DHAKA: A Bangladeshi journalist was arrested and another was on the run Wednesday for publishing “false information” about voting irregularities in an election won by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, police said.
Hedayet Hossain Mollah, who works for the Dhaka Tribune newspaper, was detained late Tuesday under a controversial digital security law which rights groups say gives authorities broad powers to stifle dissent.
Mollah was arrested in the southern Khulna region after he reported that in one constituency 22,419 more ballots than the number of registered voters were cast, local police chief Mahbubur Rahman said.
“The actual votes cast were only 80 percent of the total votes,” Rahman told AFP, adding that Mollah was accused of “providing false information in an effort to make the election look questionable.”
If convicted Mollah could face up to 14 years in jail under a draconian anti-press law that was toughed by Hasina last year.
The police chief said another journalist was wanted for questioning after a local government administrator filed a case against the two under the the controversial law.
Hasina, 71, is accused of creeping authoritarianism, including muzzling the media and jailing prominent journalists such as Shahidul Alam, an award winning photographer, who spent four months in prison recently.
Hasina won 98 percent of seats in Sunday’s election which opposition politicians claim was rigged by the ruling Awami League to deliver her a record fourth term as Bangladesh’s leader.
Thousands of opposition activists were arrested during the campaign while voters reported intimidation at polling stations on election day which was overshadowed by the deaths of at least 17 people in clashes between rival supporters.
On Tuesday, the European Union urged authorities in Bangladesh to probe violence and obstacles to voting that the EU said had “tainted” the election.
The United States also expressed concern about “credible reports of harassment, intimidation and violence.”
A State Department statement urged the country’s Election Commission to “work constructively with all sides to address claims of irregularities.”
Opposition parties won only six seats and have demanded a new election under a neutral caretaker government.
Hasina has denied allegations of vote-rigging and rejected calls for an election re-run.
Bangladesh arrests journalist over election reporting
Bangladesh arrests journalist over election reporting
- Hedayet Hossain Mollah, who works for the Dhaka Tribune newspaper, was detained late Tuesday under a controversial digital security law
- Hasina, 71, is accused of creeping authoritarianism, including muzzling the media and jailing prominent journalists
To infinity and beyond: Grendizer’s 50 years of inspiring Arabs
- 50 years after its creation, the Grendizer anime series continues to capture Arab imagination
- Arab News Japan speaks to creator Go Nagai, Middle Eastern fans and retells the story behind the UFO Robot tasked with protecting our planet
LONDON: Few cultural imports have crossed borders as unexpectedly, or as powerfully, as Grendizer, the Japanese giant robot that half a century ago became a childhood hero across the Arab world, nowhere more so than in Saudi Arabia.
Created in Japan in the mid-1970s by manga artist Go Nagai, Grendizer was part of the “mecha” tradition of giant robots. The genre was shaped by Japan’s experience during the Second World War, and explored themes of invasion, resistance and loss through the medium of science fiction.
But while the series enjoyed moderate success in Japan, its true legacy was established thousands of kilometers away in the Middle East.
The anime “UFO Robot Grendizer” arrived on television in the region in 1979, dubbed into Arabic and initially broadcast in Lebanon during the Lebanese civil war. The story it told of the heroic Duke Fleed, a displaced prince whose planet had been destroyed by alien invaders, struck a chord with children growing up amid regional conflict and occupation by Israel.
Its themes of defending one’s homeland, standing up to aggression and protecting the innocent were painfully relevant in the region, transforming the series from mere entertainment into a kind of emotional refuge.
Much of the show’s impact came from its successful Arabization. The powerful Arabic dubbing and emotionally charged voice-acting, especially by Lebanese actor Jihad El-Atrash as Duke Fleed, lent the show a moral gravity unmatched by other cartoons of the era.
The theme song for the series, performed by Sami Clark, became an anthem that the Lebanese singer continued to perform at concerts and festivals right up until his death in 2022.
By the early 1980s, “Grendizer” had spread across the Middle East, inspiring fandoms in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq and beyond. For many, it was not only their first exposure to anime, it also delivered lessons on values such as justice and honor.
Grendizer was so influential in the region that it became the subject of scholarly research, which in addition to recognizing the ways in which the plight of the show’s characters resonated with the audience in the Middle East, also linked the show’s popularity to generational memories of displacement, particularly the Palestinian Nakba.
Half a century later, “Grendizer” remains culturally alive and relevant in the region. In Saudi Arabia, which embraced the original version of the show wholeheartedly, Manga Productions is now introducing a new generation of fans to a modernized version of the character, through a video game, The Feast of The Wolves, which is available in Arabic and eight other languages on platforms including PlayStation, Xbox and Nintendo Switch, and a new Arabic-language anime series, “Grendizer U,” which was broadcast last year.
Fifty years after the debut of the show, “Grendizer” is back — although to a generation of fans of the original series, their shelves still full of merchandise and memorabilia, it never really went away.
