Bangladeshi blogger Ashif Entaz Rabi attended the annual White House Correspondents’ Association dinner at the weekend (Sunday). And he flew to Washington from Bangladesh with the help of PEN America.
PEN is the worldwide association of writers, defends freedom of expression according to its charter everywhere in the world.
Carol Lee, Wall Street Journal White House Correspondent announced at that dinner programme, ‘Ashif Rabi is a journalist from Bangladesh, who is reporting on human rights and religion putting him under threat from Islamic extremist. His Publisher was recently murdered. He was able to leave Bangladesh on Thursday. And the prgramme was live.
But in the last ten years there is no record of killing of news paper publisher in Bangladesh. If he may be book publisher, Rabi’s three publishers are till alive. So who is the recently murdered publisher of blogger Rabi?
One of the Rabi’s publishers Sufi Farook commented on facebook, ‘ What a news I heard. I am still alive, pinching on my body I am saying, I am alive.’
Associated Press (AP) reports ‘Rabi attended the annual White House Correspondents’ Association dinner at the weekend, and met Tuesday with a top State Department envoy on human rights, Tom Malinowski, to discuss the deteriorating climate of tolerance in Bangladesh. He’s also hoping to find a way to secure sanctuary in the U.S. for himself and his immediate family.’
“I hope that at least the U.S. State Department they will open a small door for me so that … I can live a little longer,” he said.
Author: Harun Ur Rashid
Press Insight 