BANGLADESHI MEDIA FEELING HEAT FROM CARETAKER

S E C R E T SECTION 01 OF 03 DHAKA 001843

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 11/26/2017
TAGS: BG KDEM PGOV PHUM PINR
SUBJECT: BANGLADESHI MEDIA FEELING HEAT FROM CARETAKER
GOVERNMENT

REF: DHAKA 01382

Classified By: CDA a.i. Geeta Pasi. Reason 1.4(d)


1. (C) Summary: Bangladeshi media are under pressure. The
Caretaker Government and especially the military apply
pressure -- usually discreetly but sometimes not -- to
limit coverage that is critical or provokes opposition to
their policies. In recent months, authorities have shut
down an all-news channel that aggressively covered
anti-government protests and have placed restrictions on
lively television talk shows. Journalists report phone
calls from military intelligence and other officials who
suggest how to play the day's news, leading media outlets
to practice self censorship. Post will continue to express
support for a free media and to seek opportunities to train
reporters to improve the quality of local journalism, which
often is wanting in resources and professionalism. End
Summary.


2. (SBU) Media freedom has been a struggle in Bangladesh
since the country's birth. Heavy-handed government
interference was a mainstay during the many years of
martial law during Bangladesh's early history. Newspapers,
for example, did not publish the poems of martial-law ruler
General Hossain Mohammad Ershad on front pages because of
their great news value; they did so under orders from the
government Press Information Department (PID). Although
civilian governments that ran the country from 1991 to 2006
eschewed such tactics, several journalists investigating
the country's endemic political corruption were murdered
during that period. Culprits went unpunished and ministers
scorned journalists on the floor of Parliament.


3. (S) Journalists report ongoing efforts by the Caretaker
Government and the military to shape media coverage since
coming to power in January. Officials have been
particularly focused on television, which reaches far more
Bangladeshis than do newspapers. In the immediate
aftermath of August 20-22 nationwide anti-government
rioting, we learned from journalists that the military
Directorate General of Forces Intelligence (DGFI) told
television stations to halt all talk shows, which had become
the country's most popular and freewheeling form of public
discourse. About two weeks
later, the country's telecommunications regulator pulled
the plug on Bangladesh's first 24-hour news station, CSB.
Although the government said it shut down the station for
submitting forged documents as part of its broadcast
application a year earlier, the move was widely seen as
punishment for the channel's aggressive coverage of the
August protests. According to Embassy reporting, DGFI found
CSB reporters stage-managing at least one protest scene and
airing a scene of street
violence unrelated to the protests as evidence
anti-government rioting was spreading. Military
intimidation of the channel, which is owned by the son of a
man
widely regarded as a political enforcer for the Bangladesh
Nationalist Party and now in jail on corruption charges,
started well before the riots; Tushar Abdullah (protect),a
senior editor at CSB, reported being summoned to the
military cantonment five times since the channel went on
air in March. Each time, he said, he was interviewed
separately by officers who repeated the same personal
questions about, for example, his address and his wife's
employment.


4. (S) In September, the office of Information Adviser
Mainul Hosein distributed guidelines for the resumption of
television talk shows that included numerous restrictions
to prevent anti-government comments being made on air.
The guidelines forbid live talk shows and say that any kind
of "instigating, blind and biased opinions, and statements
that can create resentment toward the legitimate government
of Bangladesh, should be avoided." Those are very broad
parameters for producers who have learned that the military
can be sensitive to the smallest perceived slight, and talk
shows have become more cautious and less critical of the
government. Monjurul Ahsan Bulbul (protect),the president
of the Bangladesh Federal Union of Journalists who works on
two television news programs at ATN Bangla, a major TV
channel, recounted one incident in which the DGFI was
incensed over an on-air comment that Bangladeshi expatriate
laborers remitted more money than Bangladeshi troops on
peacekeeping missions. He said the talk show presenter who
made that observation was removed from the program to
placate the military.

DHAKA 00001843 002 OF 003




5. (C) Where the boundary lies between acceptable and
unacceptable news coverage is fuzzy. Typically, officials
do not use written decrees to tell media what to say.
Instead, newspaper editors and television news producers
have grown accustomed to phone calls from military
intelligence and the PID with suggestions on how to play
the day's news. From the run-down headquarters of the
Bangla-language newspaper The Daily Sangbad, where he also
works as executive editor, Bulbul holds up a copy of a
recent edition and notes the front-page photo of Chief
Adviser Fakhruddin Ahmed meeting World Bank President
Robert Zoellick in New York. For three days running the
PID suggested he run front-page photos of the Chief
Adviser, who was on a trip to the United States for the
United Nations General Assembly annual meeting. The
newspaper complied.


6. (C) Not everyone is playing it safe. Media continue to
publish reports on soaring inflation, which is a major
source of popular disaffection, even though the government
has asked media outlets to play up official efforts to keep
prices down. Government efforts to FORCE out of the
country the leaders of the two major political parties --
Sheikh Hasina of the Awami League and Khaleda Zia of the
Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) -- also received media
criticism. In another example, the New Age newspaper was
sharply critical of the government during the August riots
(reftel) while other media refrained from commenting or
were more cautious in their analysis. And in an
extraordinary
front-page comment on November 8, the New Age apologized to
readers for not publishing photos of Mahbubur Rahman, a
senior BNP leader who is a retired lieutenant general,
under attack from party thugs. The apology said "a number
of our journalists were repeatedly 'reminded,' however
courteously, that Mahbub after all is a former army chief
and publishing photographs of him being assaulted may not
go down well with his former charges." It went on to
describe the current media environment as "these times of
'reminders' and their untold consequences." (Comment: The
New Age reporting may not be of great concern to
authorities because it is an English-language publication
with a small circulation of less than 10,000. End
Comment.)


7. (C) Still, the uncertainty over what might happen to
journalists who do not follow informal guidance and the
ability of the government to intimidate wayward media
barons have led to self censorship. Matiur Rahman,
(protect) editor of the country's largest circulation
newspaper, Prothom Alo, said he interpreted the appearance
of his publisher's name on a publicly circulated list of
suspects in the government's anti-corruption crackdown as a
warning not to cross the regime. Other journalists say the
government could harass insufficiently docile media owners
by creating trouble for their other business holdings.
Journalists also raise concerns that they are particularly
vulnerable to arbitrary arrest and detention under the
current emergency rule; they say this is especially true in
the countryside where some journalists have been detained
after displeasing local authorities. The respected domestic
human-rights organization Odhikar reported 13 journalists
arrested in the first 10 months of 2007, up from five
during the corresponding period a year earlier. (Note:
Reports of violence against journalists was down
substantially, perhaps reflecting a decline in political
party thuggery. End Note.)


8. (C) Bulbul said he believes virtually all Bangladeshi
journalists practice self censorship. The owners of his
newspaper do not allow articles that could provoke the
Bangladeshi army, which is seen as a key player to be
feared and respected. Sobhan says he occasionally sits down
with his higher-ups to discuss what can and can't run in
the paper. The acting editor "is scared of his own
shadow," says Sobhan, and wouldn't allow him to write
anything critical of the Burmese junta's crackdown on
recent protests, fearing it would be seen as a backhand
rebuke of Bangladesh's own military. Rahman, the Prothom
Alo editor, says his paper too is very careful about what
is reported on the military.


9. (S) One apparent development that suggests military
efforts to influence media even after the Caretaker
Government departs is the reported purchase by DGFI of
shares in private television stations. A lawyer close to
DGFI says it has formed an organization named Bangladesh

DHAKA 00001843 003 OF 003


Perspectives Research Foundation that has purchased 20
percent of the ETV station and is in the process of buying
more than a third of the shares of Channel 1.


10. (C) Comment: Although reports that criticize the
government and reflect poorly on its performance are not
uncommon, journalists say they are unwilling to write
critically about the military. For now, the military
appears primarily concerned about its image in the media.
Post will continue to closely monitor local media to
determine whether military pressure on journalists spreads
to their coverage of other areas, such as next year's
elections. Post will continue to strongly advocate media
freedom and emphasize its role in the development of young
democracies and in fighting corruption; earlier this month
the CDA a.i. received prominent news coverage for
encouraging journalists to be active in the run-up to
elections. Post also will seek opportunities to train
Bangladeshi journalists so they are up to performing their
duties in Bangladesh: to provide accurate and timely
information
and to serve as watchdogs of democracy.
Pasi