Who Is ‘Sunita Paul’?

Today The Daily Star published my op-ed “Who is ‘Sunita Paul’?” The op-ed expands on my post on Sunita Paul from last week.

The full op-ed follows:

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Saturday, April 11, 2009

Who is ‘Sunita Paul’? 

“SUNITA PAUL” is an “Indian journalist” who has been writing inflammatory articles on Bangladesh in little known foreign online outlets. “Sunita Paul” is also a plagiarist – a cheat.

“Sunita Paul” has caused quite a stir recently because her articles make extraordinary claims, based on anonymous sources and apparent hearsay, about the political situation in Bangladesh. Extraordinary claims without much factual support require a significant leap of faith by the reader. Whether they should be believed completely depend on her credibility.

The very persona of “Sunita Paul” is somewhat of a mystery. “Sunita Paul” is listed as a writer for the Weekly Blitz, the tabloid run by Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury. She also rather coincidentally writes in a number of online publications – American Chronicle, Global Politician and Asian Tribune – that also publish Mr. Choudhury’s articles. She holds strongly negative views about Bangladesh, and has published articles maliciously claiming Bangladesh to be anti-American, anti-Western, and anti-Semitic.

On March 30, 2008, “Sunita Paul” published an article in the Asian Tribune entitled “They Hate US-West Too.” By “they,” she refers to Bangladesh. In the opening sentence of the article, she makes this extraordinary charge: “Bangladesh, although demanding to be a moderate Muslim nation, is in reality a notorious Jew hater and anti West and anti American nation.”

She goes on to write that “people of Bangladesh in general are West and US haters and the only reason for them for sending their children to these countries are for mere money making.”

Note that she is not pointing towards any particular group or party, she is charging Bangladesh as a country, and all Bangladeshis as “Jew hater and anti West and anti American nation.”

The thrust of that article is to push Bangladesh to change its policy toward Israel. She questions whether the United States should do business at all with Bangladesh. She writes: “Can we raise a plain question as to whether the Jewish business communities and friends of Israel like United States should patronize Dhaka economically to sharpen and strengthen their anti Semitic and anti US sentiments?”

While writing inflammatory articles on Bangladesh, “Sunita Paul” often uses unverifiable sources for her claims, uses unchecked propaganda, and most notoriously, steals from other people’s work and claims them as her own.

When a journalist is engaged in plagiarism – that is when a journalist makes false claims of authorship – the remainder of that journalist’s work should be viewed with extreme suspicion. Plagiarism is dishonesty. And “Sunita Paul” is a plagiarist. She is a cheat.

On February 6, “Sunita Paul” published an article in the online publication American Chronicle with the breathless headline “Ruling party getting set to try Bangladesh Generals.” Now, if the claim in the article’s headline were true, this would be big news.

However, the article was thin on backing up the main charge in the headline. As one reads further through the long article though, one comes across a number of paragraphs that seemed very familiar to this author. For a very good reason. The paragraphs were originally written by me in two October 2007 articles. [The articles, titled”Banking: Junta Edition” and “In Denial” are available at:http://www.e-bangladesh.org/2007/10/page/4/]

“Sunita Paul” copied, word for word, five paragraphs that I had written in 2007 and passed them off as her own writing in 2009. No citation was given, nor did she put the passages in quotations. In other words, she has stolen someone else’s words and claimed them as her own. Not only did she plagiarise, she also used copyrighted material without the author’s consent.

It is clear that “Sunita Paul” is a “journalist” with an agenda – an agenda that wants to portray Bangladesh negatively in the West and in the United States. A “journalist” with such a political agenda is no journalist at all. In addition, she is a cheat. Her journalistic ethics are in serious question.

Yet, a number of prominent people in Bangladesh, including the leader of the opposition in Parliament, have cited the articles of “Sunita Paul” that fuel unsubstantiated conspiracy theories about the recent massacre at Pilkhana. The same person who wrote malicious propaganda against Bangladesh is now being given credence in spreading unsubstantiated conspiracy theories that will hamper fair, neutral investigation of the BDR massacre. It should however be clear to everyone that this so-called journalist’s agenda is counter to the best interests of the people of Bangladesh.

Given the corrosive agenda of “Sunita Paul” and her proven plagiarism, the reader should question her breathless articles on Bangladesh.

Mashuqur Rahman is a blogger and a member of the Drishtipat Writers Collective.

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12 Responses to Who Is ‘Sunita Paul’?

  1. zm says:

    There should be a demand for two immediate actions:

    *Ban Sunita Paul from publishing anything in the electronic or print media.
    *Make Sunita Paul come out in public and defend her writing. Or face charges on the grounds of plagiarism and yellow journalism.

    Can the SAJA not do something about it?

  2. stranger says:

    who is sunita paul????
    she is writing in disguise. she is someone from bangladesh. it is not she, she is actually a “he”. i am sure he is one who served in DGFI of BD Armed Forces, now retired. he is inspired by Major General A.T.M Amin for all those writings. Infact, Amin writes all those papers and hands over those to that retired officer to publish online. the retired person served in kolkata deputy HC office for about 4 years, appointed from DGFI, as cultural secretary. the writings of so called sunita paul includes such information and style clearly indicate his present link with DGFI. sunita paul is a paid agent of DGFI and has an office at banani. he gets taka 50,000 a month for manning the office. he also has few more retired persons of armed forces.

  3. Mintoo says:

    Sunita Paul is Salahuddin Shoaib Chowdhury. Salahuddin Shoaib Chowdhury is zionist agent in Bangladesh. His plan is to trash Bangladesh / blackmail Bangladesh until Bangladesh recognizes Israel.

    It is not only Awami Leagues handling of BDR massacre that Mr Salahuddin Shoaib Chowdhury is writing about. In the past he resorted to vitriolic hate mongering about BNP government, Tarique Rahman and businessman Mamun. Salahuddin was specifically after Mamun because Mamun refused to pay him money. Slahuddin simply blackmailed him.

    The person who is godfather of Salahuddin is Mr Richard Benkin. Mr Benkin is a zionist activist in USA and is specifically assigned to blackmail Bangladesh into recognizing Israel.

  4. mitchell says:

    Yeah I do agree that Sunita is a plagiarist. But isn’t true that there are some anti-India and anti-Western feelings among the Bangladeshi people? The person above is one example. I just don’t know why they always cook conspiracy theories that India and Israel are there to destroy them. Instead we(India and Bangladesh)can develop better trade relationships and eliminate suspicions.

  5. A Haq says:

    @stranger

    Why would the DGFI weaken Bangladesh image?

  6. Pingback: Sunita Paul: The International (Wo)man of Mystery - E-Bangladesh

  7. stranger says:

    A group of people have been ousted from DGFI recently for their misdeeds during last two years. It should have been known by those group of people that oneday either BNP or AL will take revenge for all their misconduct with the politicians. I also dont say that our politicians are good men of principles. Knowing fully well, these ex-DGFI people are making an endeavour to make the general mass, especially the young lots of the armed forces, excited against the present ruling party. BD DGFI, vis-s-vis all intelligence agencies, make such move to see the rection of the mass.
    I am sure it is Colonel (retired ) Isahq Miah who is manning a office for DGFI in disgise at Banani. That day the same office was burnt by fire and it was a preplanned sabotage by themselves. They destroyed all their write-ups.

  8. confusedandstunned says:

    Yeah Weekly Blitz is as nasty a ‘yellow’ rag as they come, I can’t believe anyone associated calls themselves a “journalist.” “Pot-stirrer” “Opportunist” “scum” sound more appropriate, if you’ve ever read their “work.” Its embarassing.

  9. watch says:

    infact, sunita paul is not a journalist at all. she or he cuts and pastes the portion of articles of various writers. the dull headed DGFI staffs cannot do more than this. Yes , I agree with stranger, these are the evil works of idiot ex-DGFI outsted staffs.

  10. Animals Farm says:

    Mitchell, I can not agree with any more.
    This is what is our problem ! Thank you

  11. John says:

    One comment posted stated :

    “Ban Sunita Paul from publishing anything in the electronic or print media.”

    Let me remind this fellow that not everywhere you can have bangladesh laws, just because u can shut someone up in bangladesh doesn’t mean u can shut someone on the internet.

    The author made mentioned “In the opening sentence of the article, she makes this extraordinary charge: “Bangladesh, although demanding to be a moderate Muslim nation, is in reality a notorious Jew hater and anti West and anti American nation.”

    First of it is true that there are people in bangladesh which are anti-Semitic , AS IN THE BANGLADESH PASSPORT IT IS STATED THAT IT IS NOT VALID IN ISRAEL…the only people that are harming bangladesh is the people who write comments/articles in this website.

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