BNP terms Digital Security Act 'blackest law'

Rejecting the just-enacted Digital Security Act-2018, BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir said on Monday they do not accept any law made by 'the illegal government'.

"Even the parliament that passed the act has no legal base," he said while speaking at a view-exchange meeting on the Digital Security Act-2018 that got the President's assent on the day.

Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) arranged the meeting at a city hotel where the party's senior leaders were present.

Terming the government illegal, he said they (BNP) do not accept any law enacted by the government that 'illegally came to power without any elections'.

"The autocratic government is enacting undemocratic laws one after another only to stay in power. We need to get united against the repressive and autocratic government," he said.

He called for putting pressure on the government for unconditional release of the party chairperson Khaleda Zia from jail to protect democracy and the country as a whole.

BNP standing committee member Khandaker Mosharraf Hossain said the Editors Council was assured that their recommendations will be taken into consideration before enacting the law.

"But unfortunately these (recommendations) have not been considered at all. There are many black laws, but this law (Digital Security Act) is the blackest," he said.

Meanwhile, BNP leaders at a press conference in the party's Nayapaltan headquarters feared that the government is hatching conspiracy to destroy the party by misusing the country's judicial system.

As part of the heinous plot, the ruling Awami League is going to deliver a verdict implicating BNP senior vice chairman Tarique Rahman and other leaders in the August 21 grenade attack case, the pro-BNP lawyers apprehended.

BNP standing committee member Barrister Moudud Ahmed said names of Tarique Rahman and other party leaders were not in the first confessional statement made by the Harkat-ul-Jihad al-Islami (Huji) leader Mufti Hannan, who was hanged last year.

Later, the ruling party intentionally changed the investigation team and took the HUJI leader to remand again where he was tortured for another confession only to implicate their names in the case.

"We fear the verdict in the case to be delivered on October 10, 2018 will be another heinous example how the government uses judiciary to destroy the party," he said.

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