Editors' Council condemns arrests under Digital Security Act
The Editors' Council has condemned the recent spate of cases and arrest of journalists, writers and academics beneath the Digital Reliability Act (DSA) for expressing critical views about mismanagement in working with Covid-19.
In a statement on Tuesday, the Editor's Council expressed grave concern over the deteriorating environment for free and independent journalism and increasing cases of police action against press professionals.
In the last couple of months, nearly 40 journalists have already been charged under the 'controversial laws' and 37 of these have been arrested.
These arrests possess created an atmosphere of fear and intimidation building regular journalistic work 'extremely risky'.
This attack on journalists and the media is happening when Bangladesh, that's fighting the Covid-19 pandemic, needs reliable and independent media the most to protect itself from fake news and panic produced by misinformation.
Bangladeshi media is using a vital role in keeping the persons informed, publishing information of successes and anticipation, pointing out inadequacies of our pandemic response, and facilitating people dialogue to map out our study course for rebuilding. An attack on the mass media at this time is usually to endanger our opportunity of stable recovery.
"We also notice with deep concern that the DSA has turned into a most frequently used law when additional time tested laws to dispense justice exist in our statutes.
"This is because beneath the DSA police may arrest without warrant and almost all of the provisions (14, away of 20) happen to be non-bailable which ensures the person arrested remains found in jail," the assertion reads.
A number of the frequently cited known reasons for arrests under the DSA are criticising native administration, spreading rumours, covering protests, building defamatory remarks, harming religious harmony, writing false information, etc.
These known reasons for arrest are by definition vague and subject to huge and arbitrary interpretation.
The DSA empowers the authorities to arrest on suspicion and without warrant. Out of its 20 provisions of punishment 14 happen to be non-bailable and therefore whenever a circumstance is lodged law enforcement promptly arrests and when an accused can be brought before a magistrate they're almost automatically delivered to jail.
Editors feel that the DSA has become a plaything found in the hands of a good vested quarter who utilize this anti-press and anti-liberty of expression legislation whimsically and at will to harass and intimidate journalists and prevent them from exposing corruption and misuse of cash that the government is presently allocating for the persons, especially the poor.
From the outset, Editors' Council opposed this rules as we knew of its evil consequences on free mass media and freedom of speech.
At that time regulations minister assured the media that the DSA was enacted and then prevent cyber-crime and can never be utilized to curtain freedom of the press.
Statistics show that even more journalists, teachers, and intellectuals have already been arrested under DSA than cyber criminals, especially within the last six months.
Granted our original objection and the experience of the last two and half years we are extra convinced than ever that the DSA should be scrapped if freedom of speech and freedom of the press is usually to have any sort of meaning.
"We also demand the immediate let go of most journalists arrested under the DSA and withdrawal of cases against them and actions be studied against them who've blatantly misused this laws for vengeance and personal benefits," the statement said.
Editors also demanded that make use of the dreaded DSA against the media and journalists must be stopped immediately, and in addition urged the parliament to take expeditious steps to eliminate this anti-freedom laws from our statutes.
