Bangladeshi journalist?Abu Sufian?s blog?about extrajudicial executions and other kinds of injustice is the jury choice in the ?Reporters Without Borders? category of this year?s BOBs (Best of Blogs competition), organized by the German radio station Deutsche Welle. It was was chosen from 11 finalists by an international jury consisting of bloggers and a Reporters Without Borders representative.
A reporter for the bdnews24.com website, Sufian exposes himself to threats and considerable danger to provide detailed investigative coverage of?extrajudicial executions, a problem that the government denies and the traditional media largely ignore, although the victims number in the thousands. He?won an award?from a national journalists? organization in 2006.
His reporting has included coverage of last February?s murder of husband-and-wife journalists?Sagar Sarowar and Meherun Runi, which has prompted unprecedented?protests?and joint demands for justice by Bangladeshi journalists and bloggers. He is also campaigning for a ?right to information? law that would force the government to be more transparent.
Life is not easy for journalists in Bangladesh, which is ranked 129th out of 179 countries in the press freedom index that Reporters Without Borders published in January. The editors of two newspapers were recently?threatened with death and reprisals, privately-owned TV stations are harassed and?the authorities did not hesitate to threaten journalists?in March.
Detailed reporting on Deutsche Welle Bangla website (in Bangla)