Hossen Sohel: The arbitrary arrest of internationally recognized photographer Shahidul Alam has sparked outrage and condemnation from the across the world.
Internationally renowned academics including Noble Laureate Joseph Stiglitz condemned the detention of the noted photographer as an attack on rights in Bangladesh, reports The Guardian.
The distinguished academics condemned the unjust treatment of the photojournalist after issuing a joint statement.
“A free press is a fundamental and essential element of all democracies. Its repression cannot be taken as anything but the efforts of authoritarian regimes to deny the world insight into its operations and policies. The attack on Alam at once brutalises this person and destroys the right to a free press,” the statement said.
The signatories to the joint statement are:
Joseph Stiglitz Nobel laureate in economics
Binayak Sen National vice-president, People’s Civil Liberties Union (India)
Angela Y Davis Distinguished professor emerita, history of consciousness and feminist studies, University of California, Santa Cruz
Ilina Sen Professor, Advanced Centre for Women’s Studies, Tata Institute for Social Studies, Mumbai
Judith Butler Maxine Elliot professor, University of California, Berkeley
David Palumbo-Liu Louise Hewlett Nixon professor, Stanford University
Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak University professor, Columbia University
Antjie Krog Writer
Gioconda Belli Writer
Dr Costanza Caraffa Director, Photothek des Kunsthistorischen Instituts in Florenz- Max-Planck-Institut
Shamoon Zamir Director, Akkash: Center for Photography, NYU, Abu Dhabi
Nassar Issam Professor of history, Illinois State University
Rosalind C Morris Professor, Department of Anthropology, Columbia University
The one and only reason Alam was arrested is that he gave an interview to al-Jazeera in which he expressed views critical of the Bangladeshi regime’s brutal repression of public demonstrations in Dhaka, and had allegedly posted equally critical statements on Facebook.