An aura of fear has been hanging over the media industry in Bangladesh. This uneasy atmosphere prevailing after several media outlets, both print and electronics, have come under attacks by the miscreants following the fall of the Sheikh Hasina government on August 5.

This has become an issue of grave concern among the journalists and the owners of media houses as well, threatening the freedom of free press which is deemed sacrosanct and the fourth pillar of a democratic society.

Since the interim government of Dr Muhammad Yunus has assured the media industry that it believes in freedom of the press and freedom of speech, it is now incumbent on the interim government to ensure safety and security of both journalists and media houses.

But in the absence any visible and effective measures by the present government, vandalism in media outlets and intimidation of journalists have been rampant. As a result, several media outlets have already either been shut down or facing closure due to lack of security.

For instance, the latest attack was carried out on the East West Media Group’s office in Bashundhara residential area on Monday. A group of unidentified miscreants ransacked the media complex that houses two Bangla dailies — Kaler Kantha and Bangladesh Pratidin; an English daily, Daily Sun; an online news portal-banglanews24.com; a television news channel, News 24, T Sports and a Bengali-language sports television channel.

However, only media houses have not been under attacks, individual journalists have also been targeted by a section of people. Evidently, Chittagong Press Club was vandalized by some miscreants leaving at least 20 journalists injured. In addition, houses of a number of journalists were attacked and vandalized in Magura, Pabna and Cox’s Bazar.

Journalists are always victims of any political and social upheavals and incidents. During the recent unrest induced by the quota movement, at least four journalists had lost their lives and over 200 suffered minor to serious injuries.

In our country, media workers are also frequent target of ruling party people, government employees, powerful quarters and organized crime gangs throughout the year. According to the rights organization, Ain o Salish Kendra, at least 94 incidents of torture, harassment and intimidation of journalists took place between January 1 and April 22 this year. This figure compared to 292 incidents committed in 2023.

In the wake of attacks on the media houses as well as on the journalists, different social and human rights organizations have expressed their concerns. The News Broadcasters Alliance Society of Bangladesh (NBA), an organization of news presenters from private television and radio stations and the Manabadhikar Shongskriti Foundation (MSF) have condemned the vandalism in various media institutions in the last few days and demanded arrest of the miscreants.

With these recent attacks indicative of a profound threat to the nation’s media community, we urge the authorities of the interim government to take prompt actions against the perpetrators and bring them to book.