Bangladesh arrests journalist known for unearthing graft

DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) — Police in Bangladesh's capital have arrested a journalist known for her strong reporting against official corruption in the South Asian country where journalists are often threatened with dire consequences for professional work.

Rozina Islam, a senior reporter with the country’s leading Bengali-language Prothom Alo daily newspaper, was confined for more than five hours till late Monday in a room of a personal assistant of the secretary of the Ministry of Health, said her younger sister Sabina Parvin.

A secretary is the top bureaucrat of a ministry, and the room was inside the Bangladesh Secretariat, the downtown Dhaka premises where almost all government ministries are located.

She was then handed over to police and faces charges under the Penal Code and Official Secrets Act for the theft and photographing of sensitive state documents, said Harun-or-Rashid, an additional deputy commissioner of Dhaka Metropolitan Police.

On Tuesday morning, she was produced before a court in Dhaka where police sought that she be remanded to their custody for five days to be interrogated.

According to the case documents seen by The Associated Press, Islam is alleged to have used her mobile phone without permission to photograph documents related to Bangladesh’s negotiations for buying and collecting coronavirus vaccines while she waited inside a room of a bureaucrat involved with the process.

The charges she faces carry up to 14 years in prison and the death penalty if she is convicted, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists said in a statement.

Maidul Islam Prodhan, a spokesman for the health ministry, said Islam took photos of “important” documents.

“She was also taking away some documents. An additional secretary and a policeman challenged her...