British MP Tulip urges Hasina to release Shahidul Alam

A British MP, who is the niece of Bangladesh’s prime minister Sheikh Hasina, has called on her aunt to release arrested photojournalist and artist Shahidul Alam who regularly exhibits in the UK.

Tulip Siddiq, the Labour MP for Hampstead and Kilburn, said that the detention of Shahidul Alam by the government led by Sheikh Hasina was ‘deeply distressing and should end immediately’, reports British newspaper The Times.

Siddiq joins a growing chorus of international condemnation of Alam’s detention. Nobel laureates, film directors, actresses, artists, authors and billionaire businessmen have all called for him to be released from prison.

Amartya Sen, who won the Nobel prize for economic sciences, this weekend demanded Alam’s immediate release, adding to calls from Sir Richard Branson, Sharon Stone, Richard Curtis, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and many others.

Alam, 63, was arrested on August 5 in Bangladesh after reporting on schoolchildren’s protests about poor road safety in the country. He has since claimed that he has been tortured.

Alam has UK residency and his work has been displayed at Tate Modern, the Whitechapel Gallery, MoMA in New York and the Pompidou in Paris, the report said.

He was arrested under Section 57 of the Information and Communication Technology Act.

Alam was arrested at his home by more than 30 officers after he had been photographing the student protests and after he had given a television interview about the situation.

Siddiq said that Bangladesh ‘must uphold international standards of justice in treating its own citizens’. She added: ‘I would hope our Foreign Office will convey that message in stark terms to a country that is seen as a close ally,’ reports The Times.

News Courtesy: www.newagebd.net