March 2, 2026
The Commonwealth Journalists Association welcomes the relatively free elections held in Bangladesh on 12 February and the commitment made by the incoming Prime Minister Tarique Rahman to return Bangladesh to the rule of law.
We call on Prime Minister Rahman and the Bangladesh Nationalist Party government to immediately free dozens of journalists who have been held in jail for over a year on spurious charges, including of murder, in violation of their fundamental rights.
In 2025 the interim government headed by Professor Yunus announced it had begun the process of withdrawing 16,429 groundless cases as a step towards restoring faith in the Bangladeshi justice system and acknowledging the suffering of those falsely accused.
Among those still unjustly detained is CJA Vice-President Shyamal Dutta, the long-serving Editor of Bhorer Kagoj, who was arrested in September 2024 in connection with a baseless murder charge. Since then, Shyamal, like many others, has been held in extremely harsh conditions and denied proper legal representation and bail.
Since July 2024 hundreds of journalists and media workers have also been physically attacked, and several were killed, with complete impunity. Many more were arbitrarily dismissed from their jobs and deprived of their press cards only because of their perceived political affiliations. Those injustices must be redressed.
- After a long career at the heart of Bangladeshi journalism, I condemn the new reality.
- Amid the continuing oppression against journalists in Bangladesh, SUSHAMA SHASHI DUTTA pleads to the government in an open letter for the release of her father.
In October 2024 the 56 Commonwealth Heads of Government recognised their governments’ particular duty to protect members of the media as a public good when they adopted the Commonwealth Principles on Freedom of Expression and the Role of the Media in Good Governance – https://tinyurl.com/4839zvu7 – at their meeting in Samoa.
Those Principles state that Member states “should act decisively to end impunity through impartial, prompt and effective investigations into all alleged cases of killings, attacks and ill-treatment of journalists and media workers”, by bringing the perpetrators of such crimes to justice and providing effective redress for victims.
We call on the new Bangladesh government to free the jailed journalists, take decisive action to end impunity for crimes against media workers, and ensure that media workers will in future be enabled to do their work with the full protection of the law. As Irene Khan, the UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression, has said – https://tinyurl.com/y49s4y96 – how Bangladesh courts deal with cases of detained journalists will be “a test of the pledges made by the new government”.
The Commonwealth Journalists Association
