What Do We Know?

The project database, developed by gathering data from various sources, has 1436 cases with 4520 accused. We have found that 1549 of the accused were arrested under the law in these cases. We have verified information about 859 accusers, including the government agencies. This section of the report presents detail data regarding numerous features of the use of the DSA between October 2018 and September 2023.

Who is being accused, who is being detained?

In 1436 cases, between October 2018 and September 2023, at least 4520 people have been charged under the statute. We have data regarding 1534 individuals’ professions. The following is a breakdown of their professions (Table 01).

Table 1: Professions of the accused, Oct 2018 – Sep 2023

This data indicates that of individuals whose professions are known, 32.27% are politicians, and 29.40% are journalists. They constitute 10.95 percent and 9.98 percent, respectively, of the total number of accused (Figure 1).

Note: ‘Other profession’ denotes a profession that is not included in the list of professions mentioned above; ‘profession not found’ refers to the individuals whose professions are not known and are not listed.

We have gathered data regarding the age of 1548 accused. Of these, 28 are below the age of 18. In total, almost 82.43 percent of the accused belonged to the age group of 18-40. In terms of the number, accused within the age group 18-25 and 26-40 are close, 542 and 734, respectively (Table 2). Their respective shares are respectively 35.01 percent and 47.42 percent (Figure 2).

Table 2: Age of the accused, Oct 2018 – Sep 2023

Our database has the record of 1549 individuals who have been arrested under the law over the period between October 2018 and September 2023. We obtained 572 people’s occupational information from numerous sources. Of them, 143 were politicians, 97 were journalists and 104 were students (Table 3), that is 25.00 percent, 16.96 percent, and 18.18 percent, respectively (Figure 3). The share of politicians among the arrestees has increased compared to our previous study period (October 2018 – August 2022), when it was 21.75 percent.

Table 3: Professions of the arrestees, Oct 2018 – Sep 2023

We have been able to verify the age of 1016 of the 1549 individuals who have been arrested. Among them, 22 were underaged. The age range of 26–40 had the highest number of arrests (443), followed by the 18–25 age group (420). 41–55 is the third-largest age group (121). In terms of percentage, 43.60% of the known arrestees fall into the 26–40 age range, while 41.34% fall

into the 18–25 age range (Figure 4).

Figure 4: The age group of the arrestees, Oct 2018 – Sep 2023

Journalists as Victims

According to data gathered under the project 451 journalists have been accused, in 60-month period. Among them, we have details about 406 journalists’ media affiliations: 209 are associated with national level media, and 197 are local journalists. Out of the 451 journalists, a total of 217 are associated with the print media, nearly half of the identified workplace of journalists. The second highest number of journalists are associated with online media – a total of 134 (Table 4). Online media journalists from outside Dhaka have been the largest number of victims – 113 individuals. It is not only that the journalists working outside the capital are being accused of violating the law, but they are also the victims of being detained. Of the 97 journalists who have been detained, 50 were local journalists. It is the print media journalists who were detained the most – 50, this is more than half of the total arrested journalists (Figure 5).

Table 4: Workplace and medium of accused and detained journalists,

Oct 2018 – Sep 2023

In 202 cases, these 451 journalists have been accused by 202 people. Among these 202 accusers, 124 are aggrieved parties, while 61 individuals who haven’t been directly impacted by the news or any other actions of these journalists filed cases. We have explored the political identities of these accusers and found that 43 of them belong to the ruling party and its affiliates. Among them, 20 belong to the Bangladesh Awami League, nine of them belong to the Student League, eleven of them are members of the Jubo League (youth front), two are members of the Swechhasebak (Volunteer) League and one is member of the Krishak (Farmers) League. These journalists are alleged to have violated more than one section of the DSA in many instances. However, 155 journalists are accused of a breach of Section 25, and 154 are alleged to have violated Section 29. Section 25 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 subsection (1), the person will be penalized with imprisonment for a term not exceeding 3 (three) years of or fines not exceeding 3 (three) lacs taka or with both. (3) If any person commits the offense mentioned in subsection (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 a fine not exceeding 10 (ten) lacs taka or with both.” Section 29 deals with publishing, broadcasting and 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.” Three other sections of the law have been used against the journalists – section 31 (39 cases, 73 accused); section 35 (28 cases, 74 accused) and section 26 (20 cases, 53 accused).

Educators as Victims

42 of the 59 educators who have been accused, according to our total data, have been arrested. The highest number of the accused—20—are madrassah teachers, and they, along with the 16 college teachers, have the highest number of people being detained. Three university teachers have been arrested out of a total of nine accused (Figure 6). Remarkably, of the accused, 33.89 percent were madrassah teachers; in the preceding report, we stated that the percentage was 37.25 percent. Madrassah teachers make up 40.47 percent of the detained individuals, while college teachers make up 30.95 percent. According to our data, the number of educators arrested during this time period is far higher than that of any other profession: 71.19 percent of accused educators have been detained; for primary school teachers, the figure is 80 percent.

Accused Government Employees

Interestingly, government employees are continuing to being accused. Of the 54 government officials who were accused, fourteen were police officers (Table 5).

Table 5: Workplace of the accused government officials,

Oct 2018 – Sep 2023

Who are the Accusers?

The identities of the accusers in 859 of the 1436 cases in our database have been identified. Of these, 65 cases have been filed by government officials and 189 cases filed by law enforcement agencies. Taking into account that the government has approved each of these, both explicitly and implicitly, 254 cases have the blessing from the authorities. After excluding the five cases filed by NGOs, the number of cases filed by individuals stands at 600. While there are instances of victims of wrongdoing, including sexual harassment, bullying, invasion of privacy, a significant number of complaints have been filed by individuals alleging defamation of other individuals (Table 6). Twenty-two percent of cases are filed by law enforcement agencies; this represents a rise from 22.17 percent of cases reported in January 2023. In total, 29.57 percent of cases filed between October 2018 and September 2023 had the blessing of authorities. Among the cases filed by individuals, 338 cases have been filed by individuals with affiliations with political parties-a staggering 39.35 percent (Figure 7).

Table 6: Identities of accusers, Oct 2018 – Sep 2023

263 of those having political party affiliations, or 77.81 percent, have a direct affiliation with the ruling Bangladesh Awami League (BAL); this percentage is nearly unchanged from January 2023. As such, the ruling party activists have not been dissuaded by public criticisms that have been in the press about this phenomenon.

Table 7: Political Identities of individual accusers, Oct 2018 – Sep 2023

Among the accusers, we have been able to identify 69 individuals who hold elected positions at various national and local levels, which include ten members of the parliament (Table 8).

Table 8: Elected Representatives as accusers, Oct 2018 – Sep 2023

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

There are 22 sections in the Digital Security Act 2018 which deal with offenses and penalties; but the details of the cases show that primarily 16 sections have been used. In some instances, cases have been filed against the same

person under multiple sections (Figure 9).

Figure 9: How many cases under which section, Oct 2018 – Sep 2023

Section 25 has been used in the most instances (269), followed by Section 29 (267). However, more people have been accused under Section 35 (961). As mentioned before, Section 25 deals with publishing, sending of offensive, false or fear inducing data-information, etc. and Section 29 deals with publishing, broadcasting and disseminating defamatory information.

We have explored the professional identities of the accused under these two sections. Of the 888 accused in 267 cases under Section 29, 394 individuals have been identified by their professions. Most of them are journalists – 154; followed by politicians – 137. About Section 25, of the 905 accused in 269 cases, 367 have been identified; most of them are politicians (76), followed by journalists (155). (Figure 10).

As for the accusers under these two sections, we identified the professional identities of 267 and 269, for Section 29 and Section 25, respectively. The accusers are largely politicians in both instances. (See Figure 11)

Allegations of defaming the Prime Minister, Ministers, and Politicians

Since the introduction of the law in October 2018, hundreds of cases have been filed by law enforcement agencies and individuals. There have been instances of being accused, charged and convicted for allegedly defaming Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina under the ICT Act, the precursor of the DSA. For example, in 2013, a lecturer at the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET), Hafizur Rahman Rana, was tried in absentia and sentenced to seven years of imprisonment under the Information and Communication Technology Act (Hindustan Times 2013). In 2021, a cyber-tribunal in Rajshahi sentenced Bangladesh Nationalist Party leader of Natore to seven-years imprisonment on charges of sharing distorted pictures of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and former Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on social media. The case was filed under Section 57 of the ICT Act in 2015. In March 2021, a 17-year-old boy was arrested for making comments in a video posted online against Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Bangladeshi Foreign Minister M A Momen (Sakib 2021). In 2022, a student of Jahangirnagar University, named Shamsul Alam Babu, has been sentenced to seven years imprisonment under Section 57 of the ICT Act for allegedly “defaming Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.” The case was filed in 2015 (Bangla Tribune 2022). These were far from exceptions, instead, similar instances have been reported in the press over the past nine years. Punitive actions have been taken against individuals by their employers, including universities on several occasions.

We examined the allegations filed under the DSA between October 2018 and September 2023. According to our data, 190 cases have been filed during this period alleging that the accused have defamed Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. 159 were filed by individuals, while 31 of these cases were filed by law enforcing agencies. Ninety-two of these individuals belong to the ruling BAL and its affiliates. Among these organizations, the student wing of the party has filed 37 cases, followed by the Youth League with fourteen, the Farmers’ League with two, the Volunteer wing with three, and the Sramik League with one. Our database records that 161 accused were arrested.

According to our data, 80 cases have been filed for allegedly defaming ministers. Eight cases were been filed by Law enforcing agencies, and six were cases filed by the aggrieved minister or his/her family members; the remaining 66 cases were filed by other individuals. Of them, forty of these individuals have direct affiliations with the ruling party and its various wings. The members and leaders of the student wing of the party filed 18 cases. The BAL activists filed eleven cases, while the youth league filed six and the volunteer wing filed five cases. 68 individuals were arrested as a result of these cases.

Currently at least 212 cases have been filed alleging defamation of political leaders, primarily of the ruling

party. In 93 instances, it was the aggrieved parties who went to the police and/or court while seven were filed by law enforcement agencies. His/her supporters filed 112 cases. Supporters of the Bangladesh Awami League (BAL) filed all but five of; three cases were filed by Jatiya Party supporters, one was filed by Islami Andolon Bangladesh (IAB) and one was filed by the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP). Because of these cases, 136 individuals were arrested.