Certain anti-media steps the Interim Govt can do without

Jourmalist.

As the Interim Government of Nobel Laureate Prof. Muhammad Yunus proceeds to reform the state to restore its democratic fabric that was destroyed during 15 years of fascist rule, it may wipe out some measures that had been taken with the obvious purpose of discouraging the publication of newspapers and news media.

The present government has its focus on the big hurdles that were created like the Cyber Security Act, the Special Powers Act and the Anti-Terrorism law that gave the executive all powers to deal with the fourth estate the way it willed. But there are also some administrative and financial measures that created unnecessary obstacles to the functioning of news media organisations.

The renewal fee of trading licences of news organisations that describe their activities as ‘Prokashona’ or publication has been raised ten times from Taka 500 to Taka 5000. The poor owners of such trade licences have no alternative but to pay the unjustly inflated fee for years. It would be doing justice to bring down the renewal fee to the original level. This would remove the discouragement from writing objectives of organisations as publication or publications and be a great service to the publication industry.

Another interesting thing is the introduction of fees for registration and renewal of registration of online news portals. The registration fee is Taka 10,000 while the annual renewal fee is Taka 5,000. No fee is there for declaration of newspapers, nor is there a need to renew declarations periodically. However the online versions of print newsapepers and TV channels or Radio stations are subject to renewal by the government’s Press Information Department (PID). The government disburses its advertisements to newspapers and news media houses, but no such ad is given to the news portals. News portal owners consider the registration and renewal fees as a burden. 

While the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development (LGRD) can ask the Municipal corporations to bring the trade licence renewal fees to Taka 500 as it was before, the Information Ministry can do away with the provision of registration and renewal of registration fees for online news portals. These measures taken to squeeze the mass media by the erstwhile fascist regime are not at all needed by the Interim Government which is pledge bound to restore democracy and press freedom.