Foreign Ministry today said no journalists were arrested in Bangladesh due to reporting on the cost of living.
“Many media have been continuously reporting on the cost of living everyday in Bangladesh since the beginning of the Russia-Ukraine war which has created a global rise in the cost of living. No one is arrested due to such reporting,” the ministry said in a statement here on Saturday.
The ministry said that it has been brought to the notice of the government that few international media outlets and institutions are claiming that a journalist in Bangladesh, named Shamsuzzaman, has been arrested as he wrote about 'cost of living in Bangladesh'.
“This information is totally false and fabricated. This journalist was arrested because of ‘child abuse’ and ‘child exploitation',” said the statement.
The journalist was arrested because of child abuse and child exploitation, as he offered taka 10 to a 9-year old boy and then expressed his own views in the name of that child. That is surely an act of child abuse and exploitation, read the statement.
Secondly, the statement said that Shamsuzzaman tried to undermine the Independence of Bangladesh on the great Independence Day.
These acts are surely tantamount to punishable offense, it added.
The foreign ministry said the government is committed to uphold freedom of expression for all of its citizens and the media.
However, the statement said, creating social unrest by undertaking such fraudulent acts is contrary to the spirit of honest journalism.
“The Government of Bangladesh, as a Party to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), would not tolerate any such act of abusing children,” said the foreign ministry.
The Government would also not accept any such effort aimed at maligning the great Independence Day of the nation, the statement added.
