Jagannath University student Khadijatul Kubra was released from Kashimpur jail this morning, over 14 months after being arrested in two separate cases filed under the Digital Security Act.

The Supreme Court had on Thursday upheld a High Court verdict granting permanent bail to Khadijatul.  

Kashimpur Women's Central Jail Warden Rima Akhter said she walked out of the jail around 9:15am, reports our local correspondent.

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'What was Khadija's fault?'

Rima said Khadijatul was scheduled to attend an exam after being released.

Her family yesterday waited the entire day in front of the gate of Kashimpur Women's Central Jail, before returning home empty-handed.

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Khadijatul Kubra not released from jail despite bail order

The HC on February 16 granted permanent bail to Khadija in the cases following her two appeals, but this was stood over for four months by the Supreme Court in July. The Supreme Court upheld a High Court bail order on Thursday.

A student of political science at Jagannath University, Khadija was arrested on August 27 last year after police pressed charges against her in two cases, filed by Kalabagan and New Market police on October 11 and October 19, 2020.

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Khadija’s ordeal and the questions we need to ask

The student was sued at the age of 17 for hosting a Facebook webinar, where a guest speaker, Delwar Hossain, a retired army officer, made contentious remarks.

Delwar, an expatriate, was also accused in these cases.

Although Khadija was sued as a minor, she had to undergo a full adult trial and incarceration.

As someone who has actively campaigned against the many abuses that the Digital Security Act (DSA) has instrumentalised since its introduction, I would have been pleased had the law or at least the most problematic sections been repealed, but we are nowhere close to it. Instead, the DSA is being renamed to Cyber Security Act (CSA) with some cosmetic changes and hefty fines.

Law Minister Anisul Huq's press briefing highlighted that most penal actions or the jail terms are being replaced with fines, and he suggested that the failure of paying the fines could amount to three to six months' imprisonment. Upon a quick review of the draft of the CSA, I found to my dismay that most of the problematic penal actions of the DSA are retained in the CSA.

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A repackaged DSA brings renewed worries

For example, the penalty for Section 21 of DSA, which stipulates a 10-year imprisonment for using "propaganda" against Bangladesh's Liberation War, the first president of the country, the national anthem, and the national flag, will be reduced to seven years. The penalty for Section 25, which stipulates a three-year imprisonment for transmitting "offensive, false or threatening" information, will be reduced to two years.

Reducing jail terms from 10 years to seven years or from three years to two years does not change the nature of the law. The use of criminal punishment in the CSA for what may constitute a legitimate form of expression has the same concerns as the DSA on this day.

In fact, the prison data that I obtained in July 2021 under the Right to Information Act indicates that most prisoners of the DSA (185 to be precise) were targeted under Section 25, followed by Section 31 (data causing "enmity, hatred and hostility"; 163 prisoners), Section 29 ("defamation"; 162 prisoners), Section 28 ("hurting religious sentiment"; 40 prisoners) and Section 21 ("propaganda"; 13 prisoners).

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Column by Mahfuz Anam: DSA was legislated ignoring journalists

This is only so far as the data indicates. What about the human rights violations induced by indefinite pre-trial detention and sessions of hearing? Renowned photographer Shahidul Alam, who was charged under the now non-existent section 57 of the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Act for his criticism of the government in a televised interview in August 2018, still attends court every month. A jail term of 14 years still hangs over his head if convicted in the obsolete law. What's the legitimacy of a trial under a non-existent law?

No one should forget the price writer Mushtaq Ahmed had to pay with his life for sharing his criticism of the government on a Facebook post. He died in custody of the state authorities after being detained for 10 months. His colleague, who was detained on the same charges but released on bail shortly after Mushtaq's death, said that they both were tortured in custody of a state security agency.

Any government that is genuinely concerned by human rights abuses would take lessons from its mistakes and make sure that they do not repeat these. Instead, we see that the government is taking the same route as it did in the past, drafting the Cyber Security Act and attempting to hastily pass it in parliament, just like it did with the Digital Security Act ahead of the 2018 election.

Raising the fine and removing the jail term for defamation is nowhere close to rectification of the DSA. The reason defamation law has been abused is because a third party can file a defamation case under the DSA in the pretext of claiming defamation of another individual. The government should make sure that no one but the affected person can file a defamation suit in a civil litigation on grounds that clearly demonstrate the personal harm.

The High Court on August 8 ordered a stay of proceedings in the DSA case against environmental activist Shahnewaz Chowdhury, who raised his concerns about a coal-fired power plant in his neighbourhood in Banshkhali, Chattogram. Had the government not weaponised the ICT Act and the DSA, Mushtaq would not have had to lose his life for his words, Shahnewaz Chowdhury and Shahidul Alam would not have had to spend time in jail for their words. But the government does not seem to have any remorse.

Except for defamation, the government has retained the penal actions against all the sections of the DSA discussed above. In case of defamation, the government has proposed an increment of the fine from Tk 10 lakh to Tk 25 lakh. At this rate, fines from DSA might become an alternative source of the national revenue.

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Government’s stubborn attitude on DSA sends ominous signal

Raising the fine and removing the jail term for defamation is nowhere close to rectification of the DSA. The reason defamation law has been abused is because a third party can file a defamation case under the DSA in the pretext of claiming defamation of another individual. The government should make sure that no one but the affected person can file a defamation suit in a civil litigation on grounds that clearly demonstrate the personal harm.

A political party mindful of public interest would aim to do away with harmful pieces of legislation and place human rights at the heart of its campaign. In line with those actions, the government would make sure that the next piece of legislation is transparently reviewed by a wide range of stakeholders, including members of the media and civil society. Only after those reviews are publicly discussed and incorporated should a law be sent to parliament for approval.

The government should do away with the criminal punishment for expressions entirely, and make cybersecurity specific to criminal offences such as child pornography, stealing of protected personal data, and financial crimes. We don't want to see more people being jailed for their posts on the internet.

Saad Hammadi is Global Governance Fellow at the Balsillie School of International Affairs, University of Waterloo, and a human rights advocate. He can be followed on X at @saadhammadi

The last time Awami League was not in power, I was still in primary school. I came into adulthood under the current prolonged reign of this party, and for a long time, I held a positive view of it. Given the opportunity to vote, I probably would have supported AL. During my mid- to late-teens, my perception of the BNP was tainted by memories of arson attacks on buses with passengers still aboard. Mostly it was things I had learned of from the media. The load-shedding problem loomed large, and the efficiency of book distribution in schools had room for improvement. The economy at large also wasn't at its best. Jobs were paying less. In particular, government job holders were so underpaid that the ideal way to go was to seek employment in the private sector.

Once the Awami League came to power, our educational curriculum increasingly emphasised lessons, stories, and history related to the Liberation War, with a particular focus on Awami League's contributions and tales about Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. This cultivated a sense of national pride in myself and my peers. We cherished the "free country" we enjoyed, thanks to the sacrifices of the martyrs and all those who had played a role for us in the war. Through all this, we subconsciously inherited the notion of nationalism.

However, as I grew older, the sense of freedom in our country began to wane. I distinctly remember the moment my perspective on the government underwent a drastic transformation – during the quota reform movement. I joined the protests one day upon hearing about their reasonable demands. Though the issue did not directly affect me, I was drawn to the passionate gathering of young people advocating for their rights in a peaceful manner.

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Shonibar Bikel: Yet another captive of the “image” protector

On the day of the sit-ins, I participated eagerly. There were hours of chanting slogans and making demands. However, as the sun set, the police unexpectedly released tear gas on the protesters and charged at us. The once peaceful assembly of demonstrators scattered, and the entire Dhaka University campus area was engulfed in tear gas. It was a chaotic and distressing situation, to say the least. The protest took a violent turn, with students being beaten and many arrested. Our eyes, affected by the gas, didn't stop tearing up until the next day. In the media, the narrative shifted to blame the opposition party for inciting unrest – a narrative we knew to be false. There was no political party involved there. It was the general youth heading the movement.

This was a pivotal moment for me. How could a political party, in the midst of its second consecutive term in power, unleash such brutality on a group of educated youths who were peacefully advocating for their rights? The aftermath further baffled me, as some political leaders blamed the opposition party, and the organisers of the protests were suddenly being accused of having extremist ties. Throughout this ordeal, my friends and I remained perplexed because, to us, the demands appeared logical and justifiable.

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Is the metro rail really opening tomorrow?

That same year, the students' road safety movement unfolded – an inspiring display of the youth's power. Students were conducting the protests with remarkable discipline, stopping vehicles which didn't have the proper documents and allowing emergency vehicles to pass. However, this time, the ruling party's student wing, the Bangladesh Chhatra League, attacked students while the police stood by as mere spectators. The protest was further undermined by the spread of fake news. Once again, ruling party leaders shamelessly urged the public not to believe in what they termed propaganda, even though it was evident that these young students had no connection to the false information. Still, the propaganda did affect us. On the streets and at home, the rumours were painted so violently that the movement's mood turned gloomy and dark.

Once more, we questioned the authorities' actions. How could they resort to violence and aggression against peaceful student protesters? By this point, my dissatisfaction with the government's harsh response to reasonable and justified protests and demands had grown.

It is a well-known fact that politicians seek to retain power once they attain it. However, the government belongs to the people, and regardless of the party in power, those occupying government positions have the most significant influence on the functioning of our lives in the country.

It is a well-known fact that politicians seek to retain power once they attain it. However, the government belongs to the people, and regardless of the party in power, those occupying government positions have the most significant influence on the functioning of our lives in the country. If we, as the general public, feel neglected or even despised by the government, then this is a profound concern. We may not have allegiances to any political parties, but we do have the right to demand changes from our government. After all, the government is entrusted with the welfare of the nation, and the nation is its people.

The quota reform movement concluded on a sombre note. Yet, a few months later, after the protests subsided, the government eventually removed the quota system even though that was not the primary demand of the movement. Still, at the very least, the government acknowledged the existence of a problem and took what it considered were appropriate steps.

A similar pattern emerged in the 2018 road safety movement. The violent attacks on students quelled the protests, forcing protestors off the streets. Subsequently, a new set of regulations was introduced, leading to a noticeable improvement in road safety. The number of individuals driving without proper documentation plummeted, and motorcycle riders without helmets became a rare sight. These were positive changes that the government successfully implemented.

But questions remain: why resort to hostile behaviour toward the general public in the first place? What would the government have lost by implementing these changes while we were still on the streets?

But questions remain: why resort to hostile behaviour toward the general public in the first place? What would the government have lost by implementing these changes while we were still on the streets? Could it be an attempt to convey the message that protests and demands would be met with hostility, even when the government may ultimately support the cause?

In recent years, the prevalence of social media use has enabled dissent to find its place across the globe. But due to the Digital Security Act (now rebranded as the Cyber Security Act), we see the persecution of journalists, writers, teachers, politicians, students, activists and anyone who voices dissatisfaction with any major policy changes or points out the corruption of politicians and government officials. All this sends out one clear message: forget protests, you cannot even discuss within a community any faults you find with political parties, government organisations, or even people of influence who are connected to said state establishments.

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Why is the EU pulling out of observing our election?

A Jagannath University student, Khadijatul Kubra, is still in jail today after being arrested under the DSA for trying to "cloud the existing political situation," "involve the general public in anti-government activities," and "impact the reputation of Bangladesh in the international world." Even though she was granted bail by the high court in February, the chamber judge stayed the order due to a petition by the state. In sum, a regular university student is being persecuted by the state. This made me recall the time when my father, journalist Shafiqul Islam Kajol, was in jail for seven-and-a-half months, after his two-month disappearance. The court dates come and go. Bail petitions are denied. And the suffering never ends.

The command the government exercises over digital and social media has made our generation so afraid that I have seen my peers putting their phones away, switching them off, or not talking about certain topics even in private with the people close to them. The thought of being flagged by the state as being anti-government and being persecuted over months on end has created a practice of self-censorship in Bangladesh's youth. They now choose to not be conscious citizens.

I believe that we, the youth, would feel more appreciated and valued if the government engaged in open dialogues and took positive actions in response to protests. It would demonstrate that we live in a state that is governed with reason and respect towards its citizens.

Monorom Polok is a member of the editorial team of The Daily Star.

Views expressed in this article are the author's own.

Follow The Daily Star Opinion on Facebook for the latest opinions, commentaries and analyses by experts and professionals. To contribute your article or letter to The Daily Star Opinion, see our guidelines for submission.

Law Minister Anisul Huq recently stated that he thinks the misuse of the Digital Security Act, 2018 will stop after the enforcement of the proposed Cyber Security Act. He said the problems (that is, some sections of the DSA) which worried the journalist community would be gone, and so the harassment of journalists would also stop. It is supposedly not an "old wine in a new bottle."

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Cyber Security Act: Only fine, no jail time for defamation

However, just a casual look into the draft CSA will prove to anyone that the optimism expressed by the law minister is entirely unfounded.

One of the most prominent critiques of the current DSA came from the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) in the form of the OHCHR Technical Note to the Government of Bangladesh on review of the Digital Security Act, published last year. In the report, the UN body highlighted three major issues with the DSA. Firstly, the vague and overly broad provisions of the DSA criminalise various legitimate forms of expression with overly harsh sentences. Secondly, the powers granted to the police and the Bangladesh Telecommunications and Regulatory Commission (BTRC) are far too broad. Thirdly, the offences stipulated in the DSA are non-bailable and allow pre-trial detention.

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From DSA to CSA: Key areas of concern stay

Of course, one has to give credit where it is due. Under the drafted CSA, the significant positive changes include making several non-bailable offences bailable and also cancelling provisions for repeat offenders.

However, the key issues arising from vague provisions and the broad powers of police and the DSA enforcing agency remain totally unaddressed. Therefore, the function of the DSA as a tool for suppressing freedom of speech is entirely untouched by reform.

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Cyber Security Act and the fear of history repeating itself

I would like to focus on a particular part of the CSA, which encapsulates the worst aspect of this problem.

When the ICT Act was replaced with the DSA in 2018, the government repealed Section 57 of the ICT Act, but all its provisions were included in four separate sections of the DSA. Namely, Sections 25, 28, 29, and 31. Of all the cases filed under the ICT Act, 65 percent were under Section 57. Since the DSA came into effect, the number of cases filed under the aforementioned four sections have exceeded 1,500, according to data collected by the Centre for Governance Studies. Almost one-third of all cases filed under the DSA are under Sections 25 and 29, mainly for defamation.

The UN human rights office observed that Section 25 – which criminalises "offensive, false or threatening data information" – and Section 29 – which criminalises "defamatory information" – of the DSA relate to acts considered civil liability issues in many other countries. The OHCHR also noted that these sections "do not include defences, such as the defence of truth or a defence for public interest in the subject matter…"

Simply allowing bail does not address the issue of why and how these two sections are being misused. Instead, by keeping the defamation clauses as a criminal offence subject to a fine of Tk 25 lakh, the process of suppression has been streamlined.

— Zillur Rahman

The core problem of these two sections in the DSA is that they are considered "desacato laws," meaning that they are laws which penalise offensive expressions directed at public officials and restrict freedom of expression and the right to information. These two sections are the most misused of the DSA, and are primarily used to target journalists and members of opposition political parties.

In the new CSA, the clauses under Sections 25 and 29 have been untouched. Simply allowing bail does not address the issue of why and how these two sections are being misused. Instead, by keeping the defamation clauses as a criminal offence subject to a fine of Tk 25 lakh, the process of suppression has been streamlined. It has to be understood that Tk 25 lakh is not pocket change for the average Bangladeshi citizen. For many in the middle class, especially those who are young, that amount equals their life savings. By adopting this approach, the police may no longer have to bother tracking down the accused individual, go through the hassle of picking them up and filling out the paperwork. Instead, fines can be easily sent out in mass against a large number of targeted people, who will inevitably fail to pay the exorbitant fine and will later be collected by police whenever it is convenient for the latter.

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Cyber Security Act will not stop criminalising freedom of expression

The OHCHR has repeatedly stated a general view, under international human rights law, that defamation should be decriminalised as it discourages the media from publishing critical information on matters of public interest, thus posing a threat to freedom of expression and access to information of all kinds, and impeding journalists' legitimate work performance. Thus, the OHCHR is concerned that these sections fall short of Article 19(3) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). Bangladesh has been a party to the ICCPR since September 2000.

Similar to the findings of the OHCHR, an analysis by the Sampadak Parishad (Editors' Council) stated that Section 25 of the DSA directly affects all investigative reporting in the media. Such reports are usually about some irregularities performed by institutions and individuals. Corrupt people might use this law to intimidate journalists and media organisations, and try to prevent the publication of such stories on the pretext that the reports have attacked or intimidated them. Regarding Section 29, they restated that a law already exists to deal with defamation, so a separate law for digital media is unnecessary.

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Why Sampadak Parishad opposes the Digital Security Act

The way to stop the CSA from being used against freedom of speech would be to turn the acts under Sections 25 and 29 into civil liability issues instead of criminal ones. For this, three things have to be ensured. Firstly, the criminal defamation laws have to be replaced with civil laws that are more narrowly defined. Secondly, only the party who is the alleged victim of defamation or harm to reputation should be allowed to file a case against the alleged perpetrator. And lastly, the sections must include defences and exemptions in regards to defamation, such as the defence of truth or a defence for public interest in the subject matter of the criticism.

Zillur Rahman is executive director of the Centre for Governance Studies (CGS) and a television talk show host. His X handle is @zillur

There are few things as draining—or as depressing, I imagine—as being the op-ed editor of a newspaper under constant scrutiny of an authoritarian regime.

Not least because I had to rewrite the first sentence three times to make it palatable for print. When you do that often enough—or rather, when self-censorship becomes your default setting—words eventually start to melt and evaporate into each other until they lose meaning altogether. And your life, built around those deleted sentences, becomes a burden from which you desperately want—but know not how—to escape. Every so often, I fool myself into believing that what we say after scraping off all that cannot be said will still serve some purpose, as if people will be moved to revolutionary actions by words that we do not have the courage to say out loud.

Read more

How to make dissenters out of citizens

Whenever I ask someone to write, they tease me: can you publish what I say? I smile sheepishly. They smirk knowingly. Sometimes I retort: will you really say what you want to say, though? In fact, will you say anything at all?

It's incredible how little there is to say about the national election anymore despite the overwhelming urge to say and do something. Let's face it. We all seem to have grudgingly accepted our extended sentence under this regime. Whatever frustration and anger—but also excitement and anticipation—that could be felt in the beginning and middle of 2023 somehow turned into a disquieting resignation at the end of it. Even the ordinary people, whose anger reverberated through the streets earlier in the year, now just want to move on from the tragicomedy the election has been reduced to, and figure out what lies ahead with the inevitability of another term of Sheikh Hasina's government.

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Of the AL, for the AL, and by the AL

There can be little doubt that the space for dissent will shrink even further in the days to come, with the rebranded Digital Security Act (DSA)—now the Cyber Security Act (CSA)—yet to claim its first victim. During its five-year stint, the DSA has been strategically and systematically deployed to criminalise any sort of criticism of the government under vague provisions that can be arbitrarily (mis)used. The DSA's greatest success, if seen from the government's perspective, is not the cases against and subsequent harassment of thousands of dissenters, including 464 politicians and 442 journalists (the biggest victims of the DSA, as per the analysis of The Centre for Governance Studies), but the fear it has been able to generate among the common people about the imaginary lines one may not cross—lines that have been drawn and redrawn many times over the past 15 years of AL rule. We now know that one does not need any merit to persecute and prosecute people under the DSA—the sheer act of suing a person under it, the many irregularities in procedures and the denial of bail for months on end, if not years, are harassment enough for a lifetime. It's no surprise, then, that an overwhelming 72 percent of the youth feel too afraid to speak out and nearly half of those surveyed want to get out of the country the first chance they can get.

While we were all busy with the election preparations, the cabinet approved the draft Data Protection Act (DPA) in principle on November 27, without addressing any of the key concerns raised by various stakeholders since the bill was first introduced in 2022. The DPA will essentially legalise surveillance of the citizens' private data, allowing law enforcement agencies the right to "intercept, record or collect information" of any person on "national security" or "public order" grounds. Without any regulatory oversight over government agencies, we can well imagine how the DPA will be deployed in the days to come to keep track of our online and offline lives, and to "manage" dissent before it takes a dangerous turn.

There appears to be a lull in CSA arrests, likely because the state machinery is now preoccupied with harassing, arresting and sentencing opposition leaders and activists, many on "ghost" or trumped-up charges, since the infamous "khela" of October 28. Many RMG workers and labour leaders, targeted and arrested for their participation in the minimum wage protests, now languish in jail, denied bail for the past month(s). Meanwhile, with the legal harassment and subsequent sentencing of Dr Muhammad Yunus ahead of the election, the government seems to have sent a clear message to those it considers a threat: international condemnation be damned, the AL will do as it pleases.

As the ruling party looks to consolidate power for the fourth consecutive term, the question one would rather not ask is: who's next? Once the political opposition is silenced, the powers that be will likely redirect their attention to gagging free media (or what's left of it) and eventually the populace at large, whose frustrations with the cost-of-living crisis and rampant corruption are unlikely to simply disappear with the staging of the election. Dissent and disappointment in an authoritarian regime must be contained under any cost, and no one knows this better than the ruling party.

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What comes after January 7?

While we were all busy with the election preparations, the cabinet approved the draft Data Protection Act (DPA) in principle on November 27, without addressing any of the key concerns raised by various stakeholders since the bill was first introduced in 2022. The DPA will essentially legalise surveillance of the citizens' private data, allowing law enforcement agencies the right to "intercept, record or collect information" of any person on "national security" or "public order" grounds. Without any regulatory oversight over government agencies, we can well imagine how the DPA will be deployed in the days to come to keep track of our online and offline lives, and to "manage" dissent before it takes a dangerous turn.

The most depressing aspect in all of this is that we, the people, seem to have resigned to our fate. With each new term of the ruling regime, and each new provision or law, we have learnt a bit more of self-censorship; we have learnt to behave ourselves, to not cross the line no matter the temptation—in short, we have learnt to accommodate the powers that be and live by their rules.

But there's a price we pay for such subservience; every time I swallow a thought, delete a word, or tone down someone's anger, I kill a little bit of myself and all that I desire for myself and for the country I love. With every nail in the coffin of democracy, we lose who we were and who we had wanted to be when we fought for freedom in 1971.

Sushmita S Preetha is op-ed editor at The Daily Star.

Follow The Daily Star Opinion on Facebook for the latest opinions, commentaries and analyses by experts and professionals. To contribute your article or letter to The Daily Star Opinion, see our guidelines for submission.