There are two important things to know about compulsive liars when they feel under pressure and vulnerable. First, the scope of their lies grows – their untruths become, as they say in the United States, “whoppers.” Second, they are usually more easily disproven than their run-of-the-mill lies.
Take, for example, Bangladesh’s State Minister for Foreign Affairs statement in this article: “‘But you have seen the two-page advertisement that cost at least a million dollars, with most of the signatories being retired individuals. It raises doubts,’ he said, referring to a letter published in the form of an ‘advertisement’ in the Washington Post on March 7 in favour of Dr Yunus.” In this article, the figure he cites is “about $2 million.”
In fact, if someone were to look at this public document published by the Washington Post, the maximum that the March ad could have cost was $83,430, based on the Per Column Inch (PCI) rate of $927 applied to a full-page ad. In fact, the Protect Yunus Campaign negotiated a significant discount below this published amount, as many ad buyers (especially nonprofit ones) do. (It would be indiscreet to say exactly how much of a discount they gave us, but it was substantial.) The fact-checkers working in the Foreign Ministry—if there are any!—could have easily discovered this fact had they spent even ten minutes researching the matter.
The other lie is that the ad was two pages. It is obvious to anyone who saw the ad that it was one page: A7, to be exact.
Another criticism that was leveled at the time the Post ad was published concerned the fact that it was a paid advertisement, rather than news coverage of Professor Yunus’ persecution by his own government. The Campaign responded to that at the time, but a better response can be found in the fact that the Post has recently covered this crisis.
Now, a New York Times ad has just been published based on a more recent open letter to the Prime Minister. When you hear criticisms of this effort in solidarity with Professor Yunus, remember that when liars are feeling the heat, they lie big. We won’t go to the trouble of disproving all the “whoppers” to come, but we invite other people of goodwill to try their hand at doing so. It’s usually not difficult.
If you are as outraged about all this as we are, check out our call to action to get involved and help resolve this crisis in a humane and just manner.