Politicians must play their role to ensure communal harmony: Article 19

People from all professions, especially politicians, have to take a significant role to counter communalism and religious intolerance in the country, said discussants at a programme organised by UK-based international human rights organisation Article 19.

"We all have a responsibility to fight against communalism, fundamentalism and religious bigotry. Alongside family, educational institutions and religious leaders, it is the politicians who have the most responsibility in this case. We have to resist the politics based on the religion of the majority people aiming at gaining ill interests only,'' said Faruq Faisel, Regional Director of Article 19 South Asia, at the programme on Monday.

"Knowing about all religions can build religious equality and harmony among people. We have to make our youth interested in this,'' he said further while speaking at a live radio show on Community Radio Naf 99.2 FM organised to promote communal harmony, pluralism, inclusion and tolerance in the society.

Highlighting the role of social media users, especially the youth, in maintaining communal harmony, the programme discussed the role of internet users and local opinion leaders in preventing the spread of rumours, misinformation, disinformation, fake news, hate speech and incitement to communal violence online.

Anchored by Radio Naf officials Harunur Rashid and Joya Paul, the live programme titled "The Role of Internet Users in Maintaining Communal Harmony" included listeners over the phone as well those who shared their questions and opinions on various issues related to the use of the internet and social media. 

Tamanna Mustari, Assistant Director, Department of Secondary and Higher Education, said the tendency on becoming "viral" is rampant among young people nowadays. Many of them spread rumours and fake news online only to get "attention", without realising its consequences. 

"Since most of the online users are young we need to make them educated more about digital literacy and media information literacy," she added.

Santosh Kumar Sheel, an assistant professor at Teknaf Government College, said rumours are provoking communal attacks the most in recent incidents of communal violence. Unnecessary tensions are often created in religious festivals, which have nothing to do with religious rituals. 

"So, we all need to be aware of the responsibility of behaving as well as celebrating the festival," he added.

While speaking about rumours, journalist Jabed Iqbal Chowdhury said rumours and fake news spread quickly when there is a lack of accurate information on any incident at the local level. In 2012, Buddhist temples in Ramu were set on fire and destroyed following rumours circulated on Facebook. Therefore, the government and the media should be more responsible in disseminating accurate information as quickly as possible in case of any sensitive incident.