Our conscience is behind bars along with Rozina

Having to stay at home due to the coronavirus pandemic, we have become more dependent on television. We are detached from what is going on in the world unless we watch the evening news. Our moods also vacillate with the news, depending on whether it is good or bad.

On 17 May when I saw the news on a TV channel about Prothom Alo senior reporter Rozina Islam being detained, harassed and abused in a room of the health ministry for almost six hours, I could not believe my eyes or ears. I saw the same news on the other channels too. I was too stunned to react. How can this happen in a civilised country?

A journalist, who has a sound reputation in her profession, has been active in keeping the society, the state, the institutions alert about people's rights, and who has won many awards at home and abroad, had been harassed and mistreated mentally and physically in a government office by government officials. From the video footage of the incident, it hardly seems that these were persons who have been appointed for public service with the people's taxes. They looked more like criminals, miscreants. The rash reaction of the secretariat officials reinforced this impression. The manner in which Rozina was treated was a violation of all basic decency and respect, forget about human rights. I was infuriated, filled with disgust and shame. There are no words to describe my state of mind.

After unlawfully detaining Rozina for so long, she was handed over to the police. A case had been filed against her under various sections. She is behind bars. She has not been jailed for theft, murder, abduction or trafficking. We are all aware that in recent times she has been serially writing about the corruption, discrepancies and inefficiency of a certain ministry. Needless to say, her writings have been for the welfare of the public -- and undoubtedly it is a sense of ethics that commits journalist towards the people. This ministry's integrity, efficiency and competence is extremely important in these times of coronavirus. Without this, innumerable people can be placed at great risk.

On behalf of the government, expert scientists and members of the advisory council, those in charge of vaccine management, physicians tending to the patients and, above all, the prime minister herself, are making all-out efforts to save the people from this lethal virus. At this juncture, the corruption, incompetence, inefficiency, negligence and carelessness of the ministry most closely involved in this huge task, is totally inexcusable. Rozina and other investigative journalists publicly expose injustice out of ethical, constitutional and professional compulsion to correct these wrongs.

I would like to strongly state here that journalists like Rozina have no personal interests. They act as the nation's conscience at great personal risk. Misbehaving with her, harassing and assaulting her, is an assault on the nation's conscience. It is an attack on the fundamental constitutional and human rights of the people. Article 39 (1) of our constitution speaks of freedom of thought and conscience and freedom of speech. Article 39 (1) guarantees freedom of press. So when a profession, on behalf of the people, reveals good or bad activities of the society, the state policy of the public administration, they are trying to uphold these rights of the citizens. They are ensuring the accountability of those who are given the responsibility to run the state. After all, our constitution declares that the people are the source of all power in this country and the government officials have the right to use their authority only in the interests of the people, not in their personal interests. That is what conscience is about. So when those who remind us about this are placed behind bars, that means it is our conscience today that is behind bars.

* Sultana Kamal is former caretaker government advisor and human rights activist

* This column has appeared in the print and online edition of Prothom Alo and has been rewritten for the English edition by Ayesha Kabir