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13th National Parliamentary ElectionFact CheckPolitical

“No Non-Muslim in Bangladesh Parliament” Remark Not Made by Jamaat Candidate

Recently, multiple Indian media outlets have claimed that a certain Afzal Hossain, who made the statement “In this country of 80% Muslims, there can be no non-believer parliamentary representative,” is the Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami candidate for the Barguna-2 constituency.

See reports by Indian media with this claim: World Is One News, News18, Jagran, NewsX, CNN News18.

See posts with the same claim: Facebook, X, Threads.

Fact Check

The Rumor Scanner team’s investigation reveals that the claim that a certain Afzal Hossain, who made the statement “In this country of 80% Muslims, there can be no non-believer parliamentary representative,” is the Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami candidate for the Barguna-2 constituency is not correct. In reality, the Jamaat candidate for that constituency is Dr. Sultan Ahmad. The person named Afzal Hossain made the discussed statement at Dr. Sultan Ahmad’s public meeting, where he also joined Jamaat during the same event.

Investigating this matter, verifying the candidate list for the Barguna-2 constituency in the ‘Information and Affidavit of Candidates for National Parliamentary Election’ section on the Election Commission’s website, it is seen that the Jamaat-e-Islami candidate for that constituency is Dr. Sultan Ahmad. No candidate named Afzal Hossain was found on that list.

In a subsequent investigation, a report published on the website of the online news media outlet Jago News 24 on January 23 was found. It reveals that a statement — “In this country of 80 percent Muslims, there can be no non-believer or indecent parliamentary representative” — made at an election rally of the Jamaat-e-Islami nominated parliamentary candidate for the Barguna-2 constituency has spread on social media. On December 22, the first day of election campaigning, around 6:45 PM, a person named Afzal Hossain made such a statement at an election rally for Jamaat-e-Islami nominated candidate Dr. Sultan Ahmad at the Douatala School field in Bamna Upazila of Barguna. During the rally, he joined Jamaat-e-Islami. Following that, he made this statement at the rally.

The same information is also known from multiple media outlets in the country (Somoy TV, Ittefaq).

Therefore, the claim that a certain Afzal Hossain, who made the statement “In this country of 80% Muslims, there can be no non-believer parliamentary representative,” is the Jamaat candidate for the Barguna-2 constituency is false.

Sources

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