Executive Summary

This report analyses and assesses the enduring impact that the Digital Security Act, 2018 (DSA) has had on journalists in Bangladesh, based on a unique dataset of 451 instances in which the DSA was used against journalists nationwide between its adoption in 2018 until its repeal in 2023. On this basis, the report identifies key patterns in the prosecutions of journalists for online speech and provides recommendations for ways the current and future governments of Bangladesh can better protect media freedom, freedom of expression, and civil liberties, including with respect to the enforcement of the cyber-security law now in force, the Cyber Security Ordinance, 2025 (CSO).

The report analyses 222 cases involving 396 journalists (totalling 451 instances of criminalization) to document how the DSA’s vague and overbroad provisions that criminalize offenses such as defamation, spreading misinformation, and offensive speech were applied to punish reporting and criticism online. Thirty cases were also selected for deepdive analysis, including by interviewing the affected journalists.

The report examines patterns in substantive accusations levelled, types of charges brought, the profiles of journalists and accusers, and the process of these cases to evaluate how the DSA has been applied against journalists across Bangladesh. Our data reveals that the DSA was used as a tool of harassment and intimidation, predominantly by politicians, but also by others for personal rivalries. Journalists were arbitrarily arrested from their homes, often at odd hours, their devices were seized and they were subject to pre-trial detention. However, most cases analysed did not reach trial, making the process the punishment. The ones that did ended in acquittal, reflecting the apparently baseless nature of these cases— only one journalist in the dataset was convicted.¹ In many instances, the journalists claimed that the case was filed in retaliation for their work— and was not solely motivated by the reporting/social media posts that formed the subject of the complaint.

A report by TrialWatch and the Centre for Governance Studies (CGS) in November 2024 previously highlighted how cases under the repealed provisions of the Information and Communication Technology Act, 2006 (ICT Act) have continued despite lacking a legal basis because they were not saved by the Cyber Security Act, 2023 (CSA).² This report is the next in the series. While the interim government has recently adopted an ordinance (the Cyber Security (Amendment) Ordinance) quashing select DSA cases,³ which had otherwise been permitted to proceed in recent months, and has promulgated a list of cases to be withdrawn, it is not yet clear whether this list is comprehensive, how this directive will be implemented, and, importantly, how convictions will be quashed.

Finally, the Cyber Security Ordinance continues to include several provisions susceptible of misuse, including Section 26, which criminalizes publishing or promoting “in cyberspace anything that is religious or communal hate speech or racial hatred and that . . . creates anxiety.” By using terms such as ‘anxiety,’ Section 26 brings forward some of the elements of Section 31 of the DSA, which featured prominently in our dataset, and which included vague language referring to “unrest or disorder.” Further, because an ordinance is a temporary form of Presidential legislation, if the Cyber Security Ordinance is not adopted by the incoming Parliament, it will lapse, creating further legal confusion as the flawed predecessor legislation, the Cyber Security Act, 2023, could snap back into force.

While the Cyber Security Ordinance includes a provision criminalizing the filing of false complaints, as well as one requiring that the affected person must file any complaint themselves, the extent to which these provisions act as a safeguard against the invocation of the law to settle political or personal grievances remains to be seen.

With elections only several months away, it is critical that Bangladesh consolidate reforms, mitigate remaining risks, and ensure the effective implementation of the recent amendment to the CSO. Otherwise, there is a substantial risk that the CSO could be selectively instrumentalized against critical journalists by whichever political party assumes power, as the DSA was.