Qatar-based English news channel AL Jazeera ran a report titled, “Bangladeshi journalist arrested after report on high food prices.”
“Bangladeshi police have arrested a journalist of a leading daily under a controversial media law after publishing a story criticizing rising food prices in the country,” Al Jazeera reported.
“The latest data in February by the Government Trading Corporation of Bangladesh, the prices of almost all essential commodities in the country have increased by an average of 1 percent and 151 percent year-on-year. The price of meat has increased by an average of 39 per cent, while the price of rice has increased by 30 per cent.
According to research published on Wednesday by the South Asian Network of Economic Modelling, a Bangladeshi think tank, around 96 per cent and 89 per cent of poor people in the country have reduced their consumption of meat and fish, respectively, in the past six months due to high inflation. and rising food prices,” the Al Jazeera report said.
The AL Jazeera report said, “Bangladesh Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan later told reporters at his office that Shams was arrested under the Digital Security Act (DSA) because his report was “false, fabricated and malicious”. inspired” … Condemned by critics as “flawed” and “draconian”, the DSA allows for prison sentences of up to 14 years.”
It read, “Qadruddin Shishir, editor of Bangladesh Fact Check at Agence France Paris news agency, told Al Jazeera that Prothom Alo did not use any fake quotes in his story.
“Yes, there was confusion as Prothom Alo used the wrong photo with quotes in his Facebook post but the newspaper issued a clarification. On the other hand, what Advocate Majumdar or Channel 71 did was misleading. They tried to establish that Sobuj gave that quote when clearly it was given by Hussain, a daily wage worker whom they did not interview or bother to find,” said Qadruddin Shishir.