Summary Rahman was accused of sedition and inciting religious tension in the Muslim-majority nation.
DHAKA (AFP) - Bangladesh police arrested the editor of an influential pro-opposition newspaper on Thursday after he was accused of sedition and inciting religious tension in the Muslim-majority nation.
The arrests follow a nationwide crackdown on the opposition including the detention of more than 200 senior officials of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and the entire leadership of the largest Islamic party, Jamaat-e-Islami.
Police said Mahmudur Rahman, 59, the editor of Bengali daily Amar Desh, was arrested at his newspaper office and was remanded for 13 days in police custody for interrogation.
"We have arrested him in a case filed against him in December," Dhaka police spokesman Masudur Rahman told AFP, adding he was also accused of publishing false and derogatory information that incited religious tension.
The December case against Rahman was related to hacking and the publishing of leaked calls between a judge from the country s controversial war crimes tribunal and an expatriate legal expert, he added.
Mahmudur Rahman, who served as a deputy minister for energy in the cabinet led by opposition BNP leader Khaleda Zia between 2001 and 2006, bought Amar Desh in 2008. He became its acting editor and made it an opposition mouthpiece.
Amid rising political tensions, strikes and deadly protests, the circulation of Amar Desh has increased six-fold in recent months to more than 200,000 daily and it is now one of the most visited Bangladeshi news websites.
The BNP, its Islamist allies and journalist unions condemned the arrest and demanded Rahman s immediate release.
About 50 journalists demonstrated in front of the national press club. Showkat Mahmood, secretary general of the Federal Union of Journalists, said the arrest "is due to a political vendetta".
Rahman, who had been living in his office for months fearing arrest, was jailed for six months in 2010 for contempt of court. The publication of Amar Desh was also shut down for 47 days.
