Bangladesh to watch journalists travelling abroad

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has instructed all the foreign missions to monitor the activities of the Bangladeshi journalists travelling abroad and report back to Dhaka.

Senior Correspondentbdnews24.com
Published : 17 May 2017, 06:38 PM
Updated : 17 May 2017, 07:06 PM

The External Publicity Wing of the foreign ministry also sent the instruction to media on Wednesday.

It said the decision followed the parliamentary standing committee on the foreign affairs’ recommendation.

The 20th meeting of the watchdog viewed that “any Bangladeshi journalist travelling should be monitored and accordingly will have to be reported back to Ministry of Foreign Affairs, if their activities are found to be against the interest of the country”.

“The parliamentary standing committee has expressed its concern over the negative activities of Bangladeshi journalists abroad as such activities send out wrong information on Bangladesh in the international arena”.

The foreign ministry also instructed missions to take up the matter “seriously so that Bangladeshi journalists, whenever travelling to the respective host countries, should be monitored to unearth their activities”.

“If anybody’s involvement is found against the interest and the image of the country, he/she must be identified and their negative activities must be reported back to the MoFA immediately”.

The foreign ministry, however, did not clarify what type of negative activities journalists carry out abroad.

But following the parliamentary watchdog meeting, it was reported that the issue came up following recent visits of Bangladeshi journalists to Pakistan at the invitation of Islamabad.

Bangladesh won independence from Pakistan in 1971. But Islamabad continues to interfere in the internal affairs of Bangladesh by repeatedly expressing concerns over the ongoing war crimes trial.