February  2003 
Year 9    No.84

Neighbours

Prison diary

An unusual survey conducted by AIDWA across 18 states uncovers the disturbing phenomenon of an epidemic-like spread of an obnoxious social practice

Suddenly I found myself caught up in yet another crisis of my life last November. I have faced several crises in my life, sometimes I foolishly invited trouble. Fortunately, as in a Hindi–film, this time, too, I got of trouble with my dignity intact.

For the past several years I have been working as a correspondent for the Paris–based Reporters Sans Frontières (RSF), as special correspondent for the Daily Times published from Lahore and edited by Najam Sethi, an acclaimed journalist. I also write regularly for the South Asia Tribune, a news portal founded by a dissident Pakistani editor, Shaheen Sehbai, currently exiled in the United States, and the South Asia magazine published from Karachi, Pakistan. I had earlier worked with TV crews for documentaries that were telecast by Channel 4, Discovery Channel, BBC 2 and other European channels.

This time the trouble began when I was offered a job as fixer and translator for a production, "Unreported World’ to be telecast by Channel 4 TV. Bangladesh was born as a secular state in a pluralistic society. The serial "Unreported World" was to examine how much the nation has compromised with the principle in 31 years of its political history, in the midst of growing intolerance and Islamic radicalism.

The government was enraged after two articles in the Far Eastern Economic Review and TIME magazine exposed the resurgence of Islamic militancy in Bangladesh. In the changed scenario, foreign reporters were routinely denied visas to Bangladesh. So the Channel 4 crew — British reporter Zaiba Malik and Italian cameraman Bruno Sorrentino entered the country as tourists. The TV crew arrived in Bangladesh on November 5 with tourist visas and I was officially engaged as a translator.

Not unexpectedly, the pro–Islamist and rightist newspapers Dainik Dinkal, Dainik Sangram and Dainik Inqilab saw the filming by Channel 4 TV crew as a means to "tarnish the image of Bangladesh," as part of a deep–rooted conspiracy to demonise Bangladesh as a safe haven for the Taliban and Al Qaeda’s terrorist network. The newspapers had earlier grilled me for "confusing the donor community with misinformation" and "distortion of information". Hordes of police intelligence men prowled my residential neighbourhood in north–west Dhaka soon after a front page report appeared in Inqilab, the pro–Saddam local language daily.

In fact, my troubles with the rightist coalition government led by Begum Khaleda Zia had begun several months ago, after my articles appeared in the foreign press and on news portals. My articles in the Daily Times, Lahore, Tehelka.com (New Delhi, now defunct), South Asia Tribune and RSF detailed how the hard–liners in the government were turning the country from secular to pro–Islamist.

My problem worsened in August 2002, after the RSF described home minister Altaf Hossain Chowdhury as a ‘Predator of Press Freedom’. The pro–government newspapers "exposed" me for being engaged in "information terrorism" and "smuggling information to foreign countries." They also said that I was earning big money in the process. An Islamist newspaper did not hesitate to explain to its readers that I had links with Indian intelligence agency RAW.

Finally, they closed in on me. The two–storied house that I share with my parents was searched without a search warrant. The detectives painstakingly examined every inch of the house but failed to uncover any "alamat" (evidence) to prove that I was a "traitor". They tried to check my e–mails but were frustrated on discovering that the hard disk had been removed from my son’s PC.

I avoided staying at home for obvious reasons and made all efforts to avoid being arrested by the police while seeking anticipatory bail from the High Court. I was picked up on November 29 from a friend’s flat in north Dhaka. (A few days earlier, the two foreign journalists were arrested while crossing over to India by land; their equipment was seized and they were brought to Dhaka for interrogation.) I was charged under treason laws, along with the two TV journalists and another women interpreter.

I was driven to the Detective headquarters. I glimpsed the TV reporter Zaiba and her interpreter Priscilla Raj resting on a mattress in a noisy room also used by the duty officer.

It was Ramadan, the month of fasting, so the police did not offer me any breakfast in the morning. The same afternoon I was taken to the magistrate’s court in a van while another vehicle filled with plainclothes police armed with shotguns escorted me. I was not handcuffed, but my face was covered with handkerchiefs to avoid being photographed by press photographers. The police did not allow me to appear before the magistrate; instead, I was made to wait in the van parked in the courtyard. Their failure to produce me before the magistrate was illegal and a gross violation of my fundamental rights, guaranteed by the constitution of the country.

Immediately after the court remand for five days for interrogation, I was taken to a senior officer’s chamber. The additional deputy commissioner of police, Kohinoor Miah, drew his pistol from his holster, shoved me to the floor and pressed it to my chest. "I should shoot you," he said. "You are a traitor. You have betrayed your country. How dare you portray the nation as a haven for Al Qaeda and the Taliban? The nation would benefit immensely if I eliminate a traitor."

"You are humiliating an independence war–veteran. If I had not helped create the country in 1971, you would have been a constable," I retorted angrily. Exasperated, he grabbed a baton and began assaulting me.

At the Detective HQ, I was pushed into a 10 X15 feet cell along with about 15 other suspects held for murder and robbery, including two most-wanted persons. There was just one nauseating toilet emanating a foul smell. Kohinoor Miah refused to provide me with extra clothes and toiletries. For five days I could not brush my teeth, wash my hands after defecating or bathe for want of towels and extra clothes. I was given food twice a day — early in the morning and late in the evening because of Ramzan. I was forced to drink toilet water, which gave me dysentery. I was refused a bedsheet and had to sleep on the bare floor in the cold winter nights. On the concrete floor, sleep was impossible with innumerable mosquitoes swarming around all the time.

On hearing the news of the TV crew’s arrests on BBC Radio, I had instructed my 18–year–old son Atisha Rahbar, to hide the hard disk that stored my lifetime’s work. Police detectives kept up the surveillance of my home; my wife Jasmine and my son moved from one place to another. The detectives raided all these flats. In panic, my family fled to a village where there were no phones, neither my parents nor my in–laws knew where they were until December 23, the day the High Court granted me anticipatory bail.

Every few hours I would be pulled out from the cell to answer questions. Officer Kohinoor would force me to sit on the floor with my legs stretched out so he could hit me with a baton on the kneecap. The police wanted a full account of the time I spent with the Channel 4 crew, the places we had visited, the persons we had met. I had done nothing illegal, so I told them everything I knew.

A military intelligence agent present at these interrogations demanded to know what was on my hard disk and where I had hidden the same. He threatened to hurt my son and my wife. "Your son will never appear for his final exam, if I do not get the hard disk," he smirked like a villain in an Indian film. But I insisted that I would not give up my life’s work.

On the fourth day, military intelligence interrogated me through the night. A major threatened me with electric shocks if I did not reveal the passwords to my email accounts. I wrote out the passwords on a piece of paper. They often threatened to use other methods to force me to confess my involvement in the "conspiracy" and "treason". I refused to give a "confessional statement" in the magistrate’s chamber and also refused to sign papers prepared by the police. I said, "I will not succumb to your threats and coercion. I will disclose the repressive tactics before the press and the magistrate." The detectives pressed me to implicate writer–journalist Shahriar Kabir in the conspiracy, to say that he was involved in the conspiracy to assist the foreign TV in exposing Bangladesh as a haven for the Al Qaeda and Taliban terrorists. I said, "That is true, I can prove it if you allow me to."

Finally, on the fifth day in police custody, I was bundled into a prison van that was parked in the courtyard. Once again I was not produced before a magistrate but driven instead to Dhaka Central Jail. I was given a cell to myself with a toilet and with enough blankets to make my bed. The prison hospital gave me painkillers and antibiotics for pain and wounds inflicted due to torture during interrogation.

At last came freedom, on January 18. After 50 days of acute anxiety for my family, relatives and friends, I was released from prison after the High Court had declared my detention illegal. This was thanks in large part to pressure from the Paris–based RSF, the New York based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), other professional media bodies and the local and foreign press. Even four weeks later, the police still refused to return my passport, credit cards, ATM card, ID cards, digital dairy or address book. They suggested that I seek a court order for the return of these personal items. Regarding the sedition case, the higher court granted me anticipatory bail in the expectation that the case would be quashed.

The Channel 4 crew was deported to Britain before Christmas, fortunately without suffering any physical abuse. Priscilla Raj later told me that her interrogators had tortured her with electric shocks. But for now, I feel as if I have emerged from a small jail and entered another, much larger prison.

Within a week of my release, I observed that my house was under surveillance, and,possibly, the intelligence had also bugged my home phone. Fearing that I would be harassed again, I sought legal protection from the High Court. On February 10, the court ordered the government "not to harass, not to arrest" me. n