Chief adviser’s press secretary Shafiqul Alam on Saturday said that the Bangladesh’s minority issue was unfairly portrayed in international media and influential nations’ top parliamentary hearings.
He also urged secular newspapers and international rights groups to open probes into the alleged religious violence cases in Bangladesh.
‘When the Netra News debunked the Bangladesh Hindu Buddha 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 that 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 said that the unity council also made a similar controversial report on the attacks of minorities in Bangladesh in July last.
‘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 mentioned.
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 in 2024, he said.
Claiming that the Unity Council’s reports had a far-reaching impact, the press secretary said that when a British MP recently spoke about the attacks on minorities in Bangladesh, it seemed he quoted the council’s report.
‘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.
The Human Rights Watch did an excellent investigation into the massacres of Hefazat activists in 2013, he mentioned, hoping that the rights group would do a similar probe.
‘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,’ he added.
