Facebook on Saturday said it has not received any written order of the High Court from the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission to remove the infamous Al-Jazeera documentary “All the Prime Minister’s Men” from its platform.
“We have not issued any statements about our actions,” the social media giant said in a statement on Saturday night.
However, before the statement from Facebook arrived via its local public relations agency Benchmark PR at around 9pm, Mustafa Jabbar, posts and telecommunications minister, told the correspondent that the High Court order from February 17 has been sent to Facebook.
“When Al Jazeera announced that they would show such informational images, we got in touch with the social media platforms. Later, when it was spread via social media, we sent them those links and requested them to remove it.”
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The report was aired by the Qatar-based channel on February 1.
“In response to the request, they informed us that ‘like Al Jazeera, the mainstream media is promoting it, so it is very difficult for us to remove it’. However, if you can give any direction from the court, we might be able to.”
By this time, someone filed a writ petition and the court made an order.
“We received a lawyer's copy of this order. And as soon as we got it, we let Facebook and YouTube know that the court has made an order to remove it and we hope you will remove it.”
The person who is in charge of Facebook in Bangladesh has contacted Jabbar, he said.
Sabhanaz Rashid Diya has been serving as the Bangladesh affairs officer in the Public Policy Department of Facebook since September last year.
“We are reviewing it. We have received your paperwork, which is now under review,” the minister said quoting the Facebook representative.
