Black_cats
ELITE MEMBER

- Joined
- Dec 31, 2010
- Messages
- 10,024
- Reaction score
- -5
US may think Bangladesh as enemy based on false media reports: FM
United News of Bangladesh . Gopalganj | Published: 17:10, Oct 29,2022Foreign minister AK Abdul Momen pays homage to the country’s founding president Sheikh Mujibur Rahman by placing a wreath at his grave at Tungipara in Gopalganj, on Saturday. – UNB photo.
Foreign minister AK Abdul Momen on Saturday said that journalists had tried to make the United States Bangladesh’s enemy through misquoting him.
‘A total of 17 media outlets including print, electronic and online ones published headlines saying that I had mentioned the USA as a war-mongering country, which I didn’t say. The headings had no connection with what I had actually said. I think our journalists have weaknesses in them and I’ll be happy if they focus on gaining maturity,’ Momen said.
The minister said this after paying homage to the grave of Bangladesh’s founding president Sheikh Mujibur Rahman at Tungipara in Gopalganj on Saturday noon.
‘Through misrepresenting the facts, our journalists have tried to make the US our enemy. Either these journalists didn’t know Bangla properly, or they have done this for specific reasons. They need to do research why such low quality journalism prevails in the country,’ Momen added.
He said that he thought that the journalists of the country had weaknesses in them and they needed more maturity while writing and publishing news.
Momen said that the headlines of the reports were false, fabricated and imaginary.
The minister further said that the country’s journalism didn’t have standard and the journalists lack moral and ethical values.
‘It’s a shame for those journalists who wrote those false stories. It’s a thing to be sorry about,’ Momen said.
On October 26, Momen was reportedly misquoted by some media outlets after he spoke at the seminar ‘Sheikh Hasina at the United Nations’ organised by the Progressive Columnist Forum of Bangladesh at the Jatiya Press Club in the capital.
Later, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a rejoinder, saying that misleading and baseless news quoting Foreign Minister Momen sent a wrong message to the people and the government of the US.
‘Following the programme, some media outlets, including newspapers, online portals and television channels, ran news misquoting the foreign minister saying – ‘the US economy cannot function without war, the US is a war-mongering country, war keeps the US economy going, and Taiwan next for the US when the Ukraine war ends,’ the foreign ministry said.
‘The US thrives on war, and the country is always setting the stage for war.’ Such misleading and baseless news quoting Momen sent a wrong message to the people and the government of the US, the ministry said. ‘This is very unfortunate and unexpected.’
The foreign ministry requested the media outlets to retract the news and run the correct version of Momen’s statement.