Format Broadsheet Founded 2003 Website www.weeklyblitz.net | Editor Salah Choudhury Language English | |
Type National daily newspaper | ||
Weekly Blitz is a tabloid newspaper published in Bangladesh every Wednesday by Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury. Blitz started its journey in 2003.
Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury is an anti Islamist journalist in Bangladesh presently facing sedition, treason and blasphemy charges (Case No. 377, which is under trial with the Court of Metropolitan Session Judge in Dhaka, Bangladesh). According to Bangladeshi law, sedition bears capital punishment. He received Freedom to Write Award from PEN USA in 2005; Moral Courage Award from American Jewish Committee in 2006; Monaco Media Award in 2007; Key to Englewood City in 2007 as well as several awards and recognitions at home and abroad.
Weekly Blitz continues to watch, investigate and focus on hidden agenda of Islamist militancy groups in Bangladesh, in the region and the world. It strongly defends religious minority groups in Bangladesh. Moreover, Weekly Blitz dares to publish some news that is either ignored or never published by any other newspaper in the country. Especially, Weekly Blitz only publishes unmolested and untwisted information on Israel, the Jewish world as well as the West.
In July 2006, the office of this newspaper was bombed by Islamist militants. On 18 March 2008, members of Rapid Action Battalion raided the office of Weekly Blitz and kidnapped its editor from the office. The editor was released after several hours.
Controversy
Before his 7 November 2012 arrest for embezzlement, Choudhury ran frequent articles in his online newspaper, theweeklyblitz.net, promoting North Korea. The Blitz's index pages show nearly 100 propaganda pieces for North Korea, in spite of extreme tensions between the US and North Korea and in spite of the United States House of Representatives honoring Choudhury by passing Resolution 64 in 2007. The Weekly Blitz also publishes a guide to brothels in Asia, listed on the Blitz as their "most viewed" article since it appeared in April, 2012.