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print versionSAHMATSafdar Hashmi Memorial Trust36, Pt. Ravi Shankar Shukla Lane,(Canning Lane), New Delhi-110001Tel No. 011-23381276, 23070787Email: sahmat8[at]yahoo.com
Date: 08-08-2018
Press release
FREE SHAHIDUL ALAM
The Editor,
Over 250 photographers, Artists, Journalists and activists including:
Ram Rahman, Vivan Sundaram, Parthiv Shah, Pushpamala N., Raghu Rai, Devika Daulet-Singh, Pablo Bartholomew, Prashant Panjiar, Dinesh Khanna, Sunil Gupta, Jitish Kalat, Krishen Khanna, Ravi Aggarwal and Gauri Gill, have issued a statement demanding Bangladesh photographer Shahidul Alam’s immediate release. The statement with is as follows:
In a shocking development, late night on 5 August 2018, Dr. Shahidul Alam, internationally renowned photographer, pedagogue, activist, and founder of Drik and Pathshala South Asian Media Institute, was forcibly abducted from his house in Dhanmondi, Dhaka in Bangladesh. According to eyewitnesses, around 30 to 35 plainclothes men, claiming to be from the Detective Branch (DB) of Dhaka Metropolitan Police, forcibly entered Dr. Alam’s home, pushed him into a waiting car and sped away. They taped up the CCTV camera and took away the camera footage. The security guards were manhandled and locked up.
Additional Commissioner of Dhaka Metropolitan Police (Detective Branch), Abdul Baten, told UNB (United News of Bangladesh) that Dr. Shahidul Alam has been detained for interrogation over his Facebook posts on the ongoing student protests in Bangladesh. Later news reports confirm that Dr. Alam has been arrested under the draconian ICT Act (Information and Communication Technology Act), routinely used to suppress freedom of speech, and to harass writers, activists and journalists for their comments on social media. When Dr. Alam was produced before a Dhaka court on Monday, 6 August, he had to be supported as he could not walk on his own. He had been made to wash his own bloodied clothes to wear again. The Dhaka police were granted a 7-day remand after producing him before the court.
There have been further developments. On Tuesday, 7 August, the court ordered that Dr. Alam be taken to a government hospital for a medical check-up in response to a petition filed by his lawyers; however, the written orders were not produced in time and so he spent another night in police custody. He was finally taken to hospital at 9.30 am today, 8 August, but it appears that once the medical checkup takes place he will be back in police custody. The next hearing at the court is on Thursday, 9 August 2018, when the State lawyers will attempt to oppose the High Court order and argue against it.
The detention and murderous attack on Dr. Shahidul Alam is symptomatic. Writers, journalists and social media activists in Bangladesh have over the last several years suffered similar repression. Dr. Alam is determined to hold on to the ideal of social justice and to engage in cultural action that strengthens democratic and egalitarian values. He has disseminated these ideas through his critical writings, a sustained pedagogical programme around photography and numerous curatorial projects that engage the public. He is admired and respected all across the world and especially in South Asia for his exemplary work as a photographer-activist and for his courageous stand on the fraught relationship between the State and the people.
Consider how Dr Alam’s position resonates with that in India; how it adds to the urgencies needing to be addressed by the citizenry here.
We condemn, in the strongest possible way, the arrest, brutality and dishonour done to Dr. Shahidul Alam. The message is simple. Dr. Alam exercised his right as a citizen. No charges must be bought under section 57 of the draconian ICT Act.
We demand his immediate and unconditional release.
Aban Raza
Abhay Sardesai
Abhijan Gupta
Abhishek Hazra
Adira Thekkuveetil
Aditi De
Aishwaryan K
Ajay Sinha
Akkitham Vasudevan
Alnoor Mitha
Aman Bahl
Amar Kanwar
Amita Desai
Amrita Jhaveri
Anant Joshi
Ananya Vajpeyi
Anita Dube
Anita Khemka
Anju Dodiya
Anmol Vellani
Anoli Perera
Anshuman Dasgupta
Anup Mathew Thomas
Anuradha Kapur
Anusha Yadav
Aquin Mathews
Archana hande
Arpana Caur
Arshiya Lokhandwala
Arun Kumar HG
Arundhati Ghosh
Arvind Lodaya
Ashish Rajadhyaksha
Ashwathi Vijaykumar
Astad Deboo
Avinash Veeraraghavan
Ayesha Singh
Babitha Lingraj
Babu Eshwar Prasad
Bari Kumar
Belinder Dhanoa
Bharat Chowdhary
Bharat Sikka
Bharati Kapadia
Bhavna Kakar
C.F. John
Chandan Gomes
Chander Haat
Chimuk Kaur
Chinar Shah
Chittrovanu Mazumdar
Clay Kelton
Cop Shiva
Daljeet Wadhwa
Dayanita Singh
Deepa Bhasthi
Deepak Ananth
Deepanjana Pal
Desmond Lazaro
Devika Daulet Singh
Dhruv Malhotra
Dileep Prakash
Dimple B. Shah
Dinesh Khanna
Diva Gujral
Fawzan Husain
Franck Barthelemy
Gargi Raina
Gauri Gill
Gayatri Sinha
Geeta Kapur
Gigi Scaria
Gitanjali Dang
Gopika Chowfla
Gopika Nath
Gulammohammed Sheikh
Hans Kaushik
Harish Tyagi
Harsha Vardhana
Himangshu Dhanda
Himanshu Joshi
Imran B. Kokiloo
Indira Chandrasekhar
Indrapramit Roy
Ira Raja
Jagadeesh Reddy
Jahangir Asgar Jani
Jamshed Chinoy
Jasmeen Patheja
Jatin Das
Jeroo Mulla
Jitish Kalat
Jyotindra Jain
K. P. Reji
Kajri Jain
Kaushik Narayan Ramanathan
Ketaki Sheth
Kirtana Thangavelu
Krishen Khanna
Kristine Michael
Kurchi Dasgupta,
Lalitha Shankar
Leena Chethan
M. Madhava Prasad
M. S. Prakash Babu
M.K. Raina
Madan Gopal Singh
Madhuban Mitra
Madhusree Dutta
Malvika Murali
Manas Acharya
Manas Bhattacharya
Manish Pushkale
Manisha Gera Baswani
Manmeet Devgun
Mariam Suhail
Maseeh Rahman
Maya Krishna Rao
Meenakshi Shedde
Megha Mehndiratta
Mekhala Bahl
Mithu Sen
Mohita Bhatia
Mrugen Rathod
Murali Cheeroth
N.K. Sharma
Naeem Mohaiemen
Nalini Malani
Nancy Adajania
Nandakumar Raman
Nandesha Shanthi Prakash
Naveen Kumar
Navjot Altaf
Navroze Contractor
Neha Choksi
Nilima Sheikh
Nimi Ravindran
Nina Sabnani
Niyati Ozha Srivatsava
P. Daroz
Pablo Bartholomew
Parthiv Shah
Parvathi Nayar
Parvathi Nayar
Pooja Sood
Pooja Vukosavich
Prabir Purkayasth
Pradeep Das Gupta
Prakash Babu
Prakash Moorthy
Prashant Panjiar
Pratul Dash
Probir Gupta
Purshottam Diwakar
Pushpamala N
R. Nandakumar
R. Siva Kumar
Radhakrishnan KS
Radhika Chopra
Raghavendra Rao Kulkarni
Raghu A Wodeyar
Rahul Gudipudi
Rajendra Prasad
Rakhi Peswani
Ram Rahman
Raman Siva Kumar
Ranbir Kaleka
Randhir Singh
Ranjit Hoskote
Rashmi Munikempanna
Ratnabali Kant
Ravi Agarwal
Ravikumar Kashi
Reena Saini Kallat
Rekha Hebbar Rao
Ribhu Borphukon
Riyas Komu
Rohini Devasher
Rohit Chawla
Rosalyn Dmello
Roshan Shahani
Ruchira Gupta
Sabeena Gadihoke
Sabih Ahmed
Sabina Kidwai
Sadanand Menon
Sahej Rahal
Samar Singh Jodha
Samit Das
Sandeep Biswas
Sasanka Perera
Sashi Kumar
Saurab Hura
Seher Shah
SG Vasudev
Shaina Anand
Shalini Sawhney
Shamala Billava
Shamala Nandesha
Shanta Gokhale
Shantamani Muddiah
Sharbendu De
Sheeba Chhachhi
Shefalee Jain
Shilpa Gupta
Shireen Gandhi
Shohini Ghosh
Shreyas Karle
Shukla Sawant
Siddharth Laxman
Sindhu Thirumalaisam
Sohail Akbar
Sohail Hashmi
Sonal Khullar
Sonia Khurana
Soumyadip Ghosh
Srinath Iswaran
Subba Ghosh
Suchismita Ukil
Sudharak Olwe
Sudharshan Shetty
Sudhir Patwardhan
Sumakshi Singh
Suman Gopinath
Sumesh Sharma
Summer Kohli
Suneel Mamadapur
Suneet Chopra
Sunil Gupta
Sunil Kothari
Sunitha Kumar Emmart
Surabhi Sharma
Suresh Jayaram
Sushma Bahl
Susie Tharu
Tabasheer Zutshi
Tallur L.N.
Tanveer Ajsi
Tapati Guha
Tapati Guha-Thakurta
Tara Sabharwal
Umesh Kumar
Vani Subramanian
Vasudevan Akkitham
Veer Munshi
Vibha Galhotra
Vidisha Saini
Vidya Shivadas
Vijay Prashad
Vinod Bhardwaj
Vivan Sundaram
Vivek Vilasini
Yashodhara Dalmia
