In July-August 2024, Bangladesh witnessed a student-led popular uprising. Following the movement, a section of the student leaders formed a new political party named the National Citizens’ Party (NCP). Recently, a document titled “July Declaration of Commitment,” containing seven demands and bearing the party’s letterhead and alleged signatures of NCP leaders, has been circulated on Facebook. A fact-checking investigation by FactWatch reveals that the NCP did not issue any such declaration. The party confirmed this on Saturday, August 2, through a post on its verified Facebook page.

In the course of verifying the authenticity of the so-called July Declaration being circulated on Facebook, FactWatch found a post on NCP’s verified Facebook page dated Saturday, August 2.

In the post, the party marked an image of the alleged declaration with a “Fake” stamp and stated: “Leaders and activists of a fallen fascist force are spreading such a notice on social media using the letterhead of the National Citizens’ Party – NCP. This is false, untrue, and fabricated.”

FactWatch also conducted a comparative analysis between the alleged declaration and previous official notices published by NCP. Several inconsistencies were identified. For instance, the so-called declaration lacks any reference or serial number and is undated. There are also no dates below the signatures of the alleged NCP leaders. In general, NCP’s official documents typically include reference numbers and dates.

Additionally, the NCP logo is used in the alleged declaration. An analysis of multiple verified notices from the party’s Facebook page shows that NCP does not usually include its logo in its official releases.

No news outlet in the country has reported any confirmation of the authenticity of this so-called declaration related to the July uprising. Based on the overall findings, FactWatch has identified the so-called declaration as false.

Original News Source: https://www.fact-watch.org/july-charter-of-commitment-ncp/