Tasneem Khalil

Tasneem Khalil is an exiled Bangladeshi journalist. He is editor in chief of Netra News. He previously worked for The Daily Star and was a stringer for CNN and a consultant for Human Rights Watch. During the 2006–2008 Bangladesh emergency, he was detained on 11 May 2007 and tortured while in the custody of Bangladesh's intelligence services. Khalil currently lives in Örebro, Sweden, where he is publisher and editor of Independent World Report, a world news magazine focused on human rights issues.

Early history Tasneem Khalil was born around 1981 in Bangladesh. While in Dhaka, Khalil studied English Linguistics at North South University. After his confinement in Bangladesh, he went into hiding for one month, and then on 6 June 2007 was able to escape via a major Bangladeshi airport. From there, he went into exile with his family and sought refuge in Sweden, a country he chose for its record on freedom of speech. Sweden granted him asylum in June 2007.

Arrest and torture

Tasneem Khalil was taken into custody by four Bangladeshi army security officers, who were wearing plain clothing, from his home in Dhanmondi Thana, Dhaka, just after midnight 11 May 2007. His wife said officers came to their home and took her husband without an arrest warrant but on account of a state of emergency. While, the security force was at his home, they made a thorough search and confiscated his passport, computer and telephone equipment, and paper and electronic files used in his journalism work. He was also beaten because of an article he had written in Forum magazine. He was told to confess his crimes of being anti-interim government and working with CNN and Human Rights Watch in other countries as a spy.

Context Tasneem Khalil was arrested under a state of emergency, that the Bangladesh interim government had ordered in 2007 to quell violence and to last between the time period that the Bangladesh Nationalist Party had surrendered control of the government until elections, in which the Bangladesh Awami League won at the end of 2008. Khalil was told, he had been arrested for his personal blogs he had written which Bangladeshi security had deemed anti-Bangladeshi. These were journalists such as Noor Ahmed and Jahangir Alam Akash. Brad Adams, Asia director of Human Rights Watch, said, "We are extremely concerned about Tasneem Khalil's safety. He has been a prominent voice in Bangladesh for human rights and the rule of law, and has been threatened because of that. The Bangladeshi military should be on notice that its actions are being closely watched by the outside world." Joel Simon, executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists, said, "The apparent military arrest of such a prominent and well-respected journalist as Tasneem Khalil without any stated cause is an indication of the fragile state of press freedom in Bangladesh."

Selected writings

Tasneem Khalil, "Surviving torture in Bangladesh", New York Times, 2 March 2008. Tasneem Khalil, "Modhupur: Wherever the forest department is, there is no forest" , The Forum, volume 2, issue 3, March 2007. Fred Abrahams for Human Rights Watch with "research support" from Tasneem Khalil, Judge, Jury, and Executioner: Torture and Extrajudicial Killings by Bangladesh’s Elite Security, Human Rights Watch, 14 December 2006.