As if dealing with the pressures of deadlines and editors were not enough, Bangladeshi journalists also have their share of death threats, intimidation and assault to handle.

Often, the perpetrators of violence against the press are political party thugs. At other times common criminals are to blame, and in other cases the state's various law enforcement officers are responsible.

Around a thousand journalists took to the streets of the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka last week to protest the rising scale of attacks on journalists, shouting slogans and carrying placards that read: 'We want freedom of the press'.

Speakers at the rally said journalists from across this South Asian nation, from a variety of newspapers and news agencies, had fallen victim to attacks and reprisals by ruling party activists, hardened criminals, smugglers and vested interest groups for exposing corruption, political scandals and organised crime.

Journalists demanded that the government do more to defend their personal security and uphold the free flow of information as a basic human right.

Former prime minister, and now leader of the opposition, Sheikh Hasina said that at least one journalist has been killed and around 200 others subjected to assault and intimidation in Bangladesh since the Bangladesh National Party (BNP)-led four-party alliance government came to power in October 2001.

Captive

''Today journalists are captive at the hands of the present coalition government, which has imposed undeclared censorship on the press. As press freedom has been trampled by the government, journalists cannot write freely what they see,'' she charged.

Iqbal Sobhan Chowdhury, president of the pro-opposition faction of the Bangladesh Federal Union of Journalists (BFUJ), accuses the coalition government of Prime Minister Begum Khaleda Zia of interfering in press freedom.

He said that activists from the BNP ruling party, including MPs, were behind many of the recent attacks on journalists in the countryside.

Journalists had brought on the displeasure of key figures in government by exposing their corrupt practices and interference in various government development and community aid projects, he said, adding that BNP party activists were also guilty of meddling in the process of the law.

The government, Iqbal said, is using its advertisement budget as a weapon to punish and tame pro-opposition newspapers.

Since coming to power the government has either totally stopped advertising or has vastly reduced the amount of advertising it gives to nearly 20 daily newspapers that have been critical of the government.

Attacks

According to human rights groups, more than 40 journalists were attacked and assaulted across the country in July this year alone.

Odhikar, a coalition of human rights groups, said 20 journalists were assaulted and injured, two were abducted and 11 others were threatened in the countryside in July.

Democracy Watch, another human rights organisation, said 28 journalists were subjected to attacks in August. Twelve press club offices were attacked and ransacked by hoodlums from October 2001 to March 2002, according to a report in the Bengali-language daily Sangbad .

Photojournalists are not exempt either. In June, three Dhaka-based photojournalists were roughed up by police after taking incriminating shots of a traffic police officer accepting bribes from a truck driver.

But Gias Kamal Chowdhury, president of the pro-government faction of the BFUJ, said that the press enjoyed complete freedom under the current coalition government.

He said as many as 170 journalists had been severely attacked by activists from the previous ruling Awami League government during 1996 to 2001.

Over 1,000 journalists and employees of the Bengali-language daily Dainik Bangla and the English-language daily Bangladesh Times suddenly found themselves unemployed when the Awami government closed down the newspapers.

Thanks to the Awami government, the sacked journalists are now trying to find alternative means of livelihood, Gias said.

Passport to fame

But journalists in Bangladesh have suffered humiliation and faced physical assault under whatever party or coalition is in power, especially when political parties find it extremely difficult to deal with scrutiny and criticism.

''If the voices of journalists were stopped through repression and threats, there would be none to focus on the misdeeds of the government, political parties and other institutions, as well as other corrupt people. Consequently, the country the people and democracy would suffer,'' veteran journalist Ataus Samad warned.

By the end of 1990 Bangladesh could only boast of having around two dozen newspapers. Now there are 294 dailies in the country, including about 90 in Dhaka alone.

However, total circulation of these newspapers hardly reaches two million in this country of 130 million, where literacy is extremely low.

In recent years too the trend of newspaper ownership has been changing. Industrialists and business people have been going the newspaper business, looking at media as a way of promoting their business interests.

''Nowadays newspapers are being used as a passport to name and fame, and as a means of amassing wealth,'' said a Dhaka University lecturer who asked not to be named. — IPS