Blasphemy law unnecessary

Hefajat-e Islam's demand for a blasphemy law that would impose capital punishment on those convicted of maligning or insulting Islam is a provocative demand, Information Minister Hasanul Huq Inu stated yesterday.
He claimed that this demand was made with a political motive and was unnecessary as no such situation occurred in the country to warrant such a demand.
Inu made the comments as a panel member at the BBC Bangladesh Sanglap held in the capital's Bangladesh Institute of Administration and Management (BIAM) auditorium.
"According to our constitution, a person who attacks religious sentiments can be sentenced to two to ten years in jail. So, a demand to increase the sentence to death is unwarranted and unnecessary," he said.
Inu was supported in this sentiment by two other panellists--BNP leader Lt Gen (retd) Mahbubur Rahman and blogger Irene Sultana.
But the fourth panellist, Maulana Sharif Mohammad, general secretary of the monthly Al Kausar, said such a law was required to restrict unpleasant comments about any religion.
The death sentence is not necessary for every offender but the law would stop people from insulting any religion, be it Islam, Hinduism or Christianity, in the name of free speech, he said.
BNP leader Mahbubur Rahman said though his party expressed solidarity with Hefajat's long march, BNP did not agree with every policy or demand of the radical Islamic group.
"There are other ways of dealing with insulting comments about religion apart from sentencing the accused to death," he said.
Inu said the government was developing a technology to ban offensive comments rather than the entire social networking site or blog.
He hoped to achieve it in a couple of months.
Blogger Irene Sultana said instead of organising a dialogue between bloggers and Hefajat, stricter measures were taken to address the issue of offensive blogposts.