{"id":22582,"date":"2018-11-20T21:23:11","date_gmt":"2018-11-20T21:23:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=22582"},"modified":"2018-11-20T21:23:11","modified_gmt":"2018-11-20T21:23:11","slug":"photographer-shahidul-alam-released-on-bail-from-bangladesh-jail","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=22582","title":{"rendered":"Photographer Shahidul Alam released on bail from Bangladesh jail"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Shahidul Alam, an\u00a0award-wining photographer and activist<\/span>\u00a0in\u00a0<\/span>Bangladesh<\/a>, has been released from jail on bail after spending more than 100 days behind bars.<\/p>\n

Authorities had said the 63-year old had made “provocative” statements during an interview<\/a> with Al Jazeera and on Facebook commenting on the mass student protests<\/a>\u00a0that gripped the country’s capital, Dhaka, in August.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Alam, who was granted bail<\/a>\u00a0on Thursday\u00a0and freed on Tuesday, told the AFP news agency he hoped his release would “signal freedom for many others” also detained during the protests.<\/p>\n

“It is a fantastic feeling to be free in a free country, breathing free air. But I hope for freedom for everyone else,” Alam said.<\/p>\n

The photographer had previously said he was badly beaten while in custody.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Despite being released from prison, Alam still faces a maximum 14 years in prison if convicted.<\/p>\n

His lawyers have argued that Alam’s detention was “a clear violation” of his fundamental rights under Bangladesh’s constitution.<\/p>\n

Reacting to the news of his his release, Amnesty International<\/a> said Bangladesh authorities must immediately drop charges against him and “uphold its international commitments to protect the right to freedom of expression”.<\/p>\n

“Shahidul Alam is a bold representation of Bangladesh through his lens. He should not have been detained at the first place,” Saad Hammadi, Amnesty’s regional campaigner for South Asia, said.<\/p>\n

Alam was arrested shortly after widespread demonstrations began in Bangladesh when a speeding bus killed two teenagers on July 29.<\/p>\n

Following that accident, student protesters pressed the government to make the country’s chaotic and lethal roads safer.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In an interview about the protests, however, Alam told Al Jazeera the protests were about more than road safety alone.<\/p>\n

He highlighted “the looting of the banks and the gaggling of the media” and widespread “extrajudicial killings, disappearings, bribery and corruption” as the real reasons behind the public’s growing anger.<\/p>\n

He said civil discontent in the country had been building for a very long time and the killing of the two teenagers was only “a valve” that allowed through which that unhappiness was released.<\/p>\n

Alam then said Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina had lost all credibility in the eyes of the Bangladeshi public for failing to institute reforms.<\/p>\n

He also connected the government’s brutal response to the current protests to the general election that is expected to take place later this year.<\/p>\n

Hours after his interview, Alam was arrested and charged under Section 57 of Bangladesh’s Information Communications Technology (ICT) Act, a broad law against electronic communication that “tends to deprave or corrupt” the image of the state.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\n SOURCE:
\n Al Jazeera and news agencies<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Shahidul Alam, an\u00a0award-wining photographer and activist\u00a0in\u00a0Bangladesh, has been released from jail on bail after spending more than 100 days behind bars. Authorities had said the 63-year old had made “provocative” statements during an interview with Al Jazeera and on Facebook commenting on the mass student protests\u00a0that gripped the country’s capital, Dhaka, in August.\u00a0 Alam, who…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":22583,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22582","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22582","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22582"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22582\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/22583"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}