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Bangladesh tribunal shows journalists Rupa and Babu arrested over 2013 reporting

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Bangladesh tribunal shows journalists Rupa and Babu arrested over 2013 reporting

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May 15, 2026, New Delhi—Bangladeshi authorities must release journalists Farzana Rupa and Mozammel Babu, who were recently arrested in a crimes-against-humanity case filed at the country’s International Crimes Tribunal (ICT), the Committee to Protect Journalists said Friday.

On May 14, the ICT in the capital Dhaka showed Rupa, a former chief reporter and presenter at privately owned Ekattor TV, and Babu, the channel’s founder and former editor-in-chief, arrested in a case linked to the May 2013 crackdown on a rally by Islamist group Hefajat-e-Islam at Shapla Chattar. The tribunal sent the two journalists back to jail and set June 7 for submission of the investigation report. Former foreign minister Dipu Moni was also named in the case.

“Editorial decisions on covering a contested political incident are not crimes against humanity, and using an international criminal law framework to punish journalists circumvents the basic protections guaranteed to the press under Bangladesh’s own constitution while also violating international human rights conventions,” said CPJ Asia-Pacific Program Coordinator Kunāl Majumder. “Bangladeshi authorities must stop weaponizing the international criminal tribunal to target journalists and immediately release Farzana Rupa and Mozammel Babu.”

Prosecutors allege that Rupa, in a report aired on Ekattor TV after the incident, used statements from “controversial individuals” and spread misleading information that diverted attention from killings during the crackdown. Babu, as managing director of the channel at the time, is accused of overseeing the broadcast as part of what the chief prosecutor described as a “systematic” to conceal the death toll.

CPJ has not been able to independently review the Ekattor TV broadcasts aired before, during, and after the Shapla Chattar operation that the prosecution cites as evidence. However, CPJ has reviewed a widely circulated 2013 YouTube documentary, presented by Rupa, that investigates the aftermath of the crackdown and challenges the casualty figures attributed to it — including by tracking down individuals named in widely reported death tolls who were later found alive.

Rupa and Babu have been held in pre-trial detention since August and September 2024, respectively, in connection with separate murder cases linked to deaths during the July 2024 mass uprising that ousted the Awami League government.

On May 11, the High Court in Dhaka granted Rupa ad-interim bail in six of those cases, but she remains in jail because of pending charges, including the ICT case.

The ICT was originally constituted in 2010 under a 1973 law to try crimes committed during Bangladesh’s 1971 Liberation War.  During the Awami League government under then-Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, the tribunal was used to prosecute her political opponents, including senior leaders of Jamaat-e-Islami, several of whom were sentenced to death and executed for alleged war crimes committed during the 1971 war. Since the political transition of August 2024, the interim government has reconstituted the tribunal and amended the law to prosecute figures linked to the Awami League government, including Hasina, who was sentenced to death in absentia in November 2025.

Bangladesh’s Ministry of Law and the Office of the Chief Prosecutor did not immediately respond to CPJ’s emailed requests for comment.

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