Off with their heads

UNDER the Lèse-majesté laws, any form of derogatory comment or libel against monarchs or states was considered treason. As absolute monarchies gave way to modern states, this came to be gradually considered as less of a crime. Though certain forms of Lèse-majesté exist now in some countries, it is applied only in serious libel cases. It is inconceivable to imagine the US judiciary system prosecuting viral YouTube channels for making fun of President Obama before elections. The internet swarms with parodies, satires, creative criticism in the form of memes about heads of states from Putin to Obama.

Not so in Bangladesh though. Last Wednesday, a youth from Khulna was awarded a 7 year jail sentence for writing a satirical song on Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. With no Lèse-majesté law available in Bangladesh, the authorities nailed him with the new ICT law. With all the talk of freedom of speech and democracy while at the same time cracking down on something as trivial as this, one wonders what comes next. Are newspapers going to be clamped down because they publish cartoons satirising political situations?

The ICT Amendment Law was passed in 2013, a law which allows the police to arrest without a warrant anyone who violates the law. These include defamation and posting and sharing of vulgar data, according to Article 57 (1), both of which are very broad, ambiguous terms.  Was there something vulgar about the satirised song? And if there was, is that reason enough to hand out a 7 year jail penalty?

In comparison, we can take a look at the countries were Lèse-majesté laws still exists. In 2007, a 47 year old man was given a 1 week imprisonment for making sexually derogatory comments on Queen Beatrix of Netherlands.

But the bigger question is about the scope of the law. With nothing to pinpoint what the terms vulgar or defamation mean, we might as well be living in a state with no freedom of speech. If I write a book criticising political figures and post it on the internet, I can be prosecuted under the ICT amendment.

Jyotirmoy Barua, an advocate of the Supreme Court, has been critical of the law since it was passed. His concerns include the ambiguous nature of the law, the unaccountability and scope for abuse, the conflicts the law has with other laws and, of course, the possibility of cyber crimes increasing in the digital world as it is easy to pose as someone else if you want to harm them. He rightly termed the law as subversive to open thought.

Laws such as the ICT Amendment are traps ready to clamp down upon any form of free thought. The youth in question is just one example -- a government which cannot bear criticism and clamps down on satires and parodies cannot in any way call itself democratic and open to free speech. The dangers of free speech will always be there, and the laws need to be able to address what is libel and what constitutes freedom of thought. But at its current form, the ICT Amendment is no more than a device for the government to subvert and control information. Freedom of speech can rest in peace as our leaders attempt to choke criticism and maintain a pure, regal persona.

The writer is an online-journalist of the The Daily Star.