DHAKA: Bangladesh police on Saturday arrested a politician accused of masterminding the murder of a journalist who had written stories about his family.
Mahmudul Alam Babu was arrested near the Indian border after a nationwide manhunt, the country’s elite Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) said in a statement.
The 50-year-old is accused of organizing Wednesday’s murder of Golam Rabbani Nadim, who was beaten by a gang of men near his home in Jamalpur district and later died in hospital.
Babu was retaliating for a series of stories on a custody dispute involving a child following his recent divorce, local police chief Sohel Rana told AFP.
“He is the number one accused in the case over the murder of the journalist,” Rana said.
“A journalist saw him on the spot when Nadim was beaten by a group of men,” he added.
Rana said Babu was the general secretary of the local wing of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s ruling Awami League.
The party announced Babu’s expulsion immediately after he was named a suspect in the killing.
Six other people were also arrested over the murder, Rana said.
Local press club president Shaheen Al Amin told AFP that Babu had been angered by Nadim’s “extensive coverage” of his family dispute.
Babu had filed a defamation suit against the reporter but a court quashed the case on Tuesday, Amin said.
“The next day Nadim was attacked by Babu’s men and he was hit on his head with a brick. He died due to internal bleeding,” he added.
Journalist groups staged protests after the murder to demand the arrest of the culprits.
Reporters Without Borders ranked Bangladesh 163 of 180 countries in its 2023 World Press Freedom Index.
Journalists with Bangladesh’s dwindling independent media outlets have been under increasing pressure from the government and Hasina’s ruling party.
In March the editor of the country’s largest newspaper and a reporter were charged under the controversial Digital Security Act for writing an article on the high cost of food.
Authorities shut down the lone opposition mouthpiece in February, saying it violated press laws.
Bangladesh arrests politician over journalist’s murder
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Bangladesh arrests politician over journalist’s murder
- Mahmudul Alam Babu was arrested near the Indian border after a nationwide manhunt
- The 50-year-old is accused of organising Wednesday's murder of Golam Rabbani Nadim
Israel media report accuses troops of indiscriminate killing of Gaza civilians
- Haaretz quoted soldiers, career officers and reservists who said commanders were given unprecedented authority to operate in the Gaza Strip
- Batallion commander: ‘Anyone crossing the line is a terrorist — no exceptions, no civilians. Everyone’s a terrorist’
JERUSALEM: A leading Israeli newspaper, citing unnamed soldiers serving in Gaza, described indiscriminate killings of Palestinian civilians in the territory’s Netzarim Corridor, prompting a firm rejection Friday from the military.
Haaretz, a left-leaning Israeli daily that has faced severe criticism from the country’s right-wing government, quoted soldiers, career officers and reservists who said commanders were given unprecedented authority to operate in the Gaza Strip.
They alleged commanders had ordered or allowed the killing of unarmed women, children and men in the Netzarim Corridor, a seven-kilometer-wide (4.3-mile-wide) strip of land that cuts across Gaza from Israel to the Mediterranean, and which has been turned into a military zone.
The report quoted an officer who recalled an incident in which a commander had announced that 200 militants were killed, when actually “only 10 were confirmed as known Hamas operatives.”
Soldiers meanwhile told Haaretz they received questionable orders to open fire on “anyone who enters” Netzarim.
“Anyone crossing the line is a terrorist — no exceptions, no civilians. Everyone’s a terrorist,” a soldier quoted a battalion commander as saying.
The soldiers also described how division commanders received “expanded powers” allowing them to bomb buildings or launch air strikes that previously required approval from the army’s top echelons.
The allegations contained in the Haaretz report could not be independently verified.
In a statement to AFP, the military rejected the accusations.
“All activities and operations conducted by (Israeli army) forces in the Gaza Strip, including in the Netzarim Corridor, are carried out in accordance with structured combat procedures, plans and operational orders approved by the highest ranks in the (army),” it said.
The military added that “all strikes in the area (of Netzarim) are conducted in accordance with the mandatory procedures and protocols, including targets that are struck in an urgent time frame due to essential operational circumstances where ground forces face immediate threats.”
“Incidents that give rise to concerns of deviations from IDF’s orders or ethical standards are thoroughly examined and addressed.”
Many soldiers who spoke to Haaretz pointed to a specific commander, Brig. Gen. Yehuda Vach, who last summer took charge of Division 252, which has been based in Netzarim.
One of the soldiers said of Vach — who was born in the settlement of Kiryat Arba in the occupied West Bank — that “his worldview and political positions were clearly driving his operational decisions.”
Another soldier said Vach had declared “there are no innocents in Gaza.”
The military said that the “statements attributed to him... were not made by him.”
“Any claim asserting otherwise is entirely baseless.”
The Haaretz report said Israeli soldiers spoke to the newspaper so that the Israeli “people need to know how this war really looks like, and what serious acts some commanders and fighters are committing inside Gaza.”
“They need to know the inhuman scenes we’re witnessing.”
Palestinian militant group Hamas, whose unprecedented October 7, 2023 attack on Israel sparked the current war, also reacted to the Haaretz report.
It said the testimonies offered “new evidence of unprecedented war crimes and full-fledged ethnic cleansing operations, carried out in an organized manner.”
Hamas, which has also been accused of indiscriminate killings of Israelis and other civilians on October 7 last year, demanded that the United Nations and the International Court of Justice “document these testimonies and take the necessary steps to stop the ongoing genocide in the Gaza Strip.”
‘No longer afraid’: Journalists drop pseudonyms as Syrians reclaim voices after Assad’s fall
- Many Syrian journalists resorted to false names for fear of reprisals
- ‘Using a fake name was to many Syrians part of suppressing their identity,’ London-based Zouhir Masri tells Arab News
LONDON: Syrian journalists, long silenced in the shadow of the oppressive regime of Bashar Assad, are beginning to shed their pseudonyms and reclaim their real names in a symbolic act of liberation following the tyrant’s fall.
During Syria’s descent into chaos in 2012, many journalists and activists adopted pseudonyms to protect themselves and their families from the regime’s brutal retaliation. For years, speaking out meant risking persecution, imprisonment, or worse.
Zouhir Masri, a London-based journalist formerly known as Zouhir Al-Shimale, said: “In the past, activists and journalists used to use pseudonyms to cover their identity for safety reasons since most of them, including me, had their family members stuck in Syria and unable to leave.”
Masri explained to Arab News: “Now that Syria is free, lots of people have started to use their real names which were suppressed and kept hidden out of fear of retaliation from the Assad regime’s security forces.”
Masri, who fled his home in Aleppo in 2018 after the regime’s chemical attacks, is one of many journalists now revealing their true identities.
Prominent figures such as Malath Assaf, director of programs for the unofficially rebel-affiliated Aleppo Today, and Rami Jarrah, previously known by the pseudonym Alexander Page, are now openly discussing Syria’s future without fear of reprisal.
One journalist, Manal Al-Sahwi, who investigated Syria’s illicit Captagon trade and its links to the Assad family, shared her story on Facebook earlier this month.
She wrote: “For years, I wrote more than 150 articles in addition to my daily work on the Daraj website. I thought my name would be hidden forever. I worked on dozens of investigations, human rights reports, blogs and opinion articles, believing the truth must be told, even if we remain in the shadows.”
Revealing she had used the pseudonym Carmen Karim, she added: “I only hope that I will never return to writing under a pseudonym again.”
The Syrian Network for Human Rights has reported that at least 717 journalists and media workers were killed between March 2011 and May 2024, while 1,358 were arrested or kidnapped.
Even those who fled abroad often lived under the looming fear of the regime’s long reach.
“It is well known that the regime did not only target individuals but also relatives. Therefore, we could never work under our real names. Personally, I didn’t have the courage to do it,” Assaf said in a recent interview.
However, it was not only journalists who had been silenced in Assad’s regime.
For years many ordinary citizens resorted to pseudonyms when sharing their stories with the media, fearing the regime’s ruthless reprisals.
Now, following Assad’s fall, they are walking the streets of Damascus with a renewed sense of freedom and reclaiming their right to express themselves openly.
“Finally, I am no longer afraid to express my opinion. I was scared to speak about anything related to the country, even if it wasn’t related to politics. This was the case of every Syrian living in the republic of fear,” said Shifaa Sawan, previously known as Suham Al-Ali, a teacher in Damascus, in an interview with Berlin-based Syria Direct.
“The sunrise was different that first day. It was not like the days before the regime fell. I walked through Bab Touma, Al-Qaymariya, Al-Maliki and Umayyad Square. I went to the Presidential Palace, repeating (Abdul Baset) Al-Sarout’s song ‘Janna Janna Janna, Ghali ya Watanna’.”
As the world watches to learn what the future holds for Syria and its people, the fall of Assad’s regime has brought a renewed sense of hope. Citizens are reclaiming their identities, removing their metaphorical gags, and shouting their long-suppressed voices.
“Using a fake name was to many Syrians part of suppressing their identity and who they really are as (a) Syrian,” said Masri. “Now this is no longer the case.”
Facebook restricts war-related content in Palestinian territories, BBC investigation claims
- Local news outlets report 77% drop in audience engagement
- ‘Any implication that we deliberately suppress a particular voice is unequivocally false,’ Meta says
LONDON: A BBC investigation has claimed that Facebook significantly restricted access to news in Palestinian territories, limiting local news outlets’ ability to reach audiences during the ongoing Israel-Gaza war.
Research conducted by the BBC Arabic team found that 20 newsrooms in Gaza and the West Bank reported a 77 percent decline in audience engagement — a measure of the visibility and impact of social media content — following the Hamas attacks on Oct. 7, 2023.
In contrast, Facebook pages belonging to 20 Israeli news outlets, including Yediot Ahronot, Israel Hayom and Channel 13, saw a 37 percent increase in engagement for similar war-related content during the same period.
“Interaction was completely restricted and our posts stopped reaching people,” said Tariq Ziad, a journalist at Palestine TV, which experienced a 60 percent drop in engagement despite having 5.8 million Facebook followers.
With international journalists restricted from accessing Gaza due to Israeli-imposed limitations, local media and social platforms have become critical sources of information around the world. But the disparity in engagement has underscored concerns about a growing “war of narratives” on social media.
Facebook’s parent company, Meta, has previously faced allegations of “shadow banning” Palestinian content. Critics, including human rights groups, claim the platform fails to moderate online activity fairly.
According to an independent report commissioned by Meta in 2021, the company said the loss of engagement was never deliberate, attributing it to a “lack of Arabic-speaking expertise among moderators,” which led to some Arabic phrases being inadvertently flagged as harmful or sensitive.
To test these claims, the BBC analyzed 30 prominent Facebook pages from Arabic news outlets and found an almost 100 percent increase in engagement.
Meta admitted to increasing moderation of Palestinian user comments in response to a “spike in hateful content” but rejected allegations of bias.
A spokesperson told the BBC: “Any implication that we deliberately suppress a particular voice is unequivocally false.”
However, internal communications reviewed by the BBC showed that Meta-owned Instagram’s algorithm had been adjusted shortly after the conflict began, with at least one engineer raising concerns about potential new bias against Palestinian users.
“Within a week of the Hamas attack, the code was changed essentially making it more aggressive toward Palestinian people,” the engineer told the BBC.
Although Meta said these policy changes were reversed, it did not specify when.
A similar investigation by Arab News revealed widespread reports of pro-Palestinian posts and accounts being suspended or banned during Israel’s bombardment of Gaza.
According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, at least 144 media workers have been killed since the start of the conflict, 133 of whom were Palestinians, making it the deadliest conflict for journalists in recent history.
Two men arrested in London over attack on British-Iranian journalist
- Iran International journalist Pouria Zeraati was stabbed outside his home in March in what investigators have identified as a Tehran-orchestrated plot
LONDON: British police said on Tuesday they arrested two Romanian men over the stabbing of a journalist working for a Persian language media organisation in London in March.
Pouria Zeraati, a British-Iranian journalist who works for Iran International, sustained leg injuries in the attack near his home in Wimbledon, southwest London.
Counter-terrorism police led the investigation over concerns he had been targeted because of his work at the television news network, which is critical of Iran’s government.
Britain’s Crown Prosecution Service said earlier this month that Nandito Badea, 19, and George Stana, 23, had been charged with wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm, and wounding.
London’s Metropolitan (Met) Police said the two men were taken into custody at Heathrow Airport on Tuesday after they arrived on a flight from Romania. They are due to appear at Westminster Magistrates Court on Dec. 18, the police said.
They had previously been detained by Romanian authorities on Dec. 4 and were returned to the UK by a national extradition unit.
British police, security officials and politicians have issued warnings about what they say is Iran’s growing use of criminal proxies to carry out attacks abroad. Iran rejects those accusations.
“This has been a long-running investigation and I am pleased we have reached a point where two men have now been charged and will face prosecution here in the UK,” said Helen Flanagan from the Met's counter-terrorism command.
Flanagan added: “Now that criminal proceedings are fully active here in the UK, I continue to ask people not speculate about the case or motivation so that the criminal justice process can run its course.”
Mother of missing US journalist urges Netanyahu to pause strikes on Syria to aid search for her son
- Austin Tice, a former Marine, was abducted in Syria in August 2012 while reporting on the country’s descent into civil war
- His mother says ‘credible information’ suggests her son is in a prison close to areas pounded by Israeli strikes
LONDON: The mother of missing American journalist Austin Tice, who was abducted in Syria 12 years ago, urged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to pause airstrikes on Syria so that rescuers can search safely for her son.
In a letter addressed to Netanyahu, Debra Tice said her family has “credible information” that her son might be in a prison close to the Syrian capital, Damascus, and appealed for a halt to nearby Israeli military operations.
“We are aware that your military has an active campaign in the area, preventing rescuers from approaching and accessing the prison facility,” she wrote.
“We have no way of knowing if the prisoners there have food and water. We urgently request you pause strikes on this area and deploy Israeli assets to search for Austin Tice and other prisoners. Time is of the essence.”
The prime minister’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment, The New York Times reported.
The Israeli military has been bombing weapons depots and air defenses in Syria in what it described as an attempt to prevent military equipment falling into the hands of extremists.
Austin Tice, who before becoming a journalist served as an officer in the US Marine Corps, was kidnapped on Aug. 13, 2012, while reporting from Syria as the country descended into civil war. He was 31 years old at the time. The only evidence of his capture and captivity remains a 47-second video released in September 2012 that showed him bound and blindfolded.
In the 12 years since then, the US government has maintained its belief that he was alive and in the custody of the Syrian government. No group or organization has publicly claimed responsibility for his detention.
The fall of the Assad regime this month to rebel forces led by militant group Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham sparked renewed efforts to locate Tice. It comes as thousands of prisoners, including the regime’s political opponents, civilians and foreigners, have been freed from detention centers in Damascus.
Debra Tice believes her son is held in a prison located beneath a Syrian military museum in the Mount Qasioun area near Damascus. She described a system of tunnels thought to connect the facility to a government palace and nearby neighborhoods.
Citing anonymous sources, Reuters reported on Monday that Tice managed to escape from his captors after just five months of captivity but was recaptured by forces loyal to Assad. Credible information about his whereabouts grew increasingly scarce over the years, though US officials remain cautiously optimistic that he is alive.
The recent escalation of Israeli attacks on targets in Syria raised concerns that Tice might have been killed in the airstrikes or trapped underground. US officials also fear that power cuts in Damascus prisons, orchestrated by Assad’s forces before he was toppled, could have deprived underground cells of breathable air.
Hopes were briefly raised this week amid reports that an American man had been spotted in Damascus. However, he turned out to be Travis Timmerman from Missouri, who had been freed by rebel forces. He was arrested this year for entering the country illegally after traveling to Syria on a “spiritual mission.”
The State Department said on Monday no US government officials are in Syria to assist in the search for Tice but finding him remains a “top priority.”
Concerns continue to grow over the fate of remaining detainees in the country, particularly in areas still affected by military strikes and instability.
