At least 26 Bangladeshi journalists have been attacked or threatened since the murder last month of a reporter in the south-western port city of Khulna, international press watchdog Reporters Without Borders said (RSF) said Friday.
Manik Shaha, 45, bureau chief of the English daily New Age and a stringer for the BBC, was killed when a home-made bomb was hurled at him as he travelled in a rickshaw on January 15 in Khulna, notorious for its high crime rate and political violence.
Since Shaha's murder, for which no motive has yet been established, 26 journalists have reported intimidation attempts, the Paris-based RSF and the Bangladesh Centre for Development Journalism and Communication (BCDJC) said.
"Reporters Without Borders and the Bangladesh centre have registered 26 cases of death threats and physical attacks against journalists since the January 15 murder of Manik Shaha," they said in a joint statement.
The two organisations also called for the release of Abdul Mahbud Mahu, a Bangladeshi journalist whom they said was arrested without warrant on February 14 in Cox's Bazaar, 290 kilometres (182 miles) south-east of the capital Dhaka.