Rights watchdogs deplore conviction

The December 2 conviction of journalist David Bergman on contempt charges by the International Crimes Tribunal further shrinks the narrowing space for observers to comment on the war crimes proceedings, said Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the International Commission of Jurists yesterday.

Bergman was sentenced to a symbolic “imprisonment till the rising of the court” and fined Tk 5,000 (about US$56) for comments he made in three blog posts regarding legal proceedings of ICT.

One article is over the indictment order in the case against Jamaat-e-Islami leader Delawar Hossain Sayedee while two others on the absentia trial of expelled Jamaat member Abdul Kalam Azad.

The tribunal is a specially constituted court set up to bring to account those responsible for grave violations of international law during the country's Liberation War in 1971.

Concerns over its statute, rules of procedure, and practices have been raised since its inception, even by international monitors and legal experts, said the rights bodies in a joint statement published on HRW website yesterday.

“Rather than respecting the right to freedom of expression, the ICT has used contempt of court proceedings against some of its critics, and those who are convicted have no right of appeal,” said Richard Bennett, Asia-Pacific director at Amnesty International.

“The conviction of Bergman sends a chilling message to journalists and human rights defenders that the ICT will not tolerate fair criticism,” he added.

In an apparent attempt to silence criticism, Human Rights Watch, journalists from The Economist and local journalists have been tried for contempt for publishing material critical of some aspects or issues relating to ICT, the statement says.

In its verdict on Bergman, ICT particularly cited the blog post, in which he questioned the number of the dead in the 1971 war. The Bangladeshi government has regularly stated that three million were killed during the war and ICT has declared the figure as a proven fact. “Some observers have estimated that the number could be closer to 300,000, while still others suggest a range between 300,000 and 3 million,” the statement says.

However, the court said the criticism made on the issue of death figure in 1971 in his post on Sayedee's indictment did not constitute any contempt as it did not affect the merit of any of the pending cases before the war crimes tribunals.

It said it had found him guilty of contempt for making offending scandalous comments using derogatory and unfair “words” and “phrases,” in the two other articles.

“The issues Bergman raised were all well within the purview of legitimate commentary,” said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch.

The rights groups pointed out that there was language in the judgment, which was disturbingly vague and allowed ICT broad scope to continue going after its critics. The judgment also contains poorly defined interpretations of what constitutes a legitimate subject for critical reportage on its proceedings, they said.

As a state party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), all of Bangladesh's branches of government authority, including the judiciary, must respect and protect freedom of expression.