Bangladesh and Media

CSB was warned about showing pictures of the trouble

Bangladesh’s only private 24-hour news channel has gone off air, just days after being warned not to broadcast footage of anti-government riots.

CSB television said officials from the telecommunications regulator visited with security personnel to close it.

CSB says it has to supply information about its frequency allocation before it can resume broadcasting.

But a senior CSB official told the BBC he was not convinced by the reason. The authorities have yet to comment.

The channel, which only began broadcasting earlier this year, went off air about 1800 local time (1200 GMT) on Thursday evening.

In a statement, CSB company secretary Mohammad Ali Zakir said four senior officials from the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) visited the station and shut it down.

“They came up with members of the security forces and stopped our transmissions. The BTRC has asked us to explain doubts over the allocation of our frequency within seven days.”

He said that during this time the channel had been told its transmissions would be stopped.

CSB was warned about showing pictures of student riots by the Interior Ministry on 23 August.

It was accused of broadcasting provocative news, which the ministry said was endangering national security and public safety.

Other state-run channels did not carry footage of the unrest.

The student protests in Dhaka quickly spread into three days of violent demonstrations across Bangladesh demanding an end to emergency rule.

The violence posed the most serious challenge to the emergency government since it took power six months ago. 

Source: BBC

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6982409.stm

Reporters Without Borders condemns closure of CSB News

 7 September 2007

Reporters Without Borders has called on the interim government to reverse its decision to suspend the country’s only privately-run 24-hour news channel CSB News for a period of seven days.

The worldwide press freedom organisation said it appeared the decision could be linked to the channel’s broadcasts of footage from anti-government demonstrations. “The closure of this channel looks suspect in the current climate,” it said.

The Bangladesh Telecommunications Regularity Commission (BTRC) yesterday ordered a seven-day suspension of Chrono Satellite Broadcast (CSB) News, saying that a forged document had been found in its file applying for a frequency in October 2006. Officials had apparently falsified a letter to fit in with the deadlines set by the authorities.

“Why deprive viewers of a source of independent news on the basis of the suspicion of a forged document?” asked Reporters Without Borders.

“But this decision could be linked to broadcasts of demonstrations, despite requests from the authorities not to.” The Daily Star has reported that some members of the government accuse the channel of inciting students to demonstrate in Dhaka.

Officials from the BTRC, accompanied by police, went to the channel’s offices early evening yesterday to stop it from broadcasting. The authorities gave CSB seven days to explain the circumstances in which the licence was granted. Failing that, the licence will be suspended under the Telecommunications Act of 2001. CBS was launched in February 2007 on the Telstar 10 satellite.

“CSB News must be allowed to resume broadcasting while awaiting the regularisation of its final permission, Reporters Without Borders said, “If ultimately the channel is suspended, which we fear will be the case, it will threaten all the interim government’s efforts to allow greater freedom to the electronic media”.

“Moreover we repeat our call on the government and the army to once again allow political talk shows,” the organisation said. The information ministry on 25 August called on several broadcasters, including CSB News, not to put out remarks hostile to the government.

http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=23596