Bangladesh HC orders shutdown of unregistered online news portals

The Bangladesh High Court on Tuesday ordered the authorities to shut down all unregisterenline ned ows portals in the country within a week. A HC division bench passed the order on the  plea filed by two advocates. The court in its order told the Bangladesh Telecom Regulatory Commission  (BTRC) and Chairman of Bangladesh Press Council to execute the order within seven days of getting the copy of this order. The writ was filed by the lawyers following media coverage of an incident in April in which a 21 year old women committed suicide allegedly mentioning the name of a prominent business personality of Bangladesh in her suicide note.

The petitioners contended that the online portals in the country are running defamatory reports amounting to character assasination of people. Earlier, the High Court in its order on August 16 had sought response from the authorities as to why an ethical code of conduct should not be formed for news media and a Broadcasting Commission set up for the electronic media as well as putting a ban on the unregistered online news portals.