Choudhury was arrested on November 29, 2003 - Reader comments for Weekly Blitz

Choudhury was arrested on November 29, 2003 at Dhaka airport. The following is the news report from The Daily Star in Bangladesh:

A man was arrested at Shahjalal International Airport yesterday morning on his way to Tel Aviv for his alleged Mossad connection. A leader of Bangladesh chapter of 'Iflaq', a Haifa-based organisation, Salauddin Shoib Chowdhury was carrying compact discs (CD's) and papers containing write-ups on some sensitive issues including 'minority repression and the al Qaeda network in Bangladesh', police said. Shoaib was managing director of the planned Inquilab Television until he was sacked last year. Members of different law enforcement agencies and Shahjalal immigration officials apprehended him at the immigration counter minutes before he was to leave for Bangkok by the Biman flight, BG-084, at 10:30am. "He introduced himself as the editor of the 'Blitz', an entertainment magazine published from Dhaka, and said he was going to Bangkok," a top police officer said yesterday on condition of anonymity. "Searching his luggage, we found a number of CD-formatted write-ups and papers that clearly proved his contact with Tel Aviv," he said. "He was going to take part in a conference in Tel Aviv scheduled to begin on 1 December", the police officer added. It was however learnt that Shoaib's movements were being monitored for quite sometime on suspicion of his connection with the Israeli secret service 'Mossad'. "He was going to Bangkok first and was scheduled to fly for Israel, a country Bangladeshi citizens are barred from travelling to," he said.

After release from 17-months imprisonment, Choudhury wrote in an Israeli newspaper "I also stand before you perhaps as a living contradiction: a Zionist, a defender of Israel, and a devout, practicing Muslim, living in a Moslem country." He said "I believe in the justice of the Zionist dream. I also acknowledge this historical reality: that the world has endeavored to crush that dream and, yes, even to destroy the viability of the Jewish people. At the same time, I live in an environment where people believe just as passionately in an opposing view—one that sees Israel as illegitimate; and the Jewish people as evil incarnate

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