Dear Al Jazeera, I,____________, am an ordinary citizen of Bangladesh. Recently, in one of your programmes titled “What’s Behind Bangladesh’s War Crime Trial?” the genocide death toll of Bangladesh’s Liberation War was stated as 300,000-500,000 instead of the official count of 3 million. I am strongly protesting this. Your reporter stated: “Historians estimate 300,000 to 500,000 were killed in the nine months by Pakistani military and local collaborators”. This is absolutely false and a distortion of historical facts. A certain newspaper from Bangladesh enquired with your reporter Maher Sattar about his source of information, to which the said reporter merely referred to a ‘blog post’. Such a source is unsupported, unreliable and certainly cannot be the sole basis of a claim on such historical magnitude. In the past, one of your reporters made a blatantly false report referring to the Shahbag Movement as being a platform in support of war criminals, to which we strongly protested. In the past, we have also protested your biased reporting on Ghulam Azam, a convicted war criminal and kingpin of local collaborators who was responsible for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide perpetrated in 1971 alongside the Pakistan army. Taken all these instances together, it makes us apprehensive as to the real motives behind Al-Jazeera’s often one-sided coverage of Bangladesh’s Liberation War and this historic war crime trials. We, of course, support freedom of the press. But with such freedom comes responsibility. This is a responsibility that extends to the victims of 1971, and to the relentless pursuit of a nation to bring an end to the culture of impunity after waiting for more than four decades. To exercise a freedom without any consideration as to its effects or consequences is a reckless behavior. We protest such recklessness, and possible bias, and we condemn the same. We hope that given AL Jazeera’s position as a reputed international news organization, they will henceforth refrain from such one-sided and biased coverage of Bangladesh’s independence. A citizen of Bangladesh Enclosed: 1. Report in Al Jazeera: https://youtube/watch?v=4AFen4J1DwA 2. Report in Bangladeshi news medium: bdnews24/bangladesh/2014/11/06/al-jazeera-favours-jamaat 3. Paper cutting from September 1972 in National Geographic showing the official death toll count as being 3 million: tinypic/view.php?pic=4v629z&s=5#.VFytm8krv6g এটা মেইল করে পাঠিয়ে দিন- [email protected] এই ঠিকানায় অথবা এইখানে গিয়ে ফর্মটা ফিলাপ করে। [ aljazeera/aboutus/2008/09/200892517614686544.html #3million1971 #StopHistoryManipulation #Bangladesh
Posted on: Sat, 08 Nov 2014 20:47:30 +0000
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