DHAKA, Feb 2, 2021 (BSS) – Bangladesh has dismissed Al Jazeera news
channel’s Monday’s report titled “All the Prime Minister’s Men” calling it as
“false and defamatory” and a desperate “smear campaign” instigated by
extremists and their allies, working in London and elsewhere.
“The report is nothing more than a misleading series of innuendos and
insinuations in what is apparently a politically motivated “smear campaign”
by notorious individuals associated with the Jamaat-i-Islami extremist
group,” a foreign ministry statement said here today.
The Jamaat-i-Islami extremist group has been opposing the progressive and
secular principles of Bangladesh since its very birth as an independent
nation in 1971, it added.
The foreign ministry said Dhaka regrets that Al Jazeera had allowed itself
to become an instrument for their malicious political designs aimed at
destabilizing the secular democratic Government of Bangladesh with a proven
track record of extraordinary socio-economic development and progress.
The statement noted that the main “source” of Al Jazeera’s allegations is
an alleged international criminal claimed to be a “psychopath” by Al-Jazeera
itself.
“There is not a shred of evidence linking the Prime Minister and other
State Institutions of Bangladesh to this particular individual, and it is
highly irresponsible for an international news channel to draw conclusions on
the basis of the words of a mentally unstable person,” said the statement.
Pointing that the report’s historical account failed to even mention the
horrific genocide in 1971, in which Jamaat perpetrators killed millions of
Bengali civilians and raped more than two hundred thousand Bengali women, the
statement said, this is the reflection of the political bias in Al Jazeera’s
coverage.
It also noticed that the principal commentator of the report David Bergman
was convicted by International Crimes Tribunal Bangladesh for challenging the
official death toll of 1971 Liberation War.
“It is also not surprising that the report aligns with the string of anti-
Bangladesh propaganda habitually orchestrated by a few convicted absconding
criminals and discredited individuals patronised by Jamaat-i-Islami
Bangladesh, which on certain occasions have conspired with international
extremist groups and news media specially the Al Jazeera,” said the
statement.