Dhaka, Sep 30 (IANS): Amid growing concerns over restrictions on freedom of expression in Bangladesh, two employees of publishing house University Press Limited (UPL) in Dhaka were subjected to harassment and taken to the police over the sale of “The Unfinished Memoirs,” written by Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, according to local media reports.
Police said that the people involved in the incident were “local BNP activists”, while the two employees were later released.
Matiur Rahman, officer-in-charge of Sutrapur Police Station, said, “UPL has been publishing Sheikh Mujib’s The Unfinished Memoirs for a long time. Perhaps they had some copies of an older edition that had been printed earlier. For this reason, some people took two employees from there to the police,” Bangladeshi media outlet bdnews24 reported.
In a statement, UPL said that the two young men arrived at its outlet seeking to buy The Unfinished Memoirs but, after seeing the book, claimed it was “banned” and demanded an explanation for its sale. They subsequently shut the shop’s shutter, gathered local people, and took the two employees to a police outpost.
According to UPL, its staff clarified that the book was not banned, but the two men proceeded to pull down the outlet’s shutter and subjected two sales employees to “severe harassment”. The publisher described the incident as “extremely shameful and unfortunate for the nation”.
Meanwhile, a group of citizens condemned the incident at the UPL showroom, describing the intimidation of employees over the demand to stop selling “The Unfinished Memoirs” as a matter of serious concern, local media reported.
In a joint statement issued on Tuesday, the signatories called for an impartial probe into the September 28 incident and legal action against those responsible, as well as adequate safety for the publishing house and booksellers across Bangladesh.
“Everyone has the right to disagree with, criticise, or debate the content of a book. But that right does not give them the right to take away the right to publish, sell, or read another’s book. Whether a book should be banned or not should be determined through a fully legal process; not based on the declarations and pressure of any individual or group. This principle applies equally to all authors, publishers, and readers, regardless of political affiliation,” Bangladeshi daily Prothom Alo quoted the signatories as saying.
Describing ‘The Unfinished Memoirs’ as an important book in the history of Bangladesh, they said there may be different evaluations of the work.
They stressed that such differences should be expressed through “discussion, research and reasoned argument,” and not through attacks on bookshops or harassment of their employees.
The signatories warned that allowing such incidents to continue could place growing restrictions on publishers’ freedom to publish, while also limiting readers’ freedom to choose what they read.
