Conclusion

In August 2022, then United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, during her trip to Dhaka, expressed concerns about the use of the Digital Security Act 2018, along with other human rights abuses. She was neither the first person nor the last to express worries about the law being used improperly; in fact, human rights groups have described the law as ‘draconian’ and asked the Bangladesh government to repeal it. But all these have fallen on deaf ears. The law, in the past four years, has been used wantonly subjecting many innocent people to suffering. It is not only that cases have been filed and caused anguish to people, but many people have also been subjected to the threat of using the law against them by police, and individuals. In many instances, individuals threaten to use the law to settle personal scores; local ruling party activists use the law to create fear among opponents. It is also alleged that local police have used the threat of filing cases against individuals to extort money. These instances are seldom reported in the media due to the lack of evidence on the one hand and fear on the other.

Although, since late 2021, there have been some explicit and implicit acknowledgements by the ministers that the law has been abused. But they tend to diminish the scope of abuse by saying that these instances are small (Prothom Alo 2022; The Daily Observer 2022; Business Insider 2022). On the other hand, the government since December 2021 claimed that it has taken two steps to address the situation. The Law Minister said that Bangladesh has initiated a dialogue with the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights regarding ‘best practices’ and the second step is appointment of a monitoring cell within the Law Ministry. According to government sources, the monitoring cell will vet all cases before an arrest is made. Interestingly, neither civil society members nor journalists have been involved in these measures. But most importantly, there has not been any update about these steps while the number of cases has continued to increase. It appears to be window dressing measures, at its best. With the continuing onslaught of the DSA on citizens, particularly on those who dissent from the government and the ruling party, the future is unlikely to be different than the past.