B’desh rejects desperate ‘smear campaign’ by extremists

By Sumi Khan Dhaka, Feb 3 : The Bangladesh government has rejected the desperate “smear campaign” instigated by extremists and their allies working from London and elsewhere, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) said in a statement on Tuesday.
The ministry also said that the government regrets that the Al Jazeera media house has allowed itself to become an instrument for their malicious political designs aimed at destabilising the secular democratic government of Bangladesh with a proven track record of extraordinary socio-economic development and progress.
The statement added that the fact that the report’s historical account fails to even mention the horrific genocide of 1971 in which Jamaat perpetrators killed millions of Bengali civilians and raped more than 2 lakh women, is a reflection of the political bias in Al Jazeera’s coverage and that of its principal commentator, David Bergman, convicted by the International Crimes Tribunal (Bangladesh) for challenging the official death toll of 1971 Liberation War.
The ministry in its statement said that the Bangladesh government has learnt of a false and defamatory report titled “All the Prime Minister’s Men” by Al Jazeera news channel of Qatar.
“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, which has been opposing the progressive and secular principles of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh since its very birth as an independent nation in 1971.
“It is noted that the main ‘source’ of Al Jazeera’s allegations is an alleged international criminal claimed to be a ‘psychopath’ by Al-Jazeera itself,” the statement said.