On Monday, renowned Bangladesh investigative journalist, Rozina Islam was arrested and detained on allegations of stealing confidential official documents and espionage.

Rozina is a senior correspondent for Prothom Alo, a leading daily national newspaper in Bangladesh. For the past month, she had been reporting on corruption and mismanagement in the health sector – a vital public interest endeavour.

We, at Finance Uncovered, were lucky enough to meet Rozina when she attended our Investigating Illicit Finance training in 2018.

Rozina is a tenacious and determined journalist specialising in uncovering corruption. We are deeply concerned at her arrest and call on Rozina’s immediate release and the dropping of all charges.

Her arrest took place after Rozina went to the Health Ministry in Dhaka for a meeting with the health services secretary.

Reports suggest she was searched in the Health Ministry offices and was allegedly found to have files and photos of documents on her phone.

Rozina denied taking any files from the room, according to local news reports.

It is understood that she was initially detained at the Health Ministry, for more than five hours before being taken into police custody where she is still held.

Picture: Rozina Islam (Prothom Alo)