Coming down heavily on the Daily Star Editor Mahfuz Anam for publishing DGFI-supplied reports during the army-led caretaker government, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said he should quit after his confession if he has a little bit of self-dignity.
“This editor has confessed to making a mistake by publishing those DGFI-supplied reports, but people, Awami League leaders and activists, the business community, students and teachers, and my family and I had to pay the price for that mistake. Why didn’t he show the courage by resigning? If he has the guts, then he should resign,” she said at a meeting organised by Awami League marking Language Martyrs' Day and International Mother Language Day at Bangabandhu International Conference Centre (BICC) in the capital yesterday.
Hasina wanted to know why those news items provided by the DGFI were published. “A
newspaper like the Daily Star should carry the news as supplied by the DGFI? Who is that
mad there to believe that? The Daily Star is very much choosy about English. It proves that DGFI people are more knowledgeable than the Daily Star.”
She recalled a recent incident at the BBC which carried false news items on British MPs and ministers. "When the report was found false, the BBC offered apology and the people involved in that story all resigned.”
Hasina said what the editor has so far written with the pretence of honesty were all fraudulences and untrue which were aimed at destroying the country.
Hasina said truth cannot be hidden, it will ultimately surface. “The Daily Star editor’s original face has been exposed.”
Recently on a talk show, Mahfuz Anam admitted that running reports on Sheikh Hasina based on information fed by DGFI without scrutiny was his biggest mistake.
Hasina also said if the editor confessed to publishing or writing those reports out of fear, then he could not do fearless journalism. “I don’t have anything to say if you [Anam] were sold out and wrote on the basis of [your] relations,” she said.
The prime minister also said if the editors were involved in the conspiracy of prolonging their [then military-backed govt] power by killing democracy, obstructing the democratic rights of people then you will be tried one day like the trial of war criminals. “Which path will you choose?” she asked.
Hasina recalled that Mahfuz Anam’s hectic effort was there to prove her corrupt, but the fact is that even the World Bank could not prove that.
The prime minister also sharply criticised those demanding withdrawal of the cases filed against the Daily Star editor.
She asked those who demand the withdrawal of cases to feel the pain of the solitary confinement she suffered for 11 months, when she was not even allowed to meet her relatives during the Eid time.
Praising the Awami League leaders who raised their voice against the false news of the Daily Star, she regretted that many leaders were still mum. “Why is there such a fear just to tell the truth?” she asked.
Hasina also questioned about the contributions of Mahfuz Anam to the Liberation War. “We were also university students… our academic activities were hampered due to the Liberation War, but that editor went to Pakistan (then West Pakistan) so that his study was not hampered.”
She also said he, however, went to Kolkata and got assigned to write materials in English as he knew a bit of English. “And this is his Liberation War and this is how he is a freedom fighter.”
Chaired by Deputy Leader of the House Syeda Sajeda Chowdhury, the function was addressed, among others, by Commerce Minister Tofail Ahmed, Agriculture Minister Matia Chowdhury, Public Administration Minister and AL General Secretary Syed Ashraful Islam, Mahbubul Alam Hanif, MP, Relief and Disaster Management Minister Mofazzal Hossain Chowdhury Maya, Jahangir Kabir Nanak, MP, Abu Sayeed Al Mahmud Swapan, MP, SM Kamal Hossain and Kamal Ahmed Mazumder, MP.
