DHAKA: Award-winning Bangladesh photographer Shahidul Alam was in jail on Monday, 10 days after being arrested following an interview with Al-Jazeera about massive student demonstrations, police said.
Alam, 63, who accused police of assaulting him in custody and was earlier sent to a hospital for a check-up following an order from the high court, was taken to a magistrate’s court late on Sunday.
“The court then sent him to jail,” police official Moshiur Rahman said.
Another police officer told the local Daily Star newspaper that Alam would be kept in prison until the completion of the probe into his charges.
Alam was accused of making “false” and “provocative” statements on Al-Jazeera and on Facebook Live as tens of thousands of students protested in Dhaka in late July and early August. He also published photos of the demonstrations.
He is being investigated for allegedly violating Bangladesh’s Internet laws, enacted in 2006 and sharpened in 2013, that critics say are used to snuff out dissent and harass journalists.
Alam, whose work has appeared widely in Western media and who founded the renowned Pathshala South Asian Media Institute, faces together with others a maximum 14 years in jail.
New York-based Human Rights Watch and London’s Amnesty International have demanded his release.
The renowned photographer told reporters outside court last Monday that he had been beaten so badly in police custody that his tunic needed washing to get the blood out.
Alam’s arrest capped a turbulent week in Bangladesh as students poured onto the streets in Dhaka and elsewhere for nine straight days after two teenagers were killed by a speeding bus.
Last weekend the demonstrations turned violent as some protesters vandalized and torched vehicles and police used tear gas and rubber bullets.
Mobs allegedly aligned with the government and wielding metal rods attacked demonstrators, journalists and even the US ambassador’s car. Some 150 people were injured.
Although the protests fizzled out last week, Bangladesh authorities launched a crackdown on online activists for “spreading rumors” to fuel the unrest.
Police are looking for people behind some 1,000 Facebook accounts and have arrested at least a dozen social media activists.
These include a television actress and the head of an online media outlet.
Top Bangladesh photographer sent to jail
Top Bangladesh photographer sent to jail
- Shahidul Alam was accused of making ‘false’ and ‘provocative’ statements on Al Jazeera and on Facebook Live
- New York-based Human Rights Watch and London’s Amnesty International have demanded his release
Israel arrests 2 Turkish CNN journalists over live broadcast outside IDF HQ
- Police said reporter Emrah Cakmak and cameraman Halil Kahraman were detained on suspicion of filming a sensitive security facility
- Since the Gaza war began, restrictions have expanded significantly, including tighter limits on filming soldiers on duty and sensitive or strategic sites
LONDON: Israeli police have arrested two Turkish CNN journalists who were broadcasting live outside the Israel Defense Forces’ headquarters in Tel Aviv.
Police said the pair were detained on suspicion of filming a sensitive security facility, according to the Israel Police Spokesperson’s Unit.
Reporter Emrah Cakmak and cameraman Halil Kahraman, from the network’s Turkish-language channel, had been reporting near the IDF’s Kirya military headquarters on Tuesday after Iran launched another missile barrage at Tel Aviv and other parts of central Israel.
During the live broadcast, two men believed to be soldiers approached the crew and seized the reporter’s phone, according to initial reports and a video circulating online that could not be independently verified.
Police said officers were dispatched after receiving reports of two people carrying cameras and allegedly broadcasting in real time for a foreign outlet.
עיתונאים של CNN טורקיה נעצרו לאחר שצילמו את בסיס הקרייה@NoamIhmels pic.twitter.com/t8a5P9yXfw
— גלצ (@GLZRadio) March 3, 2026
Israel’s long-standing military censorship system, overseen by the IDF Military Censor, has long barred journalists and civilians from publishing material deemed harmful to national security.
Since the Gaza war began, restrictions have expanded significantly, including tighter limits on filming soldiers on duty and sensitive or strategic sites.
After a series of similar incidents involving foreign media — most of them Palestinian citizens of Israel working for Arab-language and international media, along with foreign journalists — during the 12-Day War, Israeli police halted live international broadcasts from missile impact sites, citing concerns that exact locations were being revealed.
The Government Press Office later imposed a blanket ban on live coverage from crash and impact areas.
Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir subsequently ordered that all foreign journalists obtain prior written approval from the military censor before broadcasting — live or recorded — from combat zones or missile strike locations.
Police said that when officers asked the CNN Turk crew to identify themselves, they presented expired press cards and were taken in for questioning.
Burhanettin Duran, head of Turkiye’s Directorate of Communications, condemned the arrests as an attack on the press and said Ankara is working to secure the journalists’ release.
