A warrant was issued for the arrest of Mahmudur Rahman, the editor of the opposition daily Amar Desh, on March 29, just two weeks after he was released from prison. He is accused of libelling senior Awami League officials in the southern town of Kotalipara. The Awami League has governed Bangladesh since 2008. Rahman is to be tried next month.
Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) urged the government to put an immediate stop to this political persecution of a newspaper editor who has just served a nine-month jail sentence on a similar charge.
