Arif Hasan

Arif Hasan is a Bangladeshi television executive who serves as the Managing Director of Desh TV, a private television channel in Bangladesh. He is also the General Secretary of the Association of Television Channel Owners. He was detained after the fall of the Sheikh Hasina-led Awami League government. His arrest was part of a larger trend of replacing previous journalists and editors in mainstream media organizations with those loyal to the Bangladesh Nationalist Party and the Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami.

The Supreme Court chamber judge has stayed a High Court order that directed the release of 15 frozen bank accounts belonging to Hasan, then Desh TV managing director, and his company Hasan Telecom, until 21 August 2023. The accounts were frozen in 2020 following an Anti-Corruption Commission investigation into alleged suspicious transactions and money laundering.

In September 2024, Orion Group filed a 10 billion BDT defamation case against Desh TV. In November, Hasan was elected general secretary of the Association of Television Channel Owners. But no presidential candidate was elected as both candidates, Mohammad Mosaddak Ali and Abdul Haque, received the same number of votes. Hasan was placed on a two-day police remand by a metropolitan magistrate court in Dhaka in connection with a case filed over an alleged attempted murder during the protests against former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on 19 July 2024. According to police, Arif Hasan was detained by Airport Police while reportedly trying to leave the country.

The case was filed by the father of a protester named Md Sajib, who was injured during an attack on a student procession near Uttara Scholastica School on 19 July. They filed the charges against Hasan and officials of the National Bank Limited, including directors Monowara Sikder, and Parveen Haque Sikder. Dhaka Metropolitan Senior Special Judge Md Zakir Hossain Galib issued a travel ban against Hasan.