An elderly British-Bangladeshi journalist facing a potential death sentence has been denied bail by a Bangladesh court. Now his family fears for his health while under detention.
I reported two months ago that Shafik Rehman, a prominent 81-year-old journalist, had been arrested on a charge of sedition and remanded in custody. But he has not been charged.
He applied for bail, which was denied at a hearing last Tuesday (7 June), following several weeks in solitary confinement, without a bed. He was taken to hospital last month and remains in a hospital wing of Dhaka central jail.
It is thought that the arrest of Rehman, a former speechwriter for the opposition Bangladesh National Party, was politically-motivated.
The authorities have suggested that he will be charged over an alleged plot to kidnap the son of the Bangladeshi prime minister, Sheikh Hasina Wazed.
But the government has not provided any evidence to support the existence of a kidnap plot, or Rehman’s involvement in it. In 2015, a US judge – who had reviewed similar plot allegations as part of a separate American trial – dismissed the allegations on grounds of insufficient evidence.
Rehman’s incarceration comes amid criticism of the Bangladeshi government following a series of recent attacks and arrests involving journalists, bloggers and opposition activists.
In last month’s human rights report on Bangladesh, Britain’s foreign office called for “an effective justice system” in the country and “a vibrant civil society and free media, able to challenge and hold authority to account.”
Rehman’s family are being assisted by the human rights organisation, Reprieve. The director of its death penalty team, Maya Foa, said: “It is deeply worrying that the Bangladeshi authorities have seen fit to deny bail to an elderly journalist, in what is clearly part of a wider crackdown on the government’s critics.”
She pointed out that the authorities have failed to make any case against him. “Meanwhile, his family in Britain are desperately worried that he could face the death penalty, or that his health will fail in detention.”
Foa called on the UK “and other countries with close ties to Bangladesh” to urge Rehman’s release “before it’s too late.”
For many years, Rehman edited Jai Jai Din, a mass-circulation Bengali daily. More recently, until his arrest, he edited a popular monthly magazine, Mouchake Dhil.
