The media in Bangladesh is no longer free, a global report by a pro-democracy group said on Wednesday.
The country has slipped to “not free” status from “partly free” ranking in the 2015 Global Press Freedom prepared by Freedom House.
The country’s decline in its status of press freedom has been attributed to continued legal harassment of media outlets and press freedom advocates, government-sanctioned economic pressure on certain outlets, and attempts to censor social media.
The annual survey report also said the slide was also caused by the murders of bloggers and a publisher by Islamist militants, threats and nonfatal attacks against other writers.
Bangladesh was among the countries that suffered the largest decline in terms of freedom of expression in the year – Turkey, Burundi, France, Serbia, Yemen, Egypt, Macedonia, and Zimbabwe.
Bangladesh’s media environment suffered major setbacks in 2015, observed the report, adding that the year was marked by deadly attacks against bloggers and a spate of politically motivated legal cases against journalists. Growing concerns over state censorship—including of internet-based content—also had a chilling effect on freedom of expression, the report pointed out.
The 2015 report mentioned that extremists in Bangladesh murdered at least four bloggers and a publisher who had produced content that was critical of religious fundamentalism.
Many other writers, after being threatened or injured in similar attacks, felt compelled to go silent, relocate, or flee the country, said the report.
The authorities, meanwhile, temporarily blocked social media sites on security grounds, allegedly forced the suspension of a popular political talk show, and threatened dozens of people with contempt of court charges for signing a letter in support of a British journalist who had been convicted on similar charges in late 2014, the report recalled.
The government also reportedly pressured private companies to withdraw advertising from two critical newspapers; in early 2016 the papers’ editors faced multiple charges of sedition, defamation, and “hurting religious sentiment.”