Bangladesh Civil Society in Europe has protested documentaries, talk shows, and reports by Deutsche Welle (DW) Bangla, stating that it is tarnishing Bangladesh's image.
They have expressed grave concern that the media house has been portraying a false image of the country to the outside world deliberately.
“On April 3, 2023, DW released a documentary titled ‘How elite forces RAB terrorize the people of Bangladesh' in English and Bangla on YouTube, Facebook and other social media. Apart from this, detailed news is also published on Deutsche Welle's website. There are a lot of controversies, misinformation and contradictions in this documentary,” said a press release.
”We acknowledge that some of Rapid Action Battalion's (RAB's) previous activities were against the country's constitution and contained a huge number of crimes against humanity. But in recent years RAB's authority with the guidance of the Bangladesh government and the support of other development partner countries eg the US and European countries, have rectified their practices,” reads the press release.
The murder issue of Ekramul Haque, a ward councillor of Teknaf municipality and upazila Jubo League president, was shown as the main story of the documentary. Due to this incident, the US on December 10, 2021, imposed financial sanctions on RAB and six of its current and former officers.
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After that Bangladesh government with the support of the US government and other European countries, made a huge improvement in the activities of RAB, reads the press release.
The top US diplomat's recent statement on the issue of the country's human rights situation has boosted Bangladesh's morale to a great extent.
The press release said it makes no sense to bring up the issue of Ekramul Haque's murder again in a documentary. In addition, most of the information was outdated and based on ambiguous and non-verifiable sources.
“As shown in the documentary, two RAB commanders in disguise explained the murder process in a very dramatic fashion. This seemed to be very ambiguous. They were shown as whistleblowers. If they had committed those wrongs as explained, how would they have admitted it in such a fashion?” reads the press release.
They had presented an Excel sheet with the number of murders but did not show any source, reads the press release.
“DW published the documents in cooperation with an obscure Sweden-based blog site called Netra News (NN). There is no organogram or organizational structure of NN known to the public,” the press release reads.
The BCSE has questioned on what ground the DW is allying with such obscure blog sites to make documentaries that can jeopardize relationships with a partner state as well as lower the reporting standard.
The press release said the DW documentary includes interviews with Sanjida Islam Tuli, co-founder of Mayer Daak, which is closely related to the opposition party in Bangladesh.
“Mayer Daak is working on the alleged enforced disappearance of political activists. Mayer Daak and some NGOs routinely publish various lists without proper investigation. Many of the names that they have provided in their lists are false and fabricated,” claims BCSE.
DW's documentary is heavily based on testimony from Nafiz Alam who has many criminal cases against him for attempts to murder, murder and other issues in 2017 and 2021. It is very unfortunate that a state-funded news agency like DW has considered Alam to give testimony for legitimizing their arguments, the press release adds.
“The DW documentary is very biased, based on the vested interest of some actors. DW needs to follow a full [sic] holistic approach in their report. We believe that this is an ill-politically motivated documentary based on few outdated issues which were either resolved or on the process of resolution. Using non-verifiable sources, questionable testimonies from a career criminal, hiding the political identity of the victim (Ekramul Haque), showing false victim list: all these fail to comply with journalistic ethics and norms,” it further adds.
The BCSE stated that as the documentary ends with comments and suggestions regarding the upcoming general election of Bangladesh, it clearly indicates their intentions of tarnishing the image of the present government by providing undue and unethical support to the opposition parties.
"These are against Articles 5 (2) and 5(3) of the Deutsche-Welle-Act (DWG). We humbly request the DW authority to take necessary steps to withdraw this documentary and take careful measures to avoid this kind of circumstances in future,” it adds.