Speakers on Thursday stressed the need for cancellation of the broadcasting policy as using it the government would try to stifle the freedom of press. They said this at a roundtable discussion, organized by Nagorik Oikkya at the Jatiya Press Club with convener of the party Mahmudur Rahman Manna in the chair.Advocate Shahdeen Malik participating in the discussion said the government would begin banning media organizations from next year taking advantage of the policy. The government, he said, has been moving ahead in an autocratic manner. Any autocratic government, he said,relies firstly on members of law enforcing agencies and then try to control the media. The function was also participated among others, by Professor Asif Nazrul, former State Minister for Information Professor Abu Sayeed, Professor Robayet Ferdous, media personality Mohammad Jahangir, Professor CR Arar , Journalist Mostafa Kamal Majumder and Barrister M. Sarwar. Professor Asif Nazrul said the government has been controlling talk show following the January 5 voterless election. Using the policy, he said, the government has been trying to take full control over the media. He urged the owners of private TV channels to reject the broadcasting policy in totality. Professor Abu Sayeed said the policy would not survive in today’s context of free flow of information. He said none could gag the people’s voice. He said it is time to resist such evil attempts in the interest of spirit of liberation war.Mahmudur Rahman Manna said that the policy had been formulated for protecting the corrupt and wrong doers. This policy, he said, would create a situation so that people rely on foreign TV channels ignoring the TV channels of the country, he said.
