US human-rights report biased

Information Minister Hasan Mahmud yesterday said the recently-published US human-rights report has been prepared after collecting information from biased sources, and so, it is one-sided.

He said this while replying to journalists after exchanging views with leaders of Bangladesh Federal Union of Newspaper Press Workers and Bangladesh Newspaper Workers' Federation at the ministry conference room at the secretariat in Dhaka.

"They collected data not from a single source, but rather from different anti-government and biased sources. So, the report is one-sided. Definitely, we are not rejecting the entire report as some good issues are there," he said.

But the issues relating to Bangladesh's human-rights situation, elections and democracy, which were mentioned in the report, are biased, he added.

Hasan, also Awami League joint general secretary, said there are many questions over the US elections too. Donald Trump hasn't accepted his defeat in the elections so far, he said.

Noting that the US sometimes talks about extra-judicial killings in Bangladesh, the minister said if anyone notices the extra-judicial killings in the US, it will be found that 7,666 people were killed in police firing between 2013 and 2019, 996 in 2020, and an average of 1,000 in 2021-2022 period.

"Now it is a question whether the country, where on an average 1,000 people are killed in police firing every year, has the moral right to raise questions over other countries," he said.  "I am not saying that such incidents never take place in our country. But investigations are carried out and punishments are also dealt."