Deutsche Welle, Germany’s public broadcaster, has conveniently found it appropriate to trick its audience by introducing offshore portal Netranews as an ” independent media outlet”.
DW partnered with Netranews to unleash a tirade against the Bangladesh government, couching it as an independent investigation.
Thus DW completely whitewashed the true identity of that portal and the bunch of men behind it, passing them off as ” independent analysts” when the truth is both David Bergman and Tasneem Khalil are blatant Opposition lobbyists and their Netranews are funded by USA’s National Endowment for Democracy or NED which is used by American intelligence for regime change operations.
Netranews has been scaremongering for a while, especially since the Covid pandemic.
“Vaccine would never arrive until Sheikh Hasina helms Bangladesh”, and ” Millions would die of Covid”, are some such smear-filled headlines peddled ceaselessly by Netranews editors with no apology even after all these dire projections fell flat in the face of global endorsement for Bangladesh’s “deft” Covid management. “.
Britain- born David Bergman, who is the son-in-law of Bangladesh’s opposition figurehead Kamal Hossain, happens to be the editor of the Netranews.
Another editor at the outlet Tasneem Khalil, defying all the ambits of journalism, echoed the tune of an opposition party, calling for sanction on Bangladesh and made a vain attempt to convince a band of EU officials that the human rights situation in the country marked better comparatively under the rule then BNP Jamaat led regime, even though several international journalists, unlike Khalil, described the regime as “turning Bangladesh as a cocoon of terror” with the youngest nation became a haven for transnational terrorists.
Now that DW tied up with the same portal and ran a joint investigation accusing the law enforcing agencies in Bangladesh of grievous rights violations, their involvement in the US-funded regime change operations is strongly suspected.
Several senior Bengali journalists and editors with decades of experience in top international broadcasting and media houses have pulled up Deutsche Welle for “independent portrayal” and colluding with the controversial and partisan offshore portal NN, hiding the fact that the portal funded by the US and headed by the son–in–law of Bangladesh’s opposition leader.
They pointed to the complete blackout of such political identity and activism DW’s undermining the standard practice of relying completely on in-house teams for investigations and instead outsourcing or collaborating with other portals– especially NN run by such biased figures, both accused of amplifying opposition narrative, riddled with half-truths, often “scaremongering” campaign, a record of regime change actions.
Let’s dig deep into some legitimate questions raised by senior journalists centring on the “flawed nature of the content”, spread by some influencers on social media in defence of the error-ridden report
The alleged rapist, drug dealer, arms trader and blackmailer painted as a “survivor” of torture
An opposition activist, Nafiz Mohammad Alam, interviewed by DW as a survivor of torture by Rapid Action Battalion, has been charge-sheeted in a murder case of a 14-year-old girl, let alone held the record for perpetrating other crimes also. Years back a raid in his house resulted in the recovery of ice (methamphetamine) and pethidine among other drugs, all strictly forbidden from sale by the country’s law.
Importantly, more accusations against Nafiz have emerged on national outlets with recorded videos of intimate moments with girls and later blackmailing them for money. Even several cases have been filed against Nafiz for gunrunning and being involved in a teen gang, years before DW NN interviewed him.
However, DW NN played Nafiz’s assertions unchallenged, intending the audience to believe in every allegation Nafiz peddled against Rab, with little mention of a litany of crimes that Nafiz has been accused of. Amid criticisms centring the one-sided treatment of Nafiz, further waves of lies in defence of Nafiz have been pushed forward by DW.
Days after Nafiz had been arrested by police concerning investigations into some of these previous cases, DW took no time running another wave of falsehood. “DW interviewee arrested by police”, reads the caption of the story where another error-ridden narrative was broadcast in defence of Nafiz, turning a blind eye to his alleged involvement in previous cases.
And to defend this narrative, a group of opposition-backed influencers got up to defend Nafiz, as if an interview with DW made Nafiz immune from all accusations pending upon him.
“He is an accused only, not convicted yet” reads some posts from these bunch of influences, ostensibly asking media outlets to toe in line with DW narrative, not bring to light another side of the story as law enforcers clarified Nafiz detained about a case filed against him in 2017 in Uttara for being involved with teen gangs.
Reacting to such foolhardy defence to bar reporters from covering stories on an accused, many already pulled up such logic as another round of half-truth-driven campaigns.