Shafiqul blasts int'l media's portrayal of Bangladesh's minority issue
Chief Adviser's Press Secretary Shafiqul Alam on Saturday said the Bangladesh's minority issue was unfairly portrayed in international media and influential nations' top parliamentary hearings, urging secular newspapers and international rights groups to open probes into the alleged religious violence cases here.
"When the Netra News debunked the Bangladesh Hindu Buddhist Christian Unity Council's report on the attacks on the Hindu community in the post-revolution days, I expected the group to make a statement," he said in a statement posted on his verified Facebook account.
"After all, they were challenged by a top investigative website, which built its reputation by covering some of the biggest corruption and human rights violation stories in Bangladesh," he added.
The press secretary said the Netra News report showed almost all nine Hindu death, who the minority council claimed to have been killed in communal hatred-related violence, were connected to other reasons such as political, personal and other causes.
"Our expectations were that the unity council would respond to the Netra News report, for it raises serious questions about the way the council collects and files reports on violence against minorities in Bangladesh," he said.
He also said the unity council also made a similar controversial report on the attacks of minorities in Bangladesh in July this year.
"It said in the 2023-24 financial year, beginning on July 1, 2023, at least 45 people of minority faiths - mostly Hindus - were killed in the country. Again, Bangladeshi newspapers carried the story in their front and back pages. And not a single media outlet challenged the report despite there being serious questions about the veracity of Unity's claims," Shafiqul said.
Yet, according to the Ain o Salish Kendra, the country's largest human rights group, no one was killed in anti-minority violence in 2023 and only two persons were killed this year (January to October), he said.
The ASK is a secular group, which for years was headed by an Awami League apologist. Its current chairman is lawyer ZI Khan Panna, a human rights defender who has told local media that he would be interested in defending mass murderer Sheikh Hasina in trials.
Claiming that the Unity Council's reports have a far-reaching impact, the press secretary said when a British MP recently spoke about the attacks on minorities in Bangladesh, it seems he quoted the Council's report.
The report on the post-revolution attacks on Hindus was cited more than 11 million times in social media, he said.
"What I've learnt is that the powerful and deep-pocketed Hindu American groups, Indian national and regional newspapers, and top Indian commentators cite its report to portray the state of minorities in Bangladesh. Experts told me the Unity Council's reports have been the single biggest source of misinformation on anti-minority violence in Bangladesh," he added.
Shafiqul said: "Violence against minorities happens in Bangladesh. We are still not the ideal country as far as communal harmony is concerned. We hear reports of discrimination based on religion. There are also regular bouts of violence triggered by allegedly blasphemous Facebook posts. And some fringe groups and figures often spread hate against minority people."
In recent weeks, he said, there have been greater efforts by the interim government, political, religious, and civil society leaders urging people to stay calm during religiously tinged incidents, while some of them have shown extraordinary political maturity in these events.
But, he claimed, the Unity Council's reports have systematically exaggerated the violence perpetrated against the minority people.
"We hope top secular and liberal newspapers will do their own probe into the alleged cases of religious violence reported by the Council. We also hope international rights groups such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International will also do similar investigations," the press secretary said.
The HRW did an excellent investigation into the massacres of Hefazat activists in 2013, he mentioned, hoping that the rights group would do a similar probe.
He said if the government does the debunking job, there are strong chances that its reports will be seen with some sort of skepticism.
"Let the independent newspapers and rights groups probe these incidents. We think it is a serious issue – for Bangladesh has been unfairly portrayed in international media and in top parliamentary hearings in influential nations," Shafiqul said.
He said some even call for sending UN peacekeepers to Bangladesh - or intervening in the country - based on these reports and that is why the interim government wants fair investigations into the alleged cases of minority repression.
