What Do We Know

Researchers of the Center for Governance Studies (CGS) under the Digital Security Act research project have gathered information from – 1) Government-approved print and electronic media; 2) the accused or their family and friends; 3) the lawyer of the accused; and 4) police station and other concerned departments. After collecting the data, accuracy of these data has been checked to the highest extent possible before entering a database which is publicly available through a website (https://freedominfo.net/). (The website is updated regularly as new information is received and processed). Details of 426 cases filed between January 1, 2020 to March 25, 2021 have been gathered. A total of 913 people have been accused in these cases. Based on these cases, this report has been prepared highlighting various aspects of the application of this law.

Who is being Accused, Who is Being Detained

Of the 913 accused, information about the occupations of 733 have been gathered. According to this information, 11 percent of the accused are politicians, and more than 10 percent are journalists. Among those whose occupations are known, they constitute 14.1 percent and 13.2 percent, respectively (Table-1).

Table 1 – Profession of the accused

We have been able to identify the age of 299 of these accused. It shows that the most accused are between the ages of 26 and 40, about 46 percent. If we consider the age from 18 to 40, it stands at more than 80 percent (Table-2).

Table 2 – Age of the accused

According to the available information, 273 have been arrested. From these we have collected occupational information of 240 persons. About 13 percent of them are journalists and 11.3 percent are politicians. Interestingly, although more cases are filed against the politicians, it is the journalists who get arrested more. Then students and teachers are next highest numbers (Table-3).

Table 3 – Professions of the Arrestees

As for the age group of the arrestees, more than 80 percent are between the ages of 18 and 40. It is noteworthy that about 3 percent of them are under 18 years of age (Table-4).

Table 4 – Age of Arrestees

Journalists of Which Media are Being Accused and Detained

According to the data we have gathered, 97 journalists have been accused. Among them, we have details about 90 journalists’ media affiliation – 32 are associated with national level media, and 58 are local journalists. Online media journalists from outside Dhaka have been accused the most. Of the 90 people, majority of them are associated with the print media – a total of 50, more than a half of all. The second highest number of journalists are associated with online media, a total of 30, almost one-third (Table-5).

Table 5 – Workplace of Accused Journalists

The number of detained journalists is 31, of whom 17 are not associated with the national level media (Table-6).

Table 6 – Workplace of Detained Journalists

Cases Against & Detention of Teachers

Our database has information about 22 accused teachers. It shows that most of the cases have been against college and university teachers. Of the total accused teachers, 27 percent are college teachers and 27 percent are university teachers (Table-7).

Table 7 – Workplace of accused teachers

A total of 15 teachers have been arrested in different cases. College teachers have been detained the most. One-third of the detained teachers are college teachers and 26.66

percent are madrassah teachers (Table-8).

Table 8 – Workplace of detained teachers

Accused Government Employees

Of the 733 accused in the 426 cases, there are 17 government employees, 6 are members of the police force (Table-9)

Table 9 – Workplace of accused Government Employees

Who are the Accusers?

The details of the 426 cases we have gathered show that most of the cases have been filed as personal complaints. However, it is not always that the victims of some wrongdoings have lodged the complaints. It has been found that a significant number of complainants have been filed by individuals alleging defamation of other individuals. The identities of the accusers we have gathered in 357 cases show that law enforcing agencies (Police, RAB, and others) have filed 45 cases, 12.6 percent of the cases in our database (Table-10). There are 74 people associated with political parties and 19 people are elected representatives – a total of 93 people are involved in politics in one way or the other.

Table 10 – Identities of the Accusers

Of those who are involved with political parties, 76 are found to be directly involved with the ruling party and its affiliates. In other words, 82 percent of the accusers that we have been able to identify are the leaders and workers of the ruling party (Table-11).

Table 11 – Political identities of the accusers

Of the nineteen (19) elected representatives identified, the details show that most of them are the Chairmen of the Union Parishad. However, it is noteworthy that there are 3 Members of Parliament among them (Table-12).

Table 12 – Identities of Elected Representatives

What are the Accusations, Who are the Accused, Who are the Accusers

There are 22 sections in the Digital Security Act-2018 which deals with offenses and penalties; but the details of the cases show that 16 sections have been used. In some cases, cases have been filed against the same person under multiple sections. (Table-13).

Table 13- How many cases under which section

Section 29 has been used in the largest number of cases. 39 cases have been filed under this section, in which 91 people have been accused. This section deals with publishing, broadcasting & disseminating defamatory information. [It says 29(1),” If a person commits an offence of publication or broadcast defamatory information as described in section 499 of the Penal Code (Act XLV of 1860) in any website or in any other electronic format then he will be sentenced to a term of imprisonment not exceeding 3 (Three) years or fine not exceeding Tk.5 (Five) lac or both.” 29(2) says,” If any person commits the offence mentioned in sub-section (1) second time or repeatedly, he will be sentenced to a term of imprisonment not exceeding 5 (Five) years or fine not exceeding Tk.10 (Ten) lac or both.”] But considering the number of accused persons, section 25 is being used the most; a total of 112 people have been accused in 37 cases. This section deals with publishing, sending of offensive, false or fear inducing data-information, etc. [It says 25(1), “If any person in any website or through any digital medium – a) Intentionally or knowingly sends such information which is offensive or fear inducing, or which despite knowing it as false is sent, published or propagated with the intention to annoy, insult, humiliate or denigrate a person or b) Publishes or propagates or assists in publishing or propagating any information with the intention of tarnishing the image of the nation or spread confusion or despite knowing it as false, publishes or propagates or assists in publishing or propagates information in its full or in a distorted form for the same intentions, then, the activity of that person will be an offense under the Act. (2) If any person commits any offense mentioned within sub section (1), the person will be penalized with imprisonment for a term not exceeding 3 (three) years of or fine not exceeding 3 (three) lacs taka or with both. (3) If any person commits the offense mentioned in sub-section (1) for the second time or recurrently commits it then, he will be punished with imprisonment for a term not exceeding 5 (five) years or with fine not exceeding 10 (ten) lacs taka or with both.]” So far, this section has been the most discussed and objected among the sections. We have explored the professional identities of the accused under these two sections. Of the 91 accused in 39 cases under Section 29, 89 have been identified. Most of them are politicians – 40; then there are the journalists – 14 people (Table-14).

Table 14 – Professional identity of the accused under section 29

Section 25 is the most controversial Section of the law, and widely discussed. The number of accused is 112 in 37 cases under the Section 25; we have been able to gather the professional identities of 108 people. Among them 37 are politicians and 12 are journalists (Table-15).

Table 15 – Professional identity of the accused under section 25

In all those cases filed under these two sections, the professional attachments of the accusers were found to be 38 in section 29 and 36 in section 25. It has also been found that the majority of the accused were politicians in both the 29 section of the Act and the 25 section of the Act (Table-16 and Table-17).

Table 16 – Professional identity of the accusers under Section 29

Table 17 – Professional identity of the complainants under section 25