Dear Ajoyda,
Thanks a lot for your endeavor for my release.
The high court just granted me six month’s interim bail and also issued a rule on the government to show cause why I should not be granted bail till the case is over.
Though our high court upheld the rule of law but the government has already expressed strong reservation in regard to my release on bail.
On 21st January the home ministry issued a press note where it was mentioned that they are going to Supreme Court to cancel the bail because they think if I am out of jail I will continue sedition. As you know since pro-talibans are in power those who are fighting against fundamentalism, communalism & talibanisation of Bangladesh, the government considers them anti state, engaged in sedition. Quoting daily ‘Inquilub,’ the organ of the talibans of Bangladesh home ministry’s press note branded me as an agent of RAW (!),  who was trained by RAW at Deradoon for pretty long three years (!!), and also an agent of Israeli intelligence service Moshad (!!!). This press note of our home ministry is an unique example of hatred, malice and retaliations just because I exposed the unprecedented atrocities on Hindus of Bangladesh which started around last parliament election on 1st October, launched by the activists of Jamat-BNP alliance. From the very beginning Khaleda-Nizami’s government categorically denied that nothing such happened in Bangladesh and according to them all newspapers are publishing false, exaggerated reports on communal onslaught.
After my release some of my friends and well wishers advised me to stay home and not to antagonize the government. Well, I told my friends and also the press that I am going to continue my writing and making film, my struggle against fundamentalism and communalism and I am ready to face any consequence.
I would appreciate if you take initiatives to mobilize public opinion in your country and abroad in favour of withdrawal the false charges against me and allow us to continue our work for democracy, social justice, communal harmony, peace and basic human rights.
We are living in a society of threat, fear, suffering and agony which one can compare with Nazi period of Germany. Their main target is to destroy all secular, democratic, humane values and convert Bangladesh into another Afghanistan as they declared publicly long before the election.
Please convey my deep gratitude and thanks to friends and well wishes who worked for my release and raised their voice against ongoing communal onslaught and human rights violation in Bangladesh.
With best wishes.
Shahriar


PS. Please find enclosed the text of my press conference, addressed on 27 January 2002.





My dear fellow journalists,
I am now free on an interim bail granted by the High Court on January 20, after spending 59 days in the Dhaka Central Jail, where I was taken the day following my arrest.
You all know that I was arrested at the Zia International Airport on my return to Dhaka on November 22, 2001, from Kolkata after spending 16 days in India. The police did not tell me that I was arrested despite my repeated queries, but held me up at the airport for four hours before taking me to the Special Branch office in Malibagh.
It is because of my fellow journalists, many of whom had rushed to the airport on hearing the news of my detention, that the police could not liquidate me or kidnap me that night. I was quite upset and angry as the police detectives detained me even after the immigration and customs officials were satisfied that I was not carrying anything objectionable.
I was tired and sick that evening. My little boy was waiting outside the airport to take me home and I told everyone that police was not allowing me to go to my family for some mysterious reason.
At 11:00 p.m. a senior police detective branch officer told me that I would have to go with him as they had something to discuss with me. However, he would not disclose the destination and my journalist friends followed me to the Special Branch office. You, journalists, acted as my life’s security.
At the Malibagh Special Branch office they turned my luggage upside down and seized the copies of the video cassettes which contained some interviews of the victims of communal persecution, some audio cassettes and CDs of old classical songs, besides a camera with some rolls of film.
When they were opening my still camera to take out the film, it reminded me of the time when Bangladesh was under siege by the occupation Pakistani army during our 1971 Liberation War. At that time the Pakistani army also treated the press in a similar way by seizing their cameras, films and eventually killing them. As I already said it was because of my journalist friends that they could not kill me.
On being informed by my journalist friends, my wife and relatives, eminent people like National Professor Kabir Chowdhury, Painter Hashem Khan and Professor Muntassir Mamoon waited for hours to meet me at the gate of the Special Branch office, but they could neither see me nor any officer of the Special Branch. They were also not told why I had been arrested. Even my lawyer senior barrister Shawkat Ali Khan also could not meet me after waiting for couple of hours outside the SB office.
The next day when my journalist friends after spending the whole night at the detective branch office went to the National Press Club to inform others, I was quietly taken to the magistrate court in the afternoon and without producing me in front of the magistrate I was taken to the Dhaka Central Jail. Then, after 24 hours, I learned that I had been shown arrested under clause 54 of the Bangladesh Penal Code.

My dear journalist friends,
I was kept as a third class prisoner at the Dhaka Central Jail in an inhuman condition, which some of you had reported. You also know that I was taken to the court in a small prison van packed with atleast 65 inmates and despite an order from the higher court, I was not allowed to meet my lawyers. I was not allowed even to meet my family although according to jail rules a detinue is allowed a visit every 15 days.
On the day of Eid-ul-Fitr, my wife, daughter and son returned home in tears after they were refused permission to see me after waiting for hours at the jail gate, though the jail rules also allow such meetings on special days and even murderers, dacoits and thieves get that opportunity.
The administration further ignored court order to grant me division (better accommodation) in the jail.
CID police took me into their custody for five days which they were allowed by the court. I felt it was far better to stay as a third class prisoner than the torture I suffered during the five days of remand when I was questioned by a joint investigating team.
I am not aware if you know it or not, the Dhaka central jail has accommodation for 2,600 inmates, but was being shared by more than 10,000 prisoners.
After taking me to the jail, my watch, pen, notebook and cash were seized. In the prison one has no choice but count days and nights with the help of the sun as there is no watch or calendar there. One day I asked one of the inmates about the date. One told me it was 7th December but another said it was the 4th. Later I came to know at one point from another prisoner’s newspaper that it was December 2, 2001.
Outside the lock-up, a prisoner of a third class status spend most of the time looking for food as they are served by the prison authorities with horrible food which is uneatable. Some 200 inmates have to wait for hours for two toilets which barely cover the body. Health care facility is extremely poor inside Dhaka Central Jail. Despite court order there was no facility for my treatment.
The jail authorities very kindly did not physically torture me, but some times mental torture is more painful than physical torture. During my stay in jail two inmates committed suicide as they could not bear the mental torture any more.
If anyone virtually wants to kill a writer slowly then his only weapon is taking away the pen and paper, to deprive him of the right to write. Similarly a film-maker or an artist could also be killed. The prison atmosphere here turns a man into an animal; even animals in the forest are free to choose as to what they want to do. In jail, the prisoners do not even have that right.
You have to remain in jail to witness the massive misuse of power.

Dear friends,
Government has brought charges of treason against me. According to the home ministry my ‘crimes’ are  a) I interviewed some Hindu refugee families in India who narrated the reason for fleeing their homeland and were forced to take shelter in another country, b) In one of the video cassettes I collected there is a shot showing Bangladeshi refugees demonstrating with placards that read “Simarekha Ma’ni Na”(Do not accept boundary), “Deshbhaag Mahapaap” (Partition of the country is a great sin.), etc. and c) I spoke about torture on the minorities in Bangladesh in an interview with the BBC.
You know I am internationally known as a journalist, writer, film-maker and human rights activist. It is common for me to be interviewed by newspapers or the electronic media.
I have already made two films titled “Muktijuddher Gaan (‘Songs of Freedom Struggle’)” and “Cry for Justice” and I am working now on a third called “Cry for Peace.” I have travelled extensively to different countries for shooting these films. BUT, never before I was meted out such behaviour and my films were never seized.
This time the difference is that I have been outspoken about the repression on the minority Hindu community before and after the October 1, 2001 general election which the BNP-Jamaat alliance government repeatedly denied since coming to power.
Journalists and documentary filmmakers through their reports/columns and films create awareness among the people of such incidents or other social issues, which I have been doing along with other noted journalists and filmmakers. A massive human-chain to protest minority repression was organized on September 25 around the Jatiya Sangshad Bhaban by the Ekkaturer Ghatak Dalal Nirmul Committee and the South Asian Peoples Union against Communalism and Fundamentalism.
My creative works are aimed at uprooting communal and fundamentalist elements from the soil of this country and establishing here true democratic state with communal harmony, social justice, peace and welfare of the people.
It is nothing but a fascist attitude to imprison those who oppose terrorism, communalism and repression on innocent people instead of those who perpetrate those crimes. What is happening in Bangladesh over the last six months can be compared with ethnic cleansing by the Nazis in Germany before the world war II. In this case it is the Hindus instead of the Jews.
The government has been saying that my activities in India tarnished the image of Bangladesh. I want to say that it is the government which has tarnished the image of the country by allowing Talibanising Bangladesh’s politics and society and by being lenient with militant fundamentalist and communal groups who have been carrying out repression on the minority Hindu community.
We have fought for Bangladesh and lost our dear ones in the war, and will protect the independence and sovereignty of the country even at the cost of our blood.
It is indeed a tragedy that those who opposed the birth of Bangladesh, described freedom fighters as traitors or Indian agents, are now in power. They still want to turn Bangladesh into a fundamentalist Pakistan.

Journalist friends,
The vengeful attitude and hatred of this government against me were expressed in the Prime Minister’s comments on my imprisonment (which can be taken as a contempt of court), filing false and heinous charges against me, arresting me without warrant, keeping me in a subhuman condition in the jail, denying my fundamental rights and harassing me in various way after I came out of the Jail.
The home ministry issued a statement the day after I was released on bail quoting Daily ‘Inqilab’, which was totally false. Prompted by these malicious propaganda I fear that fundamentalist terrorists might kill me any time. Already its followers have demanded my hanging and I read the news in the daily owned by 1971 war criminal Moulana Abdul Mannan.
The government’s partner Jamaat-e-Islami and the ‘Inqilab’ are mainly angry with me because of my film “Cry for Justice,” where the war crimes of Jamaat leaders Matiur Rahman Nizami and Delwar Hossain Sayedee along with Moulana Mannan have been exposed.
The home ministry has quoted the ‘Inqilab’ to bring charges of treason against me and I have told them during remand that Bangladesh stood at a critical juncture in its history and its existence will be jeopardised if police detectives follow such a practice.
After coming out of the jail I now feel that I have stepped into a larger one from a smaller one. Police detectives now follow me everywhere, my telephone and e-mail are tapped. My postal letters are censored. They are monitoring every move I make. When some people follow me in plain dress I feel very insecure because it is quite difficult to differentiate between police and killing squad of Jamate Islami or Harkatul Jehad.
By seizing my film footage and film rolls, the government has snatched away the right of free expression of a journalist and a filmmaker. Similarly they have also seized my passport which is a violation of basic fundamental right of any citizen. I can say that such an attack on free expression did not even take place when Bangladesh was under military rule.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of you for your support along with the support given by lawyers and intellectuals at home and abroad and different local and international organizations.
I want to end by saying that I am pledge-bound to my objectives even if that means death in the hands of this government or their allied fundamentalist groups. I am not scared of death. Thousands of Shahriar Kabir will be born if one Shahriar Kabir is killed. I believe one day truth shall prevail and we shall surely be victorious in our mission.

I thank you all.

Shahriar Kabir