Bangladesh

A few hours after the 27 February 2001 launch of the human rights portal banglarights.com, the phone and fax links of DRIK, the NGO hosting the site, were cut off. The Bangladesh Telegraph and Telephone Board regulatory authority denied it was to do with DRIK's activities and said it was part of a government enquiry following complaints about ISPs. DRIK also hosts meghbarta.com, the site of an anti-globalisation group very critical of the government. At the time of banglarights.com's launch, Meghbarta had posted articles about the local human rights situation and attacks on human rights activists which reportedly annoyed some politicians. In November 2001, the government also cut off the phone lines of about 60 firms offering Internet services. The telecommunications minister said this was because the companies could not get their professional licences renewed. But the companies said it was done to stop people using the Internet to make cheap phone calls abroad instead of going through the state-owned phone company. This practice, common in Bangladesh and permitted in most countries, is not allowed by the government. The police have stepped up their monitoring of e-mail of journalists and political activists. In early 2002, the Islamist newspaper Inqilab published private e-mail messages of journalist Shahriar Kabir that had clearly been intercepted by the security services. The pro-government daily was at the time attacking Kabir as a traitor in the pay of India. During a crackdown by the right-wing government at the end of 2002, police seized the computers of several journalists, including Saleem Samad, the Reporters Without Borders correspondent. A climate of fear developed and several reporters and human rights activists told Reporters Without Borders they no longer used e-mail addresses supplied by national ISPs because messages might be monitored by the police. Links: DRIK The daily News from Bangladesh