The smart young woman on the other side of the peephole called me ‘Shahidul Uncle’. Ours is somewhat of an open house, with my partner Rahnuma’s students, my students, and our activist friends, arriving and leaving at all hours. As burly men rushed in when I opened the door, I realised what was going on. My immediate strategy was to delay my abduction and to raise as much noise as I possibly could. That strategy is probably what saved my life.
I had been whisked away, blindfolded, and handcuffed. Had my family and friends, alerted by my screams, not immediately swung into action, informing local and international media, and setting up a vigil outside the place where I was being tortured, I might well have ended up like the many others who are ‘disappeared’ and ‘crossfired’ in Bangladesh on a regular basis.
Civil society had been campaigning for reforms to the Information and Communication Technology Act, 2006 (ICT Act), under which I had been arrested. But while I was in jail, rather than reforming the ICT Act, they had replaced it with the even more draconian Digital Security Act, 2018 (DSA).
Surprisingly, those implying that the Bangladeshi prime minister is “a woman who, according to the customs and manners of the country, ought not to be compelled to appear in public, or where such person is under the age of 18 years or is an idiot or lunatic, or is from sickness or infirmity” – are mostly ruling party politicians seeking to curry favour with their leader. Section 29 of the DSA, governed by Bangladesh’s Code of Criminal Procedure, says that “no court shall take cognisance of an offence unless the complaint is filed by the defamed person”, except in such cases.
Overzealous party faithful have filed numerous defamation cases on behalf of the prime minister and benefitted from such acts of fealty. The courts have played ball, and the accused have been promptly jailed, sometimes tortured. Many have spent months in jail, without charges ever having been framed. Some have lost their lives.
The party faithful have also been quick to file defamation cases for each other, with the DSA as the weapon of choice. Those arrested include Mohammad Emon, a 14-year-old high school student, accused of having shared a Facebook post; Abu Zaman, a farmer who can neither read nor write, let alone use the Internet, accused of having defamed on Facebook; and writer Mushtaq Ahmed, who died in prison after being held for more than 10 months without trial. Cartoonist Kabir Kishore Ahmed, who like Mushtaq had been denied bail six times, was released on bail a week after Mushtaq died. He is currently being treated for what he says are torture-related injuries. Kishore maintains Mushtaq had electric shocks applied to his genitals. Mushtaq’s father passed away months after burying his son.
Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. Photo: Reuters/Eduardo Munoz
Denial is the government’s default response. Then comes a series of unrelated new cases that keeps the accused and its defence team busy, while the government comes up with other diversionary tactics. Photojournalist Shafiqul Islam Kajol reportedly had knowledge of a sex scandal where ruling party members were implicated. He ‘disappeared’. The government publicly denied all knowledge of his whereabouts. He was ‘discovered’ 53 days later, 100 yards from the Indian border, where many disappeared people regularly ‘reappear’. He was held in pre-trial detention for seven months. His bail was denied at least 13 times before being granted.
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It was touted as a law enacted to protect the people. But rather than protecting people in imminent danger with the arrest resulting in the population being protected, almost all the cases were about protecting ruling party politicians or people close to them. Journalists were arrested for having reported on government corruption. Cartoonists arrested for pointing out the nexus between corrupt businesspeople and lawmakers. Businesspeople arrested for commenting on unpopular visiting state guests. A student arrested for sharing a popular post, which questioned the prime minister’s motives. A Sufi singer arrested for veering from religious dogma. A labour leader arrested for campaigning for workers’ rights.
Laws need to be precise and specific. The DSA is quite the opposite. A vague rambling catch-all law, open to all sorts of interpretation, gives the police virtually unlimited powers to arrest people without a warrant on suspicion they might be intending to commit a crime. No evidence needed.
There is a motive behind assuming police have telepathic powers. A person can be put away in prison on a completely baseless case. The accused will be jailed for several months, taking them out of circulation. This is the perfect strategy prior to an election, or a business contract being signed, or some crucial deal being made. This is how the DSA has been weaponised.
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The criminalisation of what would normally be a civil offence allows the law to be used to entrap people into accepting an offer ‘they cannot refuse’. The criminalisation of legitimate forms of expression goes against the core principles of the constitution of Bangladesh and the recommendations of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Bangladesh is a party. It goes against the core aspirations of the war of liberation and the directives of the father of the nation that the DSA purports to protect.
Freedom is the oxygen that democracy breathes. A police force turned into a private army, a rubber-stamp judiciary, a rent-seeking bureaucracy and a pet election commission foretell a death by strangulation. A blatantly rigged election is the final nail in the coffin. A nation born out of genocide and rape camps, of poets and thinkers and farmers turned freedom fighters. Of brave women and men who fought and died for the love of a free nation, surely deserve better.
I hope the DSA is not applied to the party members for their aspersions on the prime minister.
Shahidul Alam is a Bangladeshi photojournalist, teacher and social activist.