To us it appears a fashion to blame the Digital Security Act for obstructing press freedom. The history of journalism in Bangladesh is very shameful. With a few brave exceptions, the journalist community as a whole supported the government ownership of the press when in 1975 one party government denied all rights to the people. Since the creation of Bangladesh hypocrisy of sections of our educated people made it exceptionally easy to pave the way for killing democracy and free press.
The question is not so much about press freedom, the more relevant question is the very survival of the free press. The free press is dying and the journalists who are not with the government party are the worst economic sufferers. Most of them if not all, are not getting subsistence salaries because critical journalism has a fearful existence. No law is necessary to beat the journalists or keep them confined or even cause their death.
As the press cannot write freely for the people the readership of all the papers has declined beyond comprehension. The free press is having natural death from economic starvation .A section of journalists is too happy and too well off being with the government. They are not for press freedom. Thus the journalists are disunited for the cause of press freedom or any freedom.
Digital Security Act is being made a scapegoat. This government does not need law. Fear of police power is all that it needs.
According to a news report published in a national daily on Tuesday, the US-based Illinois State University Professor Ali Riaz presented a study report titled ‘Digital Security Act 2018’ at discussion. In the report, he analysed some cases lodged under the DSA between January 2020 and March 25, 2021. The report pointed out that 104 out of 913 accused persons under the act were politicians and 97 journalists. Most of the plaintiffs were activists of the ruling Awami League and its associate bodies. Among the law enforcement agencies, police filled the highest amount of complaints under the DSA.
It was observed that the DSA was used to keep detainees languishing in jails as many persons accused in such cases did not get bail.
The truth is torture and death are not being caused under the Digital Act. This is a hypocrisy for not facing the true reality. For arrest and torture this government does not need law. Any name of law will do. When an unelected government can be accepted as an elected government, character and intellectual dishonesty is well exposed.
