Briton guilty of contempt in Bangladesh
A special tribunal in Bangladesh dealing with war crimes committed during the country’s independence war has found a British journalist guilty of contempt for questioning the official death toll of the 1971 conflict.
The court ruled that a 2011 blog post and two other articles by David Bergman offended the nation and ordered him to pay a fine of 5,000 Takas (£41) or go to jail for a week.
Bangladeshi officials say three million people were killed and hundreds of thousands of women raped during the war of independence against Pakistan. Bergman said there was no evidence supporting that number. The issue is hugely sensitive in Bangladesh.
Bergman works for New Age, a Dhaka-based English-language daily.
Head judge Obaidul Hassan said Bergman was not acting in good faith or in the public’s interest