on the side and grabbed me. you know i know what happens in black with a sally's offices or they were in plain clothes and they didn't introduce themselves but i could work out what was going on and really about point my interest was in making sure that someone knew that this was happening to me so i resisted i screamed eventually i got taken in to a van waiting downstairs handcuffed blindfolded. and taken away. i was in i didn't know where i was taken to but one month i got there i was interrogated tortured and the thing altogether they tortured you yes they beat you they i was hit i was bleeding i was blindfolded so i couldn't see what was actually being done and blood was dripping down from my face from my nose and mouth on to my clothes. and i was also you know they they threatened

me with waterboarding they told me but he had a lot worse they talked about pins they threatened that they would. it would get a lot worse and that my partner would all together earlier this year and head to head i interviewed gala rizvi a close advisor to the prime minister of bangladesh at ciena he not only claimed to be completely unaware of any harm that you suffered in detention he also said you were jailed for quote spreading disinformation which was inciting violence he accused of spreading false stories of rape which led to riots what do you say to him i was documenting things as they were happening and now i don't own a time machine so. incitement is something that happens after an event i was recording the event and there's clear documentation of the thing having gone on for quite some time before i was recording it. there is nothing absolutely that i

said or did which had anything to do with making statements myself i reported what was going on that is what a journalist does any journal these are fabricated charge implications against you and governor is really the prime minister the visors defended your arrested attention he says he's your friend izzy well i do know the guy and we have met in situations. i sort of have a different definition of friends but. also they say a neighboring country india is a friend and i can see what that relationship is between our countries so i'd be wary of those friends and what's your relationship like with the prime minister of bangladesh you have seen him who has called you quote mentally sick what is it about you that bothers us so much why are you such a threat or do you think i don't know i mean i i speak out. i protest i'm very upfront about what i say that shouldn't be

a threat to any government but obviously this is a government that feels threatened by it. i think also. i'm not the only one. professor yunus has been vilified before. chief justice was moved away i think i am i was another thorn on the path and there was an election coming up i was saying things which were the truth and therefore on politics the timing was bad for you i guess today you're free on bail but facing up to fourteen years in prison over violations of what human rights groups of called a repressive digital security law which gives the bangladeshi police the power to monitor people's online activities and arrest critics without warrants i believe it's been used more than twelve hundred times in recent years you're currently challenging the legality of the floor i believe in in the high court explain to our viewers what you think is at stake not only for yourself but also for other bangladeshi citizen journalists if you lose your case. it's about freedom of

expression and certainly about is the mainstay if and any democracy where the democracy exists in bangladesh or not itself is in question but i think if we lose this case then it will be a very very poor signal for journalists and people at large do you believe bangladesh is still a democracy functioning democracy not in the way it operates officially you describe it it's an autocracy by any means it has been for some time i mean while it is true that things are particularly bad now but all the way through i mean i left bangladesh when i was in one hundred seventy two a free country i came back to find a military dictator there was an election we tried to bring down the general but elections didn't lead to a democratic process and none of the political parties we've had have practiced democracy since then has seen a i would say she won a landslide victory in december's elections in bangladesh now she's been accused of vote rigging she's been accused of violations of electoral law but at the same time

it's undeniable that she's hugely popular and mother this you surely would concede that point and she probably would have still well even if she didn't allegedly cheat is not a problem for people like yourself that you're a critic of hers but you're in a minority in your own country i don't believe i'm a minority at all. in fact it is true that she has a following but since this is a rest i get stopped in the streets people hug me they have tears in their eyes tell me you've said what needed to be said but no one was speaking out. this it's a turbulent place out there and i think there's a lid on it which keeps it the way it is is that lead related to the economy because a lot of us support is constantly point out the during the ten consecutive years as prime minister per capita income in bangladesh has tripled the economy's grown life expectancy in bangladesh is now higher than in india and pakistan would you at least concede that on the economic front if not on the political front she has delivered for people

a. bangladesh is somewhere that's on the undeniably true i think it's done well despite the government are not because of interesting but more importantly i think the real people who make bangladesh prosper are our migrant workers our garment workers our farmers in the field on the other hand you have bangladesh having the largest growth of rich people in the world today and over the last eleven years over eighty three billion dollars have been sent out of the country this wealth benefits a few people it's generated by some people it's used and abused by others your perhaps bangladesh's most acclaimed photo journalist your work has been published all over the world you've trained hundreds of young photographers as well in the long run what role do you think your work pie is in safeguarding democracy promoting civil society in a country like bangladesh which you say there's no talk or see others say it's very best flighting towards autocracy what role did your own workplace i think there are

two aspects one is and shoring accountability and transparency which is required in any system one of my concerns is that the institutions that should hold any state in in place have been gradually eroded and destroyed therefore we work on three areas media education and culture to exert pressure upon the polish political space of politicians get out get away with what they've done so far to be fair it's not just this treaty i think pretty much all the regions we've had in the past have played the same role it's just it's at a level today which we've never had before. and you're traveling abroad right now you're on bail but you don't have to leave the country is in the u.s. visiting mexico what is your message when you're out of bangladesh not just to supporters but to foreign governments international groups who look at other issues as a successful economy look at she has seen as an ally in various walks of life what's

your message to them i think i need to point out to foreign governments that the role they're playing in being poly with blind dictators it's hugely problematic they talk about freedom and democracy i don't believe they go anywhere beyond working for self interest and it's very problematic that they will put up with a plan and dictator when their needs are. delivering on their own they're delivering on the war on terror which is problematic itself. but the fact that you don't place much faith in international efforts to try and check what's happening at home in your country i don't believe there's such a thing as morality in international politics last time you came on this channel and did an interview you were arrested and then beat some kind of surprised to see you back on this channel you're a brave man are you worried what's going to happen to you when you return to bangladesh after this interview i'm wary as one needs to be but i'm the citizen of

an independent state and my constitution gives me rights i'm going to exercise those rights and it's someone else's problem that they have problems with it show me the law and thank you for joining me on up front but to be here that's our show up front will be back next week. in syria citizens are collecting evidence at all but i feel the sorrow of crimes committed against civilians lives moves out of syria in the cold six hundred thousand pages of material so that one day they can bring the assad regime to justice it puts a she will face on the charges it's a dead human face but it's a human tricks syria witnesses for the prosecution on al-jazeera. the shortest administration in spain's modern history has been forced to pull

a snap election from twenty eight with polls suggesting a fragment of a vote on the rise of the far right populist movement blocks can the socialist alliance hold on to power stay with al-jazeera the latest on the spanish elections . americans are struggling to pay their rent the problem isn't just limited to the city it's. a former governor of the good social battles cost the country. we bring you the stories that the shaping the economic world we live in. counting the cost on al-jazeera. the mole. a failure to act on intelligence as president balance to restructure security said says after a suicide bombers killed more than three hundred fifty people.

hello and welcome to al-jazeera life my headquarters in doha with me it is a problem also ahead and saddam thousands more protesters arrive at the capital to join demonstrations against the country's military will as. a gyptian voters back constitutional changes that could see president out the fact that all things he's won extended to twenty thirty. and how syrian refugees are preserving the history and culture that's under threat by years of war. the death toll from sunday's suicide bombings in sri lanka has risen to three hundred and fifty nine hundred more remain in hospital the president has promised major changes to the country's security leadership after the government can almost judge that intelligence agencies received multiple to pause before the easter

sunday attacks i still claim responsibility twenty four hours after the bombings the government is blaming a local group would suspect of foreign lands well let's get more on all of this now we're joined by correspondent monella fernandez she's live for us in colombo the death toll going up significantly as it did when we were talking this time yes today's what's the latest on that and the investigation and how seriously authorities are taking a claim of responsibility. elizabeth going into the third day after that coordinated attack we're hearing that the death toll has climbed to three hundred fifty nine according to the police spokesman obviously the nature of injuries so serious that many people remain in india intensive care and on the critically injured list so we are seeing this day

creeping up with possible expectations of it rising even higher now investigations are looking at seven lines of of of of inquiry we just heard a short while ago the police media saying that a vehicle a van had been apprehended a suspected vehicle and there were reports that there were potentially. at least two explosive laden because that were doing the rounds and was still at large this we heard yesterday evening and obviously the police saying that they have found one suspicious vehicle in terms of the claims that isin has made even prime minister run of. took a question regarding this claim he said reports coming out of cairo had been taken north of there were basically a need for further investigations of these claims obviously the government has said

it is as zeroing in and focusing on this local organization but they are looking within the foreign links that this organization might have had obviously some of its members going abroad for training and other possible links like funding and support so they have not sort of restricted themselves to accepting the i.c. claim however they are keeping their options open taking note of that claim for responsibility but also ensuring that the investigations look at all possibilities elizabeth and three days after the attacks just how much. pressure is prime minister don become a singer and also the president city's cena and security services the six security establishment given that the leaders have admitted that they had intelligence that could have prevented these attacks.

i think safe to say elizabeth so that regime is quite heavy on all of these players to come up with. in fact the prime minister and the president both saying that the security services are doing their utmost to explore lines of questioning president microprocessors saying in his address to the nation last night did see that major restructuring of the security establishment would be forthcoming within the next week he did sort of qualify the next twenty four hours as a time for the removal of certain. chiefs of security now there is also an element in terms of certain positions like for example the position of the police chief is connected to a constitutional council you can't just sack a police chief not that this is confirmed to be on the cards but there are certain procedures but the president basically talking of restructuring that's needed and

this pressure will continue on the leadership and on the security establishment elizabeth thank you very much for an alpha now and that is the alpha and as for the latest live and colombo thank you. moving on to other news now and protests are growing in sudan against the country's military rulers hundreds of people arrived in packed trains to cardiff along to join thousands more outside the army headquarters demanding civilian african union leaders in cairo gave the military council a three month deadline to hand over power to a civilian government has the latest from khartoum. sudanese protesters keeping up the pressure on the military council. and the sheer force of numbers two weeks since they managed to push the military to topple the regime of formal bashir they're still here demanding that power to a civilian government was going to die. skepticism increases among the protesters

until this minute the national congress party of bashir is still around its latest still sitting around and until now the military council has not responded to any of our demands if they think we don't understand let them know we understand the former regime is still rolling us and directly i don't have any i mean we want to completely civilian government to be appointed right now and our demands to be it away from the shias hinch men and away from any politicians whatsoever we don't need any political parties all we need is the criminals to be brought to justice and our funds that were stolen and taken abroad to be returned. a fresh attempt by military police to remove the roadblocks on the sitting on tools that appear to only exacerbate tensions in the college and an african union summit in kyle didn't help matters. we have also listened to the chairman of

the african union commission about his last visit to sudan as well as his monitoring of the announced developments from all sudanese authorities regarding the transitional period we have agreed to give more time to the sudanese just over two years and sudanese parties to implement these measures. what does this have condemned the outcome of the article the union summit in cairo specially the decision to give the military council three months before it gives power to civilians and they have called for the biggest mass protests to be held today in reaction i think c.c. should get out of our life this is our country and our revolution it's us who got killed oh rested and tortured no laid out or any foreign country has the right to interfere in our affairs or sabotage our revolution. the calls for more volleys continue to bring to the streets

a trail loaded with protesters are from the northern city of are now regarded as the cradle of this uprising it was there that the first person was killed during a government protests in december arrival of the activists to give of morale boost to those taking part in the sit in they say they have braved bullets tear gas and torture for over four months to bring about change but they are a struggle continues they don't want anyone to derail their revolution. or does iraq. thousands of students have protested in algeria's capital remembering the five victims of a building collapse on monday residents say the building in the in.