February 2007 Vol. 37. No. 01
AI Index: NWS 21/001/2007
"What we are doing is too tough without the cooperation of Amnesty International." – Sumi Khan
Sumi Khan, a 34-year-old journalist working with local and national magazines and based in the city of Chittagong, has been attacked and received death threats as a result of her investigative journalism for the past two years. She was stabbed in an attack in 2004, and her attackers remain at large.
Sumi Khan has written investigative articles alleging the involvement of local politicians and religious groups in attacks on members of minority communities, and about kidnapping and land-grabbing by landlords.
On 12 March 2005 Sumi Khan received a written death threat telling her to retract articles she had written on Islamist groups. Fellow journalists in Chittagong received similar death threats allegedly from local Islamist groups.
In December 2005, Sumi Khan and a number of other journalists from Chittagong, as well as police, government officials and magistrates from across the country, received death threats. They were reportedly threatened in a letter to the Chittagong Press Club, an organization for journalists. The letter, allegedly from the banned Islamist group Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), was believed to be part of a campaign by some Islamist groups to destabilize democratic society in Bangladesh.
The government ordered a police guard at the Chittagong Press Club and arrested suspected members of the JMB. However, the government’s failure to investigate the death threats or protection needs of those named in the letter has put Sumi Khan and other journalists, who write about the activities of Islamist groups, at risk of further attacks. Sumi Khan has received further threats from unidentified sources and attacks on journalists have continued nationwide.
Please write, calling on the authorities to undertake a full, impartial and independent investigation into the threats and attack against Sumi Khan and to bring the perpetrators to justice.
Send appeals to: Mr Iajuddin Ahmed, President and Chief Adviser of the Caretaker Government, Office of the Chief Adviser, Dhaka, Bangladesh.
Salutation: Dear Chief Adviser.