Editor charged with sedition gets bail

In an unprecedented courtroom session held at night, A.M.M. Bahauddin, the editor of the daily Inqilab was granted anticipatory bail for a week by a division bench of High Court on Tuesday.

Bahauddin and two others were under warrant of arrest issued by a metropolitan court on Monday and charged with sedition for publishing a parody of the national anthem in the daily's October 20 issue.

Publisher Baqui Billa and writer of the parody A.S. Mosharraf are the other two charged. On Tuesday, Bahauddin surrendered before the High Court and sought bail.

The order to hold the late evening court session came from a bench reconstituted by the Chief Justice who felt the matter warranted expediency after another bench earlier declared it was 'embarrassed' to hear the petition.

A senior Home Ministry official who filed the case in the metropolitan court said that by publishing the parody the daily sought to create hatred and public anger against the government. Earlier, the police arrested Mohammad Moinuddin, the director (Administration) of the newspaper.

He was jailed for a month under the Special Powers Act after which he will be produced in court. A top police official said: "He was arrested on instructions from the top authorities."
BNP chairperson Khaleda Zia, meanwhile, strongly condemned the government for harassing journalists, and asked the government to stop repressive measures against the press.

The court order, passed shortly before midnight, ended a day-long high drama at the downtown High Court premises after the three accused, including publisher A.S.M. Baqui Billah and the author of the parody A.S. Mosharraf, sneaked into the court to seek advance bail.

The three were holed up in their lawyer's chamber with police waiting outside, prosecution lawyers said. Bangladeshi police normally avoid executing arrest warrants when a wanted person enters court premises along with lawyers.

Since the publication of the parody last month, several pro-government and anti-fundamentalist groups have been asking the authorities to take strong action against the daily they alleged was using religious sentiments to foment political unrest.

The two-judge bench staged the unprecedented special sitting after the defendants and prosecution lawyers approached Chief Justice Latifur Rahman around midnight Tuesday.

The Inqilab is owned by former minister Moulana Abdul Mannan, who anti-fundamentalist groups accuse of collaborating with the Pakistani army during the 1971 independence war.

Meanwhile, Home Minister Mohammad Nasim told the opposition-boycotted parliament yesterday that the treason case against the Inqilab and publisher would be "seriously pursued." Cases have been filed against Inquilab throughout the country, he said.