HC stays cases against 4 bloggers

The High Court yesterday stayed for three months proceedings of two cases accusing four bloggers of making “derogatory comments about Islam” on social media and issued four separate rules upon the government to explain in four weeks why the cases should not be closed.
The HC bench came up with the orders and rules after hearing four separate petitions filed with it by the accused, now on bail, on October 9, 2013 for quashing the cases' proceedings.
The four are Subrata Adhikari Shuvo, a master's student at Dhaka University; Russel Parvez, a teacher at an English medium school; Mashiur Rahman Biplob, a resident of the capital's Pallabi area, and Asif Mohiuddin, an ex-student of a private university.
Shuvo, Parvez and Biplob were arrested on April 2, 2013 under Section 54 of the Code of Criminal Procedure in different areas in the capital on suspicion of making the comments.
Asif was arrested the next day at an Uttara hospital where he was undergoing treatment for stab injuries he sustained in an attack on January 14, 2013.
The arrests coincided with a countrywide hate campaign by Islamist groups who alleged that “atheist bloggers” were behind the Shahbagh movement that demanded death penalty for war criminals.
There was fierce criticism on social networking sites, with many users observing that the government had made the arrests in fear of violent reactions from the Islamist groups.
Police initially filed two separate general diaries with Sher-e-Bangla Nagar Police Station against them for uploading “contents insulting to Islam” on social media platforms, their lawyer Barrister Jyotirmoy Barua told The Daily Star.
He said the general diaries turned into the two cases under the Information and Communications Technology Act, 2006. A Dhaka court framed the charges on September 8.