Dear Alochoks
Shutting down Channel 1 was an incorrect and unjust action by the government. It was certainly politically motivated. It is always a television channel that turns out to be the grand example of a Bangladeshi government's pursuit of justice. Big criminal tigers are never really brought to justice. But its so grand and glamorous to throw soem paperwork at a channel and just shut the whole channel down.
It's a joke.
A Bangladeshi style joke.
Ezajur Rahman
Kuwait
--- In alochona@yahoogroups.com, Isha Khan <bdmailer@...> wrote:
>
> *Shutting down private TV channels*
>
> by Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury
>
> Current government in Bangladesh shut down another satellite based private
> television channel last week. Channel-One, a popular television channel
> commenced its broadcast few years back, when BNP-Jamaat coalition government
> was in power. During that time, a number of broadcast licenses were issued
> in favor of several influential members of the ruling coalition. Channel-One
> is one of those 'fortunate' ones.
>
> Trend of shutting down private television channels began right in 1999 when
> Awami League was first in power. At that time, the government shut down
> country's first private television channel named ATV [earlier A-21 TV] and
> brought false accusation of 'smuggling information via satellite'. Later,
> the court of Metropolitan Session Judge in Dhaka [Bangladesh] not only
> dismissed the case, but made strong remarks criticizing the government for
> bringing such fabricated case against the promoters of country's first
> private television channel. Though fresh applications were submitted with
> the subsequent governments with the copy of the court order seeking fresh
> permission to re-commence the broadcast of country's first private
> television channel, none of the governments ever considered this as the
> owners of the channel were not members of any of the political houses in the
> country.
>
> The tendency of slicing down voice of the media continued during the next
> government, when BNP-Jamaat coalition won the general election in 2001.
> Broadcast license of Ekushey Television, the first private owned terrestrial
> TV channel was cancelled and later the channel was shut down due to court
> order. Huge number of journalists and employees of the channel turned
> unemployed overnight.
>
> When military controlled interim government was in power, broadcast of
> country's only new based channel named CSBC was snatched as the military
> controlled regime felt uncomfortable at the prolific reporting in the
> channel.
>
> Before the general election of 2008, current Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina
> made specific pledge of according total freedom to media. But as soon as it
> came in power, there has been specific tendency of shutting down television
> channels owned by political opponents while issuing license to party leaders
> and affiliates with the aim of establishing monopoly in the electronic
> media, where no criticism of the government would ever be allowed.
>
> While I am very much against the very 'theme' of shutting down television
> channels, it is important for me also to mention a gross via lotion of rules
> by the past BNP-Jamaat government, while issuing broadcast license to its
> party affiliates.
>
> Ekushey Television's broadcast license was cancelled by the BNP-Jamaat
> government at the instigation of some of the so-called 'think-tanks' of it.
> It was alleged that, founder of this television channel got the license in
> his own name, which he later illegally transferred to a company. If this was
> the legal ground to cancel the licence of Ekushey TV, how the same
> government allowed issuing another license to NTV [a channel owned by the
> political secretary of the then Prime Minister]? It may be mentioned here
> that the political secretary of the then PM purchased the ownership of Total
> Entertainment Netrowk [TEN] TV, which was owned by a businessman named
> Sajjad Ali. This channel came into broadcast just for couple of months
> before it was closed down by the owners due to severe financial crisis.
>
> If the transferring shares of Ekushey TV was seen as illegal by the
> BNP-Jamaat government, how the same government issued broadcast license to
> NTV with the transferred share documents of TEN TV? Subsequently, owner of
> NTV started a second channel named RTV. It is logically argued by many that,
> if the very birth of NTV was illegal, there is no legitimacy of RTV and in
> such case; both the channels should be immediately shut down.
>
> Same thing happens in case of BOISHAKHI TV, a private television channel,
> share of which was recently transferred to a 'multi-level marketing company'
> by the owners of the channel.
>
> Most importantly, while Bangladesh Telecommunications Regulatory Commission
> sweats to find out irregularities in private television channel, they are
> ignoring one extremely important point. All of the private television
> channels need to pay substantial amount of rental to the satellites for
> using their transponders for broadcast. According to a recent information of
> Bangladesh Bank, none of the channels ever applied for permission for such
> transfer of foreign currency to the satellite operators for years. In this
> case, it is easily anticipated that such huge amount of money is sent to the
> satellite operators through illegal means, which is an offense under Money
> Laundering Act.
>
> Another source in National Board of Revenue said, the private television
> channels are required to pay 15 per cent of the revenue collected from
> advertisement as Value Added Tax [VAT]. But, NBR claims that, none of the
> channels ever paid even fraction of the justified amount of VAT to the
> National Exchequer. If appropriate investigation will be conducted on this
> area, it will be revealed that, all of the channels are continuing to evade
> millions of Taka only from this specific sector.
>
> I am not mentioning these irregularities to give any provocation to the
> government in shutting down more television channels in the country. The
> reason behind raising these points is to make one clear point that, if the
> government gets determined in suffocating the voice of any of the private
> television channels, they can always find ready tools in hand. But, this
> will not ultimately bring anything good for the very image of the
> government. With the closure of each of the television channels, hundreds of
> journalists and employees will turn unemployed. Hopefully, this does not go
> in favor of the electoral pledge of the current government, which gave
> specific commitment to the nation of doing everything in resolving the
> unemployment issue in the country. But, at least in media sector, the
> government is, contributing in deepening the unemployment crisis instead of
> resolving it. Hopefully, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina will kindly look into
> this matter, with sympathy and affection for the members of media in
> Bangladesh.
>
> http://www.weeklyblitz.net/691/shutting-down-private-tv-channels
>
------------------------------------
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