Entertainment Report :
Leaders of the television associations urged those concerned to follow the appropriate procedure if an artiste needs to be questioned for legal or administrative reasons. They made the call at a roundtable discussion titled ‘Dignity of Artistes and Freedom of Art.’ Cultural activists and key members of the television associations took part at the roundtable discussion held at Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy jointly
organised by the Directors’ Guild Bangladesh, Actors Equity Bangladesh, Television Programme Producers Association of Bangladesh (TPPAB) and TENASINAS.
The discussion was attended by TPPAB President Iresh Zaker and General Secretary Shaju Muntasir, Directors’ Guild President Salahuddin Lavlu and General Secretary S M Kamruzzaman Sagar, Actors Equity Bangladesh President Shahiduzzaman Selim and General Secretary Ahsan Habib Nasim and TENASINAS President Masum Reza, among others.
At the roundtable, speakers hoped for a positive role of the state, media and social organisations in protecting the dignity of artistes and
creating conducive environments for artistes to work independently. They mentioned that media and social media trials of artistes have been going on with irresponsible propaganda. Such actions are tarnishing the image of artistes across mass and social media. The discussion further emphasised that artistes play a key role in entertaining the public and raising awareness on
different social issues. Yet, other forces of society are not equally vocal about protecting the human rights of artistes. Rather, artistes are treated as ‘products’ that anyone can judge,
or find faults in. As a result, many artistes have been victims of
cyber-bullying, in recent times.
In this regard, the mutual understanding between artistes needs to
be strengthened, and art-based organisations need to be enterprising in projecting the dignity of artistes.
