Journalists will take part in a mega conference in mid-January to announce a series of protest programmes against the recent vandalism of The Daily Star and Prothom Alo offices, said the NOAB chief on Monday.
The movement would continue until press freedom is ensured, and justice is served for the recent mob attacks on media offices and cultural institutions, said AK Azad, president of Newspapers Owners’ Association of Bangladesh (NOAB).
AK Azad revealed plans for the conference at a meeting of journalists and stakeholders held at a hotel in the capital. Politicians, professionals, industrialists, and civil society members were among the stakeholders to join the meeting, which was co-hosted by the Editors’ Council.
After the meeting, a human chain was formed in front of the hotel, protesting the attacks on media offices.
AK Azad, also the managing director of the publishing house behind Bangla daily Samakal, said everyone present at the meeting unequivocally called for resisting mob violence unitedly. “Our voices cannot be silenced,” AK Azad said quoting the participants of the meeting.
Referring to the attacks on The Daily Star office, he said if the fire was allowed to burn for 15 more minutes, many journalists trapped on the rooftop could have died from suffocation.
“We do not want to die like this… Based on your (participants) opinions we would call for a lengthy protest movement in mid-January.”
The Daily Star editor anticipated an attack on the office upon learning about the attack on sister concern Prothom Alo, AK Azad continued. The newspaper’s editor immediately sought security support from multiple government figures, but the response was late, by when the office was already burnt significantly, he added.
A journalist, who got trapped at the office, claimed that the looters took away chairs and laptops without facing any obstruction from the law enforcers present on the site.
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