From fact-checker to fact-checked: CA Press Wing’s turn in the hot seat

Since the beginning of the interim government's tenure, its press wing has kept both local and international media on a tight leash. It swiftly fact-checks dissenting reports and stamps them with labels such as "misleading" or the ever-favourite "fake news."

But now, the tables have turned — and rather dramatically. The press wing, once the self-appointed watchdog of truth, is now the one being fact-checked.

Let's just say the internet's fact-checkers are having a field day—and their report card is anything but favourable for the press wing.

It all began when Dr Muhammad Yunus's press secretary, Shafiqul Alam, told reporters at a 10 June press briefing — amid mounting speculation over whether Dr Yunus would meet British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer during his UK tour — "What we came to know is that he is probably visiting Canada. A British parliamentarian came today and told us that Keir Starmer is in Canada."

He went on to say that a meeting would take place if schedules aligned, adding: "It's being worked out."

However, Alam's claim quickly collapsed under the weight of publicly available facts and was promptly called out.

On the very day he claimed Starmer was in Canada, the British Prime Minister was in Westminster, taking part in Prime Minister's Questions at the House of Commons and later visiting families affected by a knife attack in Southport.

It later emerged that while Starmer is scheduled to visit Canada, that trip is not until 14 June — a detail confirmed by Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney himself, who posted on social media: "This weekend, Canada will welcome Prime Minister Keir Starmer to Ottawa."

Faced with mounting backlash, Alam attempted to walk back his claim during a follow-up press conference on 11 June, stating: "Many people misinterpreted my statement. I said, 'probably'... But still, it was a mistake on my part. Later, when we came to know the fact clearly, we immediately corrected it."

While such a retraction might excuse a casual slip of the tongue, this episode is anything but trivial. It exposes not only lapses in message discipline but also deeper cracks in the ethical foundations of the interim government's communications strategy.

Here's why it matters

The press secretary's misleading statement did not emerge in a vacuum. Just days earlier, on 4 June, acting foreign secretary Ruhul Alam Siddique stated at a government press briefing — as reported by state news agency BSS — that Dr Yunus would meet both King Charles III and Prime Minister Keir Starmer.

So, Dr Yunus meeting Starmer wasn't speculation from any private media outlet. It was a formal government line, publicly disseminated by a government agency.

Yet, on 11 June, The Financial Times, in its report titled "Keir Starmer Declines to Meet Bangladesh Leader Tracking Down Missing Billions", stated that the British Prime Minister did not agree to a meeting with Muhammad Yunus in London.

According to the report, Yunus himself acknowledged that Starmer had not confirmed a meeting: "I have no direct conversation with him," he said, though he added that he had "no doubt" Starmer would support Bangladesh's efforts.

From this, one thing is clear: efforts were indeed made to secure a meeting, but no confirmation was ever in place. So why did the government claim otherwise? And more pressingly, why did the press secretary attempt to deflect scrutiny by suggesting that Starmer was "probably" out of the country?

Zia Haider Rahman, former international human rights lawyer and head of research at Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB), posed a pointed question in a Facebook post: "The most intriguing aspect of this story is why on earth CA Yunus decided to go ahead with an official visit if Starmer hadn't already agreed to meet him."

He added: "Did CA Yunus think that talking to the press would put pressure on Starmer? And what, that a subsequent meeting with Starmer would be friendly?"

Whether Alam's remark was based on faulty intelligence or constituted a deliberate misdirection remains unclear. But either way, it reveals a troubling failure — either a basic lapse in fact-checking or a more serious breach of ethical judgement.

British investigative journalist and documentary filmmaker David Bergman told The Business Standard: "One needs to know more about the background before coming to any conclusions. One assumes the Bangladesh government was led to believe by UK officials that a meeting would take place, and it was on that basis that the Bangladesh government briefed the media about it. However, clearly this was not officially diarised by Starmer's office, who then subsequently decided that such a meeting was not a priority."

He also noted: "Personally, I was surprised that Starmer had agreed in the first place to meet Yunus, an interim unelected leader who will be out of power very soon, and whose government is seeking to arrest Tulip Siddiq MP, a good friend and colleague of his, in the context of many arrests in Bangladesh which are politically compromised."

In addition, Bergman explained that Starmer's broader geopolitical concerns regarding South Asia are more focused on India, with whom the UK has recently signed a comprehensive trade deal.

"So whilst the UK government is certainly supportive of the Yunus government, a Yunus meeting with Starmer always seemed a big prize, rather than a likely outcome," he said.

Meanwhile, this misstep also lays bare the troubling double standards within the Chief Adviser's communications apparatus.

Just days ago, deputy press secretary Abul Kalam Azad Majumder warned that "legal action would be taken against those publishing false or misleading reports" in the aftermath of media misreporting related to the definition of freedom fighters.

Now, that same press wing has been caught disseminating demonstrably false information about the head of government of a G7 country. The question, then, is obvious: will there be similar consequences for this act of misinformation? Or will the press wing simply walk away from its own error, untouched?

If such an act goes without consequence and no internal accountability follows, the message is clear — and dangerous: the government demands truth from others but exempts itself. In a political environment where trust is already in short supply, such selective enforcement will only deepen public scepticism and undermine the very ideals the interim administration claims to uphold.

Dr Yunus's administration has prided itself on restoring integrity and international respect to Bangladeshi governance. But in this case, the failure lies not merely in a factual error, but in the deeper hypocrisy of demanding honesty from the media while failing to practise it in its own house.