16 NGOs Join Forces in a 10-Point Declaration to Combat Rumors/Disinformation

16 non-governmental development organizations, institutions and civic platforms operating in Bangladesh have issued a 10-point joint declaration to prevent rumors and misinformation and to protect disadvantaged, minority, gender diverse communities in the election period.
 
This announcement was made in a press release on Sunday after the joint network meeting of the institutions. Earlier, the Institute for Environment and Development (IED) held a two-day long network meeting with the support of The Asia Foundation during December 20-21, 2023 at YWCA auditorium in the capital. 18 organizations participated in it.

Among the 10 points, there is also an announcement to provide special protection to minorities, gender diversity and backward communities with focus on elections, including increasing the skills of local government and administration about rumours, including awareness curriculum about it in textbooks, increasing the capacity of news verification in the media, strengthening the capacity of the cyber cell of the police.

In the first part of the network meeting, Istihak Raihan, a faculty member in the Department of Economics of Jahangirnagar University, presented the main article in the discussion titled ‘Impact of misinformation in the Democratic Process of Bangladesh’. In the second part, the director of the Center for Critical and Qualitative Studies of ULAB, Deen Mohammad Sumon Rahman and the members of the Fact Watch team discussed various processes of news verification and cyber security.

On the second day, MRDI executive director Hasibur Rahman and senior program officer Syed Anik discussed advocacy strategies in the first phase jointly. In the second part, the senior reporter of Daily Ittefaq, Amir Mohammad, discussed about the importance of network development to prevent disinformation. 16 organizations participated in the joint declaration in the last phase.

The institutions participating in the joint declaration are IED, CQS (ULAB), Bangladesh Enterprise Institute (BEI), MKP (Thakurgaon), Association for Social Development of Bangladesh (ASDB), IDEA (Sylhet), ERA (Sunamganj), Prerona (Satakhira). , PAVE (Bogra), SHIELD (Savar), Harijan Yuva Kalyan Samity (Sherpur), Abalamban (Gaibandha), Disinformation Prevention Forum (DPF), Jatiya Adivasi Parishad (JAP), FTWT (Kishorganj), Janaudyog.