Journalists and bloggers in Bangladesh are finding themselves increasingly under fire. Last year, a group that calls itself “Defenders of Islam” published a “hit list” of more than 80 writers.
Then in the first six months of 2015, three of those named were hacked to death in separate knife attacks. The latest was in May, when four masked men attacked blogger Ananta Bijoy Das with machetes while he was heading to work.
The gruesome nature of these killings has brought attention to Bangladesh’s press freedom environment. But Islamic extremists are just one threat against journalists in the South Asian country. On this edition of Global Journalist, we look at media in Bangladesh and how it's caught between the government and religious extremists.
This week's guests:
- Sumit Galhotra, research associate for the Committee to Protect Journalists
- Ananya Azad, a writer, blogger and social activist
- Mahfuz Anam, editor and publisher for The Daily Star, the highest-selling English newspaper in the country
- David Bergman, editor for the English-language daily, New Age, and the producer of a documentary about war crimes during Bangladesh’s war of independence