Jahangir Alam Akash

Jahangir Alam Akash is a leading Bangladeshi journalist and human rights defender. Akash was threatened, jailed, tortured and persecuted in his home country since he started working as a journalist and human rights defender in 1989.

In 2009 he was brought out of Bangladesh in an urgent action by Amnesty International and Reporters Without Borders and has since been hosted by safe houses in Germany and Austria, and from 2011 he was ICORN guest writer in Tromsø, Norway.

In his over  twenty years’ experience as a journalist he has worked for many news media outlets in Bangladesh, including the daily newspaper Sangbad of which he was Bureau Chief from 2000-2008. He has also worked for the Bengali-language service of the Deutsche Welle. His reports have focused on the issues of corruption, extra judicial killing, Islamic militancy, press freedom and minority oppression in Bangladesh. Akash has been a front figure in Bengali human rights organizations like Justice Foundation, Bangladesh Institute for Human Rightsand Taskforce Against Torture. He is the editor of the website Euro Bangla.

Akash has written six books, including Extrajudicial Killings and Revenge, published by Amir Procashoni, Banglabazar, Dhaka, 2009.