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‘Use religion to spread correct info on Covid-19’


Published : 28 Oct 2020 09:28 PM | Updated : 29 Oct 2020 09:16 PM

Religious views and extreme conservative sentiments have fueled panic and anxiety about rising spread of coronavirus around the world, said religious leaders at a discussion meeting on Wednesday. 

They identified some far-right religious voices as fueling public anxiety about coronavirus who they said were claiming the disease to be a punishment to liberals and nonbelievers while using religion and mass prayers as the cure to preventing covid-19 infection and keeping safe. 

Extreme conservative Islamist voices have been exaggerating the issues of coronavirus infection by injecting fear among the public. The discussants noted that such extreme voices are designed to destroy government’s safety policies. 

They said that the challenge is to ignore and disregard such baseless religious misinformation about coronavirus and instead use positive roles of religious harmony to fight covid-19.

ARTICLE 19, a UK based international human rights organization in collaboration with German Federal Foreign Office, Deutsche Welle (DW) which is Germany’s international broadcaster and Bangladeshi satellite television channel ‘Chanel I ‘ hosted a television talk show discussion  with  Muslim, Hindu, and Christian religious leaders along with an Islamic women's rights activist among the discussants. The discussion was moderated by DW host Khaled Muhiuddin.  

The panelists included Professor Dr AKM Shamsuzzaman, Director and Professor of Microbiology, National Institute of Laboratory Medicine and Referral Center; Maolana Mufti Waliur Rahman Khan, Muhaddis, Islamic Foundation; Ms Azizun Nahar, Assistant Professor, Law and Human Rights, University of Asia Pacific and Sri Kajal Debnath, Presidium Member, Bangladesh Hindu Buddhist Christian Unity Council. 

This diverse group of speakers is a reflection of the religiously diverse Bangladeshi society and represents communities of the people involved in healthcare to funeral and burial services that have become increasingly complicated to the infectious nature of the disease with rising hospitalization and deaths. 

The main focus of the discussion was to understand how different communities can come together to overcome the challenges and help one another during the crisis. Cooperation and social harmony are key to ensuring everyone’s safety and equal access to services, as the pandemic affects all regardless of beliefs, class and creed. 

DW Asia’s Project Manager, Florian Weigrand said, "Religion plays an important role in South Asia, and the call to jointly and responsibly face the challenges of the pandemic is a visible sign of religious authorities opposing extremist fake news.” 

For a country like Bangladesh that is religiously conservative, using religion as a tool to help disseminate accurate evidence-based information and establishing social behavioral guidelines can become critical. Especially with increased misinformation and disinformation, including the positive religious voices help to counter the negative bad spoilers who use religion as a tool to spread extremist and harmful views.

Additionally, it is important to be inclusive and include the voices of all these religious leaders in helping to spread important messages about health safety issues and provide assurance to the people at a time of increased public anxiety. 

“We are only as strong as our worst prepared segments of the population; therefore, it is important to help each other and work together to fight this public health emergency that we all face,” said another discussant.

Faruq Faisel, Regional Director of ARTICLE 19, Bangladesh and South Asia, said, “When Bangladesh government is preparing to address the second wave of COVID 19, such a program will support the Bangladesh Prime Minister’s initiatives to make the public aware of their personal and societal responsibilities to combat the pandemic according to their religious guidelines, supported by the scientific explanations.”