An elderly British-Bangladeshi journalist facing a potential death sentence has been denied bail by a Bangladesh court. Now his family fears for his health while under detention.
Shafik Rehman, an 81-year-old journalist, was arrested two months ago on a charge of sedition and remanded in custody. But he has not been charged.
He applied for bail, which was denied at a hearing on June 7, following several weeks in solitary confinement, without a bed. He was taken to hospital last month and remains in a hospital wing of Dhaka central jail.
The authorities have suggested that he will be charged over an alleged plot to kidnap the son of Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.
But the government has not provided any evidence to support the existence of a kidnap plot, or Rehman’s involvement in it.
Incarceration of Rehman, a former speechwriter for the opposition BNP, comes amid criticism of the Bangladesh government following a series of recent attacks and arrests involving journalists, bloggers and opposition activists.
Rehman’s family is being assisted by the human rights organisation, Reprieve. The director of its death penalty team, Maya Foa, said: “It is deeply worrying that the Bangladeshi authorities have seen fit to deny bail to an elderly journalist, in what is clearly part of a wider crackdown on the government’s critics.”
She pointed out that the authorities have failed to make any case against him. “Meanwhile, his family in Britain is desperately worried that he could face the death penalty, or that his health will fail in detention.”
Foa called on the UK “and other countries with close ties to Bangladesh” to urge Rehman’s release “before it’s too late.”
For many years, Rehman edited Jai Jai Din, a mass-circulation Bengali daily. More recently, until his arrest, he edited a monthly magazine, Mouchake Dhil.