Thursday, October 19, 2006

Choudhury beaten up; office looted

This report details the attack on Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury and his office in Dhaka on the 5th of October. Choudhury was beaten up and left with a fractured ankle and money was stolen from the office safe.

According to the report, 40 people were involved in the attack. The interesting detail is who was leading them.

According to a statement appearing on the Web site of the Weekly Blitz, the attackers were led by Helal Khan, international affairs secretary of Jasas, and included Babul Ahmed, Jasas's secretary-general. Jasas is the cultural wing of the ruling Bangladeshi National Party (BNP).
During the assault, Ahmed is said to have shouted at Choudhury, labeling him an "agent of the Jews."
In a photo taken shortly after the incident that was obtained exclusively by the Post, Choudhury can be seen hunched over a table wearing a torn shirt while a Bangladeshi policeman dressed in blue chats with two BNP officials. Both officials took part in the attack.
No arrests were made, and police refused to allow Choudhury to file charges against his attackers.
Choudhury is due to go on trial for sedition today .

The page from Honest Reporting whose link led me to the article above has other items of interest. There's the Reuters cameraman who has been remanded in prison for egging on rioters in the Arab village of Bil'in to hurl stones at Israeli military vehicles. There's also a link to an article on the BBC which includes this quote:
Journalists and media organizations [are] waging the campaign shoulder-to-shoulder together with the Palestinian people.
This was said by Fayad Abu Shamala, the BBC correspondent in Gaza for the past 10 years, at a Hamas rally on May 6, 2001.

I have written before about the Mohammad Al-Durah case and the recent related trial in Paris. Honest Reporting link to an article by Richard Landes that gives the background.

It turns out that Honest Reporting have tried to get access to the Balen Report, just as Steven Sugar has. They report on their own efforts as well as linking to the Daily Telegraph article I posted on here.

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