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In Special Consultative Status with the UN Economic & Social Council
Associated with the UN Department of Global Communications

Digital Safety and Security for the Journalists in Bangladesh

Executive Summary

Digital Safety and Security become an important concern for the media today. It is also a challenge for Bangladesh too. The project, “Digital Safety and Security for the Journalists in Bangladesh” aims to increase the digital and physical safety and security of Bangladeshi journalists and media professionals through capacity building so that they can manage unprecedented risk created by the hackers and criminal groups and news outlets.

Eighty-three journalists representing print and electronic media from different regions of the country were trained up.  The topics of the training were how to protect themselves and their data, and carrying out their work with greater freedom. It’s noted that twenty-two out of 83 journalists were female.

Project description

The Media Sector in Bangladesh has grown considerably over the last 15 years. Presently, 44 television channels, 28 FM radios, 32 community radios, 1187 daily newspapers, and more than 100 online news portals are active. Most of the Journalists depend on the Internet and digital communications for research, interaction and news distribution. So it was observed that journalists especially women journalists need training on physical and professional safety.

Journalists’ safety and impunity: According to an article report 2014 on Freedom of Expression in Bangladesh, recorded an alarming 106% increase from 2013 in harassment figures against journalists -with a single conviction. This trend of violence has become increasingly deadly. In 2015, four bloggers were gruesomely murdered within six months, this wave of violence and lack of adequate official response has put Bangladesh to 12th position out of 14 ranked by Committee to Protect Journalists Global Impunity. The report condemning Bangladesh’s position in its index identifies spotlight countries like Bangladesh where they said ‘killers go free’.

Compounding this increasingly hostile operational environment is a sector influenced by corporate ownership and political allegiances. This has resulted in increasing self-censored at the individual journalist and editorial levels. At the same time, digital threats are increasing too, with journalists using technology without basic safeguards.

Despite these Challenges, Bangladeshi Media and civil society have demonstrated, through coalition building and advocacy around the Right to Information (RTI) Act 2009, that the government can successfully be engaged on issues related to freedom of speech and information. And, by adopting the array of available cutting edge digital and physical security tools and approaches, professional journalists and bloggers can be empowered to prevent and mitigate threats, giving them space and confidence, they need to work with.

Considering this situation, Bangladesh NGOs Network for Radio Communication (BNNRC) have been implementing a project titled ‘Increase the digital and physical Security of Journalists and other media professionals through need assessment and capacity building’ on digital & physical security in order to help journalists better protect themselves and their data, and to carry out their work with greater freedom with the help of the Internews Network, a US-based organization.

 

Objectives

  • Strengthen the digital security of local journalists and widen networks.
  • Localize the digital security curriculum in Bangla and English. Enable more safe environment for the journalists.
  • Increase digital safety and security of journalists and media professionals who cover good governance, religion and/or secularism and conflicts.

Major activities

Training of Trainers (ToT) was organized on ‘Digital and Physical Security for Journalists’ on 4-5 July 2018 urging journalists to practice increased safety and security to protect themselves from digital threats organized by BNNRC attended by 25 journalists and academicians representing print, electronic and online news portals in Bangladesh.

As part of the best practices to protect information, news, sources and devices, the participants were exposed to sessions on how to safely protect emails and use internet, how cookies work, what are the safe internet websites, how to remove internet browsing history, what is incognito to browsing, what is anonymity network, effective use of pseudonyms, how it protects identity of email account user, encrypting emails and hard-drive, hiding information with Vera crypt and creating strong passwords. The course on Digital Safety and Security for the Journalists was held in four regions of Bangladesh.

Topics of the training were hands-on knowledge, ideas of mobile and computer security, mobile data, information security and developing a powerful password, protecting the Facebook account, phone calls in live programs, messages, and sources, sources of information, stolen data, surveillance over mobile phones, risks overusing apps, etc. In addition, weaknesses and solutions for ‘encryption’, the dangers of digital security, ways to deal including personal safety are discussed.

 Case of a Participant (Abu Rushd Md. Ruhul Amin, Senior News Editor, Bangla Vision)

I’ve attended two pieces of training on this issue in 2018 and 2019 organized by Bangladesh NGOs Network for Radio and Communications (BNNRC) with support from Internews. The first workshop was an eye-opener for me. Earlier I was not too much aware of this topic. The second workshop, which was held on last April of this year (2019), was really in-depth. I learned a lot from our trainer Brian Conley.  From Facebook security to safe conversation, text messaging, e-mailing using end to end encrypted apps, the whole learning process was excellent. The way Brian taught us, was unique. I feel I must learn more from him, so many things are yet to learn!

I found great enthusiasm among the participants in all four-regional training when I have presented as the facilitator. They were so interested in this topic, they had so many questions on this new issue, it was amazing. As digital & physical security is a new issue for our journalists, I think this training must be continued to sensitize this community.

Examples of Linkages between the WSIS Action Line and the SDGs

The project has addressed the Action Line C 4 (Capacity building). Until the introduction of the concept in the workshop, the majority of the participants did not have proper knowledge of Digital Safety and Security for Journalists in Bangladesh. It is indeed a new topic that BNNRC introduced for media in Bangladesh. The training has generated ideas about digital Safety and Security for Journalists in Bangladesh. The local cadre of digital safety and security trainers strengthened and networked. The cohort of geographically diverse Bangladeshi journalists learned the skills to produce objective, unbiased, high-quality in-depth reporting and investigations. Journalists are now able to conduct their work more securely and safely. Digital Safety and Security Curriculum and tools are localized in Bangla & English. Media-NGO coalition to address self-censorship and media freedoms initiated.

The program is facilitating SDG 16: Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels: Providing access to information and knowledge to people is also important to fostering tolerance between people and contributes to more peaceful societies

Highlights of the project’s partnership Activities:

  • Media related stakeholders to be involved: The workshop opens the doors for involving all stakeholders of the media community like, media at the union level, all press clubs or associations, media related government organizations like the Press Institute of Bangladesh (PIB), National Institute of Mass Communication (NIMC), Ministry of Information and the Press Council.
  • Educational Institutions to be involved: Public and private universities to incorporate/develop their own curriculum of Digital Safety and Security for Journalists in Bangladesh and work to introduce separate lessons/courses for academic discussions. As a new concept, many of the attending participants from private and public universities showed interest in introducing courses on Digital Safety and Security in their respective universities.

Challenges and future perspectives for the project

The theme of Digital Safety and Security for Journalists in Bangladesh is comparatively new in Bangladeshi media and it would be challenging to introduce the issue especially when journalists are not well aware of the subject.

Mobilizing journalists on the theme would be a huge task with limited data and information from the ground. Reporters need to understand more about what causes digital safety and security. Reporters need to know where to look for these causes and solutions. Lack of experienced resource persons to train journalists is another challenge faced by the organization. The workshops held outside the capital – namely in Chittagong, Sylhet, Rajshahi, and Jashore had difficulties explaining talking points in native Bangla which of course took more time than expected.

The workshops have certainly generated tremendous enthusiasm among the participating journalists which encourages the organization to further plan and design how best to extend and expand the courses discussed in the training/workshops.

 

Views on WSIS Stocktaking and Prizes contest:

WSIS Stocktaking and Prize will be an inspiring model for the community media practitioners in different parts of the world. The winning of the prize will be inspiring to our future broadcasters and policy-makers.

 

About: BNNRC

Bangladesh NGOs Network for Radio and Communication represents the community media sector to Government, Industry, Regulatory Bodies, Media and Development Partners.

BNNRC has been struggling for the last 20 years to open up the community media (including Community Radio, Community Television) and giving focus on its vital role as voices of the voiceless rural people. The reality of today is that the bondage between the community people and local-level community radio stations are getting strengthened day-by-day. Community Radio has now become part of life and livelihood.

www.bnnrc.net | bnnrcbd@gmail.com |

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