Sixteen non-governmental development organizations, institutions and civic platforms operating in Bangladesh have issued a 10-point demand to prevent rumours and misinformation and to protect disadvantaged, minority, gender-diverse communities in the election period.
The announcement was made in a press release on Sunday after the joint network meeting of the institutions.
Earlier, the Institute for Environment and Development (IED) held a two-day network meeting with the support of the Asia Foundation at the YWCA auditorium in the capital.
A total of 18 organizations participated in it.
Among the 10 points, there is also an announcement to provide special protection to minorities, gender diversity and backward communities with focus on elections, including increasing the skills of local government and administration about rumours, including awareness curriculum about it in textbooks, increasing the capacity of news verification in the media, strengthening the capacity of the cyber cell of the police.
In the first part of the network meeting, Istihak Raihan, a faculty member in the Department of Economics of Jahangirnagar University, presented the main article in the discussion titled “Impact of Misinformation in the Democratic Process of Bangladesh.”
In the second part, the Director of the Center for Critical and Qualitative Studies of ULAB, Deen Mohammad Sumon Rahman and the members of the Fact Watch team discussed various processes of news verification and cyber security.
On the second day, MRDI Executive Director Hasibur Rahman and Senior Program Officer Syed Samiul Basher discussed advocacy strategies in the first phase jointly. In the second part, the Senior Reporter of Daily Ittefaq, Amir Mohammad, discussed the importance of network development to prevent disinformation.
Sixteen organizations participated in the joint declaration in the last phase.
The institutions participating in the joint declaration are Environment and Development (IED), Center for Critical and Qualitative Studies (CQS, (ULAB), Bangladesh Enterprise Institute (BEI), Manab Kallyan Parishad (MKP) (Thakurgaon), Association for Social Development of Bangladesh (ASDB), IDEA (Sylhet), Engineering and Research Associates Limited (ERA) (Sunamganj), Prerona (Satakhira), PAVE (Bogra), SHIELD (Savar), Harijan Yuva Kalyan Samity (Sherpur), Abalamban (Gaibandha), Disinformation Prevention Forum (DPF), Jatiya Adivasi Parishad (JAP), FTWT (Kishorganj), Janaudyog.
