Nobel Laureates, eminent global citizens join in plea for release of Shahidul, safe-road protesters

DHAKA, Aug. 19 (NsNewsWire) — The following is the full and unedited text of a statement that 11 Nobel Laureates, including Nobel Laureates Desmond Tutu and Tawakkol Karman, and 17 other eminent global citizens have signed with a plea for the immediate and unconditional release of Dr Shahidul Alam as well as all students who have been arrested after the protest and urging the Government of Bangladesh to ensure human rights of all citizens:

“Two weeks ago in Bangladesh, high school students came out in the streets to register their spontaneous protest about the death of two school-going students caused by speeding buses. They demanded their right to road safety, rule of law and justice. Credible reports in the global print and electronic media reported that these young protesters as well as journalists and photographers covering these protests, were attacked in the presence of the police, by members of the student and youth wings of the ruling party. It is also reported that when the university students came out after a few days to express their support to the demands of high school students, they were arrested connecting them with various cases which might involve prison sentences and subjected them to police remand (i.e. interrogation in police custody, without presence of or access to a lawyer) which is associated with torture and indignities.

In the late evening of Sunday 5 August 2018, Dr Shahidul Alam, an internationally decorated photographer who is the spirit behind the development of journalistic photography movement in Bangladesh, an academic and human rights activist, was unlawfully abducted from his home, by law enforcement personnel, without an arrest warrant. Last week, he was produced before the Dhaka Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate’s Court, where the Detective Branch of Police submitted a prayer for ten days’ remand (i.e. interrogation in police custody, without presence of or access to a lawyer). The Chief Metropolitan Magistrate granted seven days’ remand in a case filed against him under Section 57 of the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Act 2006, which is widely accepted as a draconian law and one that even the Government admits requires reform. As he was being carried into the court room, according to press reports he said to journalists present, “I was hit. They washed my blood-stained clothes and then made me wear them again. I was not given access to any lawyer during detention.”  His alleged crime was taking photographs of the brutal attacks on peacefully protesting students and exercising his freedom of opinion in an interview to an international television channel.  Dr Shahidul Alam has been sent to prison on 12 August 2018, on the order issued by Dhaka Metropolitan Magistrate on the 7th day of his detention, abruptly and without presence of his lawyer.”