Staff Correspondent:The US-based international media protection organization Center for Protect Journalists has expressed concern over the false defamation case filed against Mehdi Hasan, the acting editor of the investigative national weekly newspaper Agrajatra, and three other journalists, citing an attempt to suppress the voice of the media. The statement was published on its website from its headquarters in New York on February 17 (Monday). The US media organization works to ensure the safety of journalists worldwide.

It is worth noting that after the Agrajatra newspaper published a report on the escape attempt of Samiul Islam, the MD of Tafrid Cotton Mills, a notorious defaulter who tried to escape the country by looting the banking sector and harassing workers, various creditor bank authorities raided various establishments of the defaulter Samiul Islam. They also seized various factories of Samiul.

As a result, the media, angered by this, misled the court in an attempt to silence its voice,

In November last year, Nazmun Nahar, the wife of notorious loan defaulter Sheikh Shamiul Islam, MD of Tafrid Cotton Mill, filed a defamation case against Mehedi Hasan, acting editor of the investigative national newspaper Agrajatra, and four other journalists. However, even after almost 5 months have passed since the case was filed, the company, which has been a defaulter and looter of public money, has not been able to prove the truth of the allegations. It is believed that the Tafrid Cotton Mill authorities are trying to cover up their misdeeds by filing such harassing cases against journalists out of anger over the journalists' failure to flee the country due to the publication of their reports. Meanwhile, more than a hundred officials and employees of Tafrid Cotton Mill, who were cheated, tortured, and harassed while working there, have filed several cases and complaints against the notorious loan defaulter Sheikh Samiul, but are still suffering from the fear of not getting justice. They have drawn the attention of the current interim government to this matter.