HRW says new law to silence critics

NEW YORK: The Digital Security Act passed by the Bangladeshi parliament last week, despite vehement opposition from the country's journalists, strikes a blow to freedom of speech in the country, the Human Rights Watch said on Tuesday on its website.
The law, which replaces the much-criticised Information and Communication Technology Act (ICT), retains the most problematic provisions of that law and adds more provisions criminalising peaceful speech.
"The new Digital Security Act is a tool ripe for abuse and a clear violation of the country's obligations under international law to protect free speech," said Brad Adams, Asia director. "With at least five provisions criminalising vaguely defined types of speech, the law is a licence for wide-ranging suppression of critical voices."
The new Digital Security Act is a tool ripe for abuse and a clear violation of the country's obligations under international law to protect free speech.
The new law grants law enforcement authorities wide-ranging powers to remove or block online information that "harms the unity of the country or any part of it, economic activities, security, defense, religious value or public order or spreads communal hostility and hatred," and to conduct warrantless searches and seizures if a police officer has reason to believe it is possible that "any offense under the Act" has been or is being committed.
Journalists in Bangladesh also opposed section 32 of the law, which authorises up to 14 years for gathering, sending, or preserving classified information of any government using a computer or other digital device, noting that doing so is a means to expose wrongful actions by officials. The UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression has stressed the need to protect, not prosecute, those who disclose information in the public interest, and the Global Principles on National Security and the Right to Information make clear that journalists should not be prosecuted for receiving, possessing or disclosing even classified information to the public.
"I don't know why our journalists are becoming so sensitive," Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said, asserting that the law was for the national good. "Journalism is surely not for increasing conflict, or for tarnishing the image of the country."
The Bangladesh Editors' Council has said it will protest the passage of the Act as "against the freedom guaranteed by the constitution, media freedom and freedom of speech."
"The passage of this law utterly undermines any claim that the government of Bangladesh respects freedom of speech," Adams said. "Unless parliament moves swiftly to repeal the law it just passed, the rights of the country's citizens to speak freely will remain under serious threat."