Hindustan Surkhiyan Desk: British MP Tulip Siddiq, who is the niece of Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, has called on her aunt to release arrested photojournalist Shahidul Alam, according to the British newspaper The Times.
Tulip, the Labour MP for Hampstead and Kilburn, said that the detention was “deeply distressing and should end immediately”, reports The Times.
Bangladesh “must uphold international standards of justice in treating its own citizens”, Tulip was quoted as saying according to the report published today.
“I would hope our Foreign Office will convey that message in stark terms to a country that is seen as a close ally,” she added.
With this, Tulip joins many artists, Nobel laureates, rights activists, academics and politicians who condemned Alam’s arrest and demanded his immediate release.
Shahidul Alam, 63, was arrested on August 5 in Bangladesh after reporting on schoolchildren’s protests about poor road safety in the country and he has since claimed that he has been tortured, reports The Times.
He 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 held in connection with making “provocative comments” under section 57 of the Information and Communication Technology Act and placed on a seven-day remand. He was initially denied access to a lawyer and was allegedly beaten up by law enforcers.
He was sent to jail on August 12.
