Lots of scope for its abuse
Forty teachers of journalism and media studies of different universities have called on the government to reconsider the Digital Security Bill, arguing that it will close the path of independent journalism and open up avenues to massively harass people.
“We think this law will violate people's constitutional right to opinion… it will increase self-censorship in all types of media,” said a statement issued yesterday.
The teachers said the government took steps to formulate the Digital Security Act after people had raised severe objections against the Section 57 of the Information and Communication Technology Act.
“For such steps, we had thought that the government would understand the people's opinion and stop walking the wrong path. We have been proved wrong,” said the statement.
Many issues in the law are not clearly defined, and therefore there is a lot of scope for its abuse, like the section 57 of the ICT act. Journalists and researchers will face the highest level of threats because of such ambiguity, the statement said.
For example, they said, section 32 of the law says anyone who illegally enters public, semi-public or autonomous institutions and records secret information in digital or electronic formats, dispatches, preserves or helps in that process, will face highest 14 years of imprisonment and be fined Tk 25 lakh.
Journalists have to collect documents for investigative journalism, and for that they need to go to the offices -- public or private -- and take photos or record information by mobile phone or cameras. It is their professional responsibility, which can never be illegal.
“Investigative journalism will thus be gagged. It will also hamper the scope of research of various levels, including that of universities,” said the statement.
The teachers also raised serious objections against six specific sections of the law -- 21, 25, 28, 31, 32 and 43 -- saying these are dangerous provisions for journalists or users of social media. Under section 43, police have been empowered to arrest without warrant, seize and search anyone.
The police in the country are already accused of harassing people, forced disappearances and abduction, they said.
“So, we apprehend that empowering police under section 43 will lead to abuse of power, and police harassment will go up from serious to very serious,” the teachers said in the statement.
The teachers demanded dropping of the sections 21, 25, 28, 31, 32 and 43 of the law before the president signs it. All other offenses under the sections of the law should be bailable, and the level of punishment be lowered, and the provisions that empower police to arrest, seize and search people without warrant should be dropped too, they said.
Signatories of the statement include Dr Gitiara Nasreen, Kaberi Gayen, Fahmidul Haq, Robaet Ferdous of Dhaka University; Ali R Razi and Subarna Majumder of Chittagong University and Tania Sultana of Stamford University Bangladesh.
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