Eminent editor Nurul Kabir has said he was harassed at the Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport in Dhaka recently.
Following the incident, Chief Adviser’s Press Wing has regretted the harassment issue.
“We sincerely regret the incident. The Interim Government will not tolerate harassment of any journalists in the country,” said Chief Adviser’s Press Wing.
“Nurul Kabir has been one of our most respected editors, a leading voice of reason and a top champion of journalistic integrity during his long career,” the Press Wing added.
Chief Adviser’s Press Wing also said, “Chief Adviser Professor Muhammad Yunus has ordered an investigation into the incident.”
Editor of New Age Nurul Kabir, in a post, on his verified Facebook account, on Saturday (23 November) said, “The country's immigration authorities have been harassing me at the Dhaka airport every time I go abroad for more than two decades.”
“The harassments include taking my passport away by the intelligence officials, interrogating me about the purposes of the visits although everything written there in the printed documents, keeping me waiting for about an hour, getting my passport pages photographed in violation of my privacy, et cetera and returning the documents a few minutes before taking off the aircraft.”
He said that such kind of harassment took place when he returned home from abroad.
“This time, on November 18, as I was going abroad for a media conference, I expected that my days of harassments at the Dhaka airport has been over, at least for sometime. I was wrong. It has been rather doubled this time. One hour while departing and one hour while returning home on November 22,” he wrote.
The post concluded as saying, “Being patriotic is a matter of being suspect by the intelligence agencies of the country. I am forced to question the patriotism of the country's ntelligence agencies concerned and those in the government/s who supervise them, if at all.”
