Rights activists and academics at a webinar on Saturday urged the government to repeal the controversial and draconian Digital Security Act, 2018.
The law is unconstitutional as it denies people their constitutional right to the freedom of expression, said the speakers at the event, organised by Centre for Governance Studies.
Fisheries and livestock minister SM Rezaul Karim, however, said that the 2018 law was needed to control crimes in ‘Digital Bangladesh’ as motives and character of crimes were changing over the time.
‘I will not say that there is no fault in the Digital Security Act. None of the laws is out of any controversy. If needed, the act may be amended,’ he said.
He said that the death of writer Mushtaq Ahmed was unexpected and the government should punish those who were responsible for his death.
Bangladeshi-born American political scientist and Illinois State University’s Distinguished Professor Ali Riaz said that most of the sections of the 2018 law gave law enforcement agencies excessive power denying a detainee any bail.
‘A person shouldn’t be accused of any non-bailable offence for exercising freedom of speech and for tarnishing mere images of the state and the liberation war, which everybody may define differently,’ he said.
He said that the law was enacted to sow terror among citizens and to stop dissident voices.
‘This law should be repealed, not amended,’ he said adding that its implementation itself was dangerous.
Jurist Shahdeen Malik said that no country in the world has any law like the Digital Security Act, under which people could be accused for hurting image of the state, shocking someone’s feelings though these things could be neither measured nor defined.
‘The 2018 law is an absurd law — a new inclusion in the world,’ he said.
He said that the law was enacted to stop voices of the people and to secure the power of an autocratic government.
Centre for Governance Studies chairman Manjur A Chowdhury in a power point presentation showed that at least 783 cases were filed under the 2018 law in different districts between January 1, 2020 and February 25 this year.
The centre analysed 402 cases and found that 13.68 per cent of 873 accused were journalists, 13.39 per cent political leaders, 5.68 per cent students.
Manjur unveiled that 402 cases were filed 338 people, 26.28 per cent of whom were member of the law enforcement agencies.
The centre’s executive director Zillur Rahman moderated the event, where the parliamentary standing committee on the ministry of post, telecommunication and information technology member Zakia Parvin Khanom spoke among others.
News Courtesy:
https://www.newagebd.net/article/131349/repeal-of-digital-security-act-demanded
