Press freedom not possible sans democracy: Fakhrul

Stating that corporate media outlets in Bangladesh are working to protect the looters and corrupts, BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir on Monday said it is not possible to ensure press freedom without democracy, reports UNB.
"We now see so many media outlets in the country but they can't work freely as they're not independent…corporate media has been created in the country in a very cunning way as now big business organisations own newspapers and TV channels," he said.
The BNP leader came up with the remarks while speaking at a seminar on 'Media in Bangladesh: One and Half-Decades of Nightmare', organised by the party at a city hotel on Monday.
He said the corporate media owners are doing business alongside availing of the facilities of the government and banks. "These media outlets have become a corporation to protect those who are taking away money from the banks."
Interestingly, he said, one corporate media outlet now runs news against another one and one businessman against another businessman and all of them are involved with fascism.
"The bottom line is that it is not possible to ensure press freedom without democracy and media can't work properly if they don't have freedom," the BNP leader observed.
Fakhrul said all-pervasive fascism has engulfed our country and the main weapon of fascism is to completely control the media.
He said the fascists need to control the media to deprive people of their minimum democratic and constitutional rights, which the current regime has been subtly doing for the past one and a half decades.