Netra News, an investigative news website based in Sweden, became the latest target of the Bangladeshi government’s online crackdown on med...
Netra News, an investigative news website based in Sweden, became the latest target of the Bangladeshi government’s online crackdown on media organisations publishing critical content about the country.
The publication is known for its critical reporting on Bangladesh issues.
YouTube on last Thursday disabled the channel of Netra News for nearly 24 hours following a series of false and malicious copyright claims. YouTube later restored the channel after Netra News’s editor Tasneem Khalil mailed the social media giant about the false claims.
“We have determined that the copyright takedown request we received for [three videos] was invalid,” Youtube told Khalil in a message.
Khalil says that the false and malicious copyright claims were part of a cyber-attack on the channel.
“The false claims began to come shortly after we uploaded on Youtube a story detailing a potential corruption scheme orchestrated by close aides and family members of a state minister in Bangladesh on August 10, 2021,” Khalil told this correspondent.
The story detailed how a front company controlled by the family members and close associates of Nasrul Hamid Bipu, Bangladesh’s state minister of power, energy and mineral resources, had allegedly entered into a partnership with two major foreign contractors to secure a public-private partnership deal worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
“The entire production was carried...
