Prime Minister Begum Khaleda Zia
Office of the Prime Minister
Gona Bhaban
Sher-e Bangla Nagar
Dhaka, Bangladesh

Fax: +880 2 811 3243 / 3244 / 1015 / 1490

Altaf Hossain Chowdhury
Minister of Home Affairs
Ministry of Home Affairs
Bangladesh Secretariat
Building 4
Dhaka, Bangladesh

Fax: +880 2 861 9667

Vienna, 17 March 2004

Your Excellency,

The International Press Institute (IPI), the global network of editors, leading journalists and media executives in over 120 countries, is deeply concerned for the safety of Golam Mortaza, a journalist with the Bengali weekly news magazine Shaptahik 2000.

Based on information provided to IPI, in recent days, unidentified men have called Mortaza’s cell and office telephones threatening him with death. Before receiving the threats, Mortaza had written a number of articles exploring corruption, Islamic radicals and organised criminals. Speaking of the telephone calls, Shaptahik 2000 editor, Shahadat Chowdhury, quoted one of the callers as saying, “Death is the only reward you deserve to get for writing against us.”

In response, Mortaza filed a complaint to the police and asked for protection. A senior official stated that the threats would be investigated.

Given the extreme number of violent attacks on journalists and the fact that according to IPI’s figures seven Bangladeshi journalists have been murdered since the beginning of 2000, IPI is fearful that the threats to Mortaza disclose a serious intent. Indeed, IPI wishes to point out to Your Excellency that the death threat is often the precursor to violent action and therefore should be taken extremely seriously by the authorities.

With the above in mind, IPI calls on the Bangladeshi authorities to thoroughly investigate the telephone calls. Occurring in virtually every part of the world, the death threat against journalists is an invidious form of press censorship and deserves the full attention of the authorities everywhere.

We thank you for your attention.

Yours sincerely,

Johann P. Fritz
Director