.

He added that “editorial decisions may be partisan or ethically questionable, but they cannot be criminalized. Criminalizing editorial judgment sets a dangerous precedent and undermines Bangladesh’s reputation as a democracy. Authorities must immediately release the three journalists and drop the charges.”

Hasina has been in India since Aug. 5, 2024, but recently she said she would return to the country in December. The Yunus-led government and incumbent administration of Prime Minister Tarique Rahman requested India to extradite Hasina, but India refused.