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29 March 2024


Business Insider Bangladesh

Prothom Alo journo arrested for child abuse, exploitation: Foreign minister

BI Report || BusinessInsider

Published: 14:27, 1 April 2023   Update: 14:29, 1 April 2023
Prothom Alo journo arrested for child abuse, exploitation: Foreign minister

Photo: Collected

Prothom Alao journalist Shamsuzzaman Shams has been arrested because of child abuse and child exploitation, Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement on Saturday.

It has been brought to the notice of the government that few international media and institutions are claiming that a journalist in Bangladesh, named as 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 of the ministry.

Many media have been continuously reporting on the cost of living every day in Bangladesh since the beginning of the Ukraine War which has created global rise of cost of living, it read.

“No one is arrested due to such reporting. But the journalist was arrested because of child abuse and child exploitation, as he offered Tk 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. Secondly, he tried to undermine the independence of Bangladesh on the great Independence Day. These acts are surely tantamount to punishable crimes,” according to the ministry release.

The Bangladesh government is committed to upholding freedom of expression for all its citizens and the media.

However, creating social unrest by undertaking such a fraudulent act is contrary to the spirit of honest journalism.

The government, as a party to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), would not tolerate any such act of abusing children.

The Government would also not accept any such effort aimed at maligning the great Independence Day of the nation, said the statement.

Nagad
Walton