Threat of Legal Action Chills Journalism in Bangladesh

Activists hold placards during a demonstration demanding the repeal of the Digital Security Act, in Dhaka on February 27, 2021

BILAL HUSSAIN

SRINAGAR, INDIA: Bangladesh's Digital Security Act is hastening the country's decline in press freedom, with authorities using the legislation to jail journalists and others who are critical of the government and its response to the coronavirus pandemic, local media and analysts say.

In 2020 alone, the law was used to charge around 900 people, including several journalists, according to Amnesty International. 

Bangladesh's information minister, Hasan Mahmud, has said in interviews that the act is needed to protect people online. But rights groups and local journalist associations say the Digital Security Act and other laws, including the Official Secrets Act that was used to detain an investigative reporter in May, are adding to pressures for journalism.  

Activists shout slogans during a protest against the Digital Security Act (DSA), in Dhaka on March 3, 2021, following the death…

Kamal Ahmed, a Dhaka-based freelance journalist, said that even before the widely criticized law was passed in 2018, the country was on a downhill trajectory.   

The space for critical journalism has been shrinking along with a distrust in the election process, following a 2013 vote boycotted by the opposition, Ahmed said. The government of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has become more authoritarian and intolerant to criticism, which is driving the persecution of the voices of dissent and criticism, he added.  

According to media watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF), Hasina's government has "taken a markedly tough line with media." RSF cited the Digital Security Act and prosecutions related to pandemic coverage when it ranked Bangladesh 152 out of 180, where 1 is freest, on its annual press freedom index. 

The Center for Governance Studies, an independent Bangladeshi research group, says the Digital Security Act has been used most against opposition politicians, followed closely by journalists. 

In an April report, the organization concluded that the law has "disproportionately impacted the journalists" and is an obstacle to press freedom. Its data found "that activists and supporters of the ruling party have been able to create a frightening situation using the law."  

Bangladesh's Sampadak Parishad, or Editors' Council, was one of the groups that opposed the law from the start. "Our fear is now a nightmare-reality for the mass media," the council said after arrests of Ahmed Kabir Kishore, a cartoonist, and Mushtaq Ahmed, a writer, in May 2020. 

Bangladeshi students clash with police during a protest in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Monday, March 1, 2021. About 300 student…

Mushtaq Ahmed was denied bail several times and died in prison on February 25. 

His death and the ramping up of prosecutions is leading to calls for the law to be reformed and press freedom to be better protected.  

During the pandemic, dozens of journalists who covered corruption or reported on cases of food aid being taken from poorer regions, were hit with legal complaints, said Saleem Samad, an award-winning Dhaka-based journalist. "Those who dared critiquing of the pandemic health care management were also prosecuted under repressive [Digital Security Act]," Samad said. 

The act has resulted in widespread self-censorship, especially among the newsroom gatekeepers, Samad said, adding that in-depth stories on corruption and accountability of elected representatives or lawmakers are missing in the media.  

Bangladesh's Ministry of Information and Broadcasting did not respond to VOA's emailed requests for comment.  

Speaking after the death of Mushtaq Ahmed, Information Minister Mahmud said that he and the government are "cautious … that no journalist is victimized by  misuse of the act." Authorities have also said they are reviewing the law to ensure it cannot be abused.  

Legal challenges 

The Digital Security Act is not the only legislation that media and analysts say is being used to target critical reporting. Journalists can also face charges under the sedition law and Official Secrets Act. 

Samad has firsthand experience of this, having being detained for several months on sedition charges while working on a documentary for Britain's Channel 4 Unreported World series in November 2002. The journalist ultimately had to leave the country and said he returned in 2010, only when his case was finally quashed.   

More recently, reporter Rozina Islam of the Prothom Alo newspaper was detained under the 1923 Official Secrets Act, following a complaint lodged by a Health Ministry official.

Bangladeshi journalist Rozina Islam, center, is escorted by police to a court in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Tuesday, May 18, 2021…

Bangladesh Arrests Journalist Known for Unearthing Graft

Islam is known for reporting on corruption involving the Ministry of Health and others

Islam was charged with photographing government papers in violation of the act and penal code. She was detained briefly on May 17 at the Shahbagh police station in Dhaka and could face up to 14 years in prison or even the death penalty if convicted. 

Sajjad Sharif, managing editor of Prothom Alo, told VOA the court has granted his reporter bail.  

"She is right now admitted in the hospital and is undergoing physiological treatment as she was mentally harassed and traumatized as well during her detention," Sharif said. 

Naman Aggarwal, the global digital identity lead and Asia Pacific policy counsel at digital rights organization Access Now, said both the Official Secrets Act and Digital Security Act provide the government with wide powers to contain critical speech under the camouflage of protecting national security or cybersecurity. 

The government is able to take down content it deems "fake, obscene, or defaming" or damaging to the state or religious sentiment, and prosecute people based on ambiguous standards, Aggarwal said.  

A Bangladeshi reporter based in Dhaka, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told VOA that a few years back only a few politicians showed their anger by showing muscle power or via the legal system, but nowadays even high up officials are taking action. "It becomes quite harder to do corruption-related news nowadays," the reporter said.   

Mohammad Tauhidul Islam, a special correspondent for the business desk of Maasranga Television, believes that journalists are becoming more cautious. "The journalists are maintaining an undeclared line not to question government high ups." Islam said, who is of no relation to Prothom Alo reporter Rozina Islam.  

Michael Kugelman, deputy director of the Asia program at the Woodrow Wilson Center, a Washington-based research group, told VOA he believes the pressure on media is driven by Dhaka's desire to control public narratives. Authoritarian moves in recent years include efforts to rein in any form of dissent, including from the political opposition and civil society, he said. 

To its credit, Bangladesh's media corps has responded with loud and frequent condemnations that run the risk of prompting additional government crackdowns, Kugelman said.  

"The media in Bangladesh has not shied away from taking a strong stand on behalf of press freedoms," Kugelman said. "In fact it has been leading from the front in this effort, with press freedom watchdogs abroad adding their support."  

First published in Voice Of America (VOA), 1 June 2021

Cybersecurity law to end harassment?

SALEEM SAMAD

The week-long street protests and pro-government intellectuals, academics, rights activists, and defenders of media rights continued to ventilate their anger over the death of writer Mushtaq Ahmed and simultaneously demands to repeal the controversial Digital Security Act (DSA), the government in damage-control mode has hinted to repair the draconian law.

Law Minister Anisul Huq has said that the government is taking measures so that no one can be arrested or sued under the DSA before the investigation, he told BBC Bangla radio.

The DSA came to the forefront after the death of writer Ahmed, who was detained under the draconian law and died in Kashimpur High-Security Jail in Gazipur last week.

The Minister assured that they trying to reach a conclusion where no one can be arrested before investigation.

Admitting the misuse of law, the minister assured that they [government] are taking measures to bring an end to it.

For the first time in the country, there is a repressive cybersecurity law that only protects the government, politicians, and bureaucrats, but not the citizens.

If the controversial DSA could provide security to the citizens, the government must come forward and state who are those citizens benefitted from the draconian law.

The government cannot deny that the law arbitrarily targets critics, netizens, and journalists.

Not surprised that the law has never slammed charges against ‘waz-mongers (Islamic evangelists)’ and seems to have given immunity under the repressive law.

When the Mullah ‘wazi’ makes hate speech against the Ekushey book fair, Ekushey February, elective democracy, gender quality, Independence Day, liberation war sculptures, liberation war, national anthem, national constitution, national flag, Pahela Baishak, pluralism, school textbooks, secularism, Victory Day, women leadership, women’s empowerment, anger the people who suffered and contributed to the liberation.

They dared to challenge the elected government, demand to garbage the state constitution and instead override with Holy Quran and Sunnah as guiding principle of the nation-state, and to declare the nation an Islamic Republic, which was born from a bloody war on the principles of democracy, secularism and pluralism.

Such hate-speech challenges the sacrifice made by the people of Bangladesh – the three million martyrs, more than 400,000 women victims of rape, and 10 million war refugees.

The district administration nor the local police chief monitor the Waz-Mehfils, which gives them an upper hand to deliver hate-speech among tens and thousands of disciples. The audience enlarges when the sermons are uploaded to Youtube and Facebook, which are owned by infidels.

Despite hate-speech by the Mullahs are widely available on social media, but they are never punished. They are not slammed under cybersecurity laws.

Should the government be afraid of the Mullahs? The wazi’s overtly opposed secularism, pluralism, democracy, and are threats to national unity.

The mango-people understand that like the writer Ahmed, who dared to criticise the government’s pandemic management is a soft target for legal harassment.

More than 2,000 people have been booked under the undemocratic law since 2018, including folk singers, children, doctors, netizens, and not the least but the last are the journalists.

The law gives a wide range of authority to a junior police officer to barge into a newspaper or a media office. They can confiscate digital devices, like computers/laptops, WiFi routers, external hard disks, and mobile phones without any warrant.

The accused persons are blamed for tarnishing the image of the nation or have attempted to ‘destabilise’ the state.

Such lambasting accusations against the critics, writers, netizens, and journalists are sweeping statements. At the end of the day, the police investigators do not have any evidence, nor could they list any eyewitness to the alleged cybercrime.

On the other hand, the cybercrime tribunal is ill-equipped and does not have digital equipment, nor any trained personnel to determine what the accused has committed through social media.

The police investigators also do not have the skill and experience to understand what digital offence has been committed.

As the law allows, the detained accused should be kept in prison until a competent court grants bail, or held in custody to stand trial at the cybercrime tribunal.

Meanwhile, civil society and rights groups have reiterated to scrap the controversial cybersecurity law, which shrinks the space for freedom of expression, free speech, press freedom, and right to critique.

First published in the Dhaka Courier, 5 March 2021

Saleem Samad, is an independent journalist, media rights defender, recipient of Ashoka Fellowship and Hellman-Hammett Award. He could be reached at <saleemsamad@hotmail.com>; Twitter @saleemsamad

For whom the bell tolls

What purpose does the Digital Security Act truly serve?

SALEEM SAMAD

Most loyal citizens should agree with Bangladesh Information Minister Hasan Mahmud that the Digital Security Act (DSA) provides security to the people from digital harassment.

He scoffed off critics that the DSA has been misused. His comments came against the backdrop of nationwide street protests which turned violent, demanding repeal of the repressive DSA.

The protests sparked from the death of a progressive writer Mushtaq Ahmed, who died in prison due to alleged negligence by jail authorities. He was languishing in prison for nine months and denied bail six times.

Hours after the death of the writer Ahmed, who was incarcerated in a case filed under the cybersecurity law, activist Ruhul Amin was sued under the controversial law after his angry statement was posted on Facebook.

“If such writings sent Mushtaq to jail and then to death, depriving him of bail six times, then arrest me too,” read the loud Facebook post.

Plainclothes detectives picked him up from Khulna city. A senior official of the Detective Branch at Khulna Metropolitan Police said Ruhul was sued under the DSA for his threats to “destabilize” the state, creating social unrest, and over other reasons.

An appropriate statement by a responsible police officer, that a youth leader Ruhul has somehow acquired the capacity to “destabilize” the government and country alone or with a handful of youths. 

Sounds like a sequence from a Bollywood movie.

In the first place, the police officer should be reprimanded for undermining the stability of the present government of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. Her state stands on the pillars of democracy, pluralism, and of course, strengthened by a strong political party, the Awami League.

Although the country’s constitution promised to protect freedom of expression and freedom of the press, unfortunately, a repressive cybersecurity law was appended in the parliament as legislation at the end of 2018.

Nearly 2000 cases have been filed under the DSA since its enactment on October 8, 2018, according to data from the Bangladesh government’s Cyber Crime Tribunal.

More than 800 cases were filed in the first nine months of 2020 alone, with many of the country’s most prominent editors and senior journalists being increasingly targeted.

At least 247 journalists have been targeted in 2020 by law enforcement agencies, non-state actors, and of course, individuals acting on behalf of the government.

Last year, during the lockdown, the authorities randomly misused DSA to silence critics, doctors, netizens, and journalists who were critiquing the government’s management of the pandemic.

The use of the DSA has been so outlandish that even folk singers, minors, writers, and cartoonists were not spared from being detained.

Mysteriously, the law has not cast shadows upon Islamist groups -- one of the key groups that have been spreading disinformation on Covid-19 and also spewing hate speech.

The waz-mongers (Islamic evangelists) in waz-mahfils have dared to speak against Ekushey book fair, Ekushey February, elective democracy, gender equality, the Liberation War, the national anthem, national flag, Pahela Baishakh, pluralism, secularism, women leadership, women’s empowerment, and the list goes on and on.

Dr Syeda Aireen Jaman, secretary-general of PEN International Bangladesh said that the law has been discriminately used against critics and journalists, while the mullahs who are a threat to secularism and pluralism are deliberately left out.

Several eminent citizens, intellectuals, and civil society leaders stated that there is no doubt that the anti-democratic DSA has been born outside the elective democracy and politics to inject a “culture of fear” among the citizens.

Dr Mizanur Rahman, of Dhaka University, stated that the responsibility of the death of Ahmed rests upon the state, as he died in judicial custody, pending trial of the DSA.

He also said that the draconian law impedes freedom of expression and encourages self-censorship and contradicts the principles of democracy, pluralism, and press freedom.

First published in the Dhaka Tribune, 2 March 2021

Saleem Samad is an independent journalist, media rights defender, recipient of Ashoka Fellowship and Hellman-Hammett Award. He can be reached at saleemsamad@hotmail.com; Twitter @saleemsamad