Officers from the army’s intelligence agency have instructed major companies to stop advertising in Bangladesh’s two leading independent newspapers, sources told Al Jazeera. The demand for foreign-owned corporations to stop advertising in the Prothom Alo and Daily Star newspapers was allegedly given by officers from the Directorate General of Forces Intelligence (DGFI), following the August 16 publication of a story on the army’s killing of five men in the Chittagong Hill Tracts. Later that day, army officials contacted both papers and criticised them for describing the dead men as “indigenous” people instead of “terrorists”, sources said on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals. Since then, Prothom Alo the most widely read newspaper in the country with