Bangladesh: registration of news portals is mandatory

The Bangladesh Government released its first list of verified news portals. According to Information Minister Dr Hasan Mahmud, the registration of online news portals will be a continuous and ongoing process. He said it is just the beginning of the process. It may not have names of many well established online news portals but that does not mean that there is a negative report about these news portals. The reports about many of the news portals have not yet been received, said Dr Mahmud. He said the names of the news portals for which No-objection certificates have been received by the government will be uploaded on the official website.
Cautioning against online rumour-mongering and spreading of communal tensions, the Minister said, some online news portals engage in such activities. The process of granting registration will investigate these issues. He said action will be taken against the news portals against whom ‘negative report’ is received by the government. The process for the registration of online news portals was started in December last year. The Government has announced that action will be taken against the news portals which don’t register with the authorities. More than 3500 news portals had applied for registration to the government.