Bangladesh has termed the Al Jazeera investigative report "All the Prime Minister's Men" as "false, defamatory and a politically motivated smear campaign".
"The Government of Bangladesh has learnt of a false and defamatory report titled 'All the Prime Minister's Men' by Al Jazeera news channel," said Foreign Ministry in a statement this morning.
It said 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 birth as an independent nation in 1971.
The statement said the fact that the report's historical account fails to even mention the horrific genocide in 1971 in which Jamaat perpetrators killed millions of Bengali civilians and raped more than two hundred thousand Bengali women, is a reflection of the political bias in Al Jazeera's coverage and that of its principal commentator, David Bergman, convicted by International Crimes Tribunal of Bangladesh for challenging the official death toll of 1971 Liberation War.
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.
"There is not a shred of evidence linking the Prime Minister and other state institutions of Bangladesh to this particular individual, and it is highly irresponsible for an international news channel to draw conclusions on the basis of the words of a mentally unstable person," it said.
The statement said it is also not surprising that the report aligns with the string of anti-Bangladesh propaganda habitually orchestrated by a few convicted absconding criminals and discredited individuals patronised by Jamaat-i-Islami, which on certain occasions has conspired with international extremist groups and news media, especially the Al Jazeera..
The foreign ministry said Bangladesh government rejects this desperate "smear campaign" instigated by extremists and their allies, working from London and elsewhere, and regrets that Al Jazeera has allowed itself to become an "instrument for their malicious political designs" aimed at destabilizing the secular democratic government of Bangladesh with a proven track record of extraordinary socio-economic development and progress.
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